While the Trump administration reduces funding, researchers turn to European universities

A few hours after opening his new program for American researchers called Safe place for science In reaction to Trump’s administrative policies, the Aix Marseille University received its first question.

Since then, the university in the south of France known for its scientific programs has received about a dozen questions a day from what the school considers the seekers of “scientific asylum”.

Other universities in France and elsewhere in Europe have also hurried to save American researchers fleeing drastic cuts to jobs and programs by the Trump administration, as well as attacks perceived in whole research fields.

At stake they are not only individual works, but the concept of a free scientific investigation, say university presidents. They are also hurrying to fill huge holes in collective research caused by cuts, in particular in the areas targeted by the Trump administration, including studies on climate change, public health, environmental sciences, genre and diversity.

If the movement becomes a trend, it could mean the reversal of long -term brain escape that has seen generations of scientists moved to the United States. And while at least some Europeans have noticed that changes in the United States offer a unique opportunity to build stronger European research centers, most academics say that competition is not short -term motivation.

“This program is ultimately linked to indignation, to declare what is happening in the United States is not normal,” said Éric Berton, president of Aix Marseille University, who has allocated 15 million euros (almost $ 16,300,000) for 15 three -year positions.

He said that the number of openings “wasn’t much”, but the goal was “to give them some hope”.

In France, the University of Aix Marseille is considered a leader in the push to bring American researchers.

Since the beginning of that program, a Foundation for Cancer Research in Paris announced He was immediately putting 3.5 million euros to accommodate American cancer researchers. And last week, two universities in Paris announced that they were offering positions to American scientists whose work was reduced or interrupted by the Trump Administration.

“We are researchers. We want to continue working at the highest levels in these fields that are attached to the United States,” explained El Mouhoub Mouhoud, president of University Paris Sciences et Letes.

The University provides to welcome 15 researchers who are already working on shared projects in targeted areas including climate science, health, humanities and gender studies, said Mouhoud. As a result, the projects would continue without limits and American researchers could enjoy “academic freedom to do their research,” he said.

“Okay for everyone,” Mouhoud said.

The alarms at the European scientific institutions began to play when the Trump administration began cutting the work and freezing scientific grants as part of its large cost reduction measures.

Fires in the US centers considered that the peak of science was announced week after week, including the Ocean and atmospheric national administrationTHE National Science FoundationTHE Geological survey of the United States and the Centers for the control and prevention of diseases.

The National Institutes of Health, the largest financing in the biomedical research world, has fired 1,200 employees e Put the revisions of the subsidiesEssentially deactivating the touch of government funding for research projects in laboratories across the country.

The cuts come when some federal agencies have removed Terms from websites and subsidy applications deemed unacceptable for the Trump administrationwho is trying to eliminate the federal government of “awakened” initiatives. Among the terms considered taboo: “climate science”, “diversity” and “genre”.

As a whole, the actions have he sent a cold through the academic world and research institutesWith scientists worried not only about their work but for the long -term feasibility of their research.

“What we see today is actually censorship, the censorship of fundamental values ​​”, said Yasmine Belkaid, president of the Pasteur Institute of Paris, who moved to France last year after 30 years in the United States, where he had led the National Center for Human Immunology.

“We could lose a generation of science, a generation of scientists, something from which we cannot recover,” he added. “It is our duty collectively to make sure that science overall is protected.”

Philippe Baptiste, French minister for higher education and research, was among the most explicit and active European leaders on the matter. Mr. Baptiste, who led the French national center of space studies before joining the government, described the decisions of the Trump administration as a “collective madness” which requested a rapid and solid response from all over the world.

“They are making decisions,” he said, “who question whole research beams not only in the United States, but in the world because there are a huge number of programs that we jointly make with the United States – on the observation of the earth, on the climate, on ecology, on the environment, on health data, on the exploration of space. It is incallated.”

Speaking of scientists with the Oceanic and atmospheric national administration with which he worked closely in his past work, Baptiste said: “These people are of exceptional scientific quality, facing meteorologists, climate and observation of the earth. And what is the idea? To say that we can no longer work on these problems?”

Baptiste worked with the presidents of the French universities to develop a government program. He also pushed for a response throughout Europe, including the drafting of a letter, also signed by government ministers in 11 other European countries, which requires coordinated effort and funding dedicated by the European Commission for Startups, research and innovation.

More than 350 scientists have signed a Petition published This week in the French newspaper Le Monde, similarly to ask the European Commission to establish an emergency fund of 750 million euros to host thousands of researchers who work in the United States.

A spokesman for the European Commission said that a meeting was planned to coordinate the most effective response to Trump’s administrative cuts to scientific research.

In Brussels, two twin universities – Vrije University Brussels and Université Libre de Brussels – said they had planned to market American students a program that offers 36 post -teaching positions open to international researchers from all over the world.

The positions, largely financed by the money of the European Union, will focus on climate research, on artificial intelligence and in other areas that schools consider socially important.

In the Netherlands, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Eppo Bruins, announced that he wanted to create a “short -term” fund to attract leading scientists in a variety of fields. Although he did not mention Mr. Trump directly, he mentioned in a letter to the Chamber of Dutch representatives. “The geopolitical climate is changing, which is currently increasing the international mobility of scientists,” he wrote. “Different European countries are responding to this and will attract international scientific talents. I want the Netherlands to continue to be on the front line.”

Ulrike Malmendier, a German economist who is a member of the main German economic council, urged European governments to increase investments in science to attract researchers out of work from the United States. “Development in the United States is a huge opportunity for Germany and Europe,” said Mrs. Malmendier, professor at the University of California, Berkeley Funke Media Group. “I know many people are thinking of leaving”,

The report was contributed by Jeanna Sperslek from Brussels, Claire Moses from London, e Christopher F. Schuetze AND Melissa Eddy from Berlin.