lBelgium-based Jobs Advert, which has been aceed with terms such as “censorship” and “political intervention,” was far from typical. But the promise of academic freedom suggested who it was directed: American researchers are trying to escape the imposition of funding, cuts and ideology led by the Donald Trump administration.
“We believe we have an obligation to assist our American colleagues,” explains why his university, founded in 1834 to protect academic studies from church or state interference, decided to open 12 post-detentions with international concentrations of international researchers.
“American universities and their researchers are the biggest victims of this political and ideological interference,” Dunkart said in a statement. “They are seeing millions of research funds disappear for ideological reasons.”
The university is one of a handful of institutions across Europe that have begun actively recruiting American researchers, dedicated its status as a heaven for those keen to escape the Trump administration’s crackdown on research and academia.
Since Trump came to power in late January, US researchers have faced multifaceted attacks. Efforts to reduce government spending have thousands of employees prepared for layoffs, including agencies such as NASA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the US’s outstanding climate research agency. Meanwhile, the government’s targeting of “wake” is trying to eradicate funding for research that is deemed to include diversity, certain types of vaccines, and references to the climate crisis.
In France, Yasmin Belkaide, director of the prestigious Pasteur Institute in Paris, said he is already working to recruit people from across the Atlantic for work in areas such as infectious diseases and the origins of diseases.
“I get daily requests from people who want to go back. I’m French, European, and even Americans who can’t do research or are afraid to do it freely,” Belcade told the French newspaper La Tribune. “You might call it a sad opportunity, but it’s all the same opportunity.”
This sentiment was echoed by Philip Baptist, French Minister of Higher Education and Research. “Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” he said. “Of course, we would like to welcome certain numbers.”
On Thursday, the Netherlands said it aims to quickly launch funds to attract researchers to the country.
The fund is open to people of all nationalities, but the country’s education minister, Eppo Bruins, hinted at tensions that captured the US academia when announcing the plans.
“There is currently a great global demand for top international scientific talent. At the same time, the geopolitical environment is changing and the international mobility of scientists is increasing,” the Bruins said in a letter to Congress.
“Some European countries respond to this with efforts to attract international talent,” he added. “I hope that the Netherlands will remain a pioneer in these efforts.”
The Dutch effort comes after France’s University of AIX-Marseille has said it has set up a programme titled Safe Place for Science.
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“I hope there’s no need to do this,” said Eric Burton, the university’s president. “We’re not trying to attract researchers, but we’re very much on what’s going on and we felt our US colleagues were going through a catastrophe. We wanted to provide some kind of scientific asylum to those whose research is being hampered.”
Two weeks after the program was launched, there were about 100 applications, and researchers from Yale, NASA and Stanford among those who have expressed interest. The university continues to receive 10 applications per day, Burton said many researchers involved in climate, health or social science research.
Burton said he hopes that European universities will join him in providing a safe space for researchers. “I think we need to achieve the historical moments we’ve been living and the serious, long-term consequences that this brings,” he said. “Europe must stand up on that opportunity.”
VUB also opened 12 post-doctor positions to acknowledge the global impact of Trump’s crackdown. Two research projects involving the university – one delving into young people and disinformation, and the other exploring the transatlantic dialogue between the US and Europe, which had been cancelled due to a “change in policy priorities.”
For the university in Brussels, the opening was also a kind of proof. In an interview with Fox News in 2016, Trump tried to characterize life in Brussels as akin to “living in hell,” and mistakenly accused immigrants of not assimilating.
“The statement elicited a lot of emotional responses in Europe at the time,” the university said. “This gives the VUB initiative additional symbolic meaning.”
