ISTANBUL
The European Commission president on Monday announced a package of €500 million ($567 million) for 2025-2027 to attract foreign researchers.
“I can announce that we will put forward a new 500-million-euro package for 2025 to 2027 to make Europe a magnet for researchers. This will help support the best and the brightest researchers and scientists from Europe and around the world,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at a conference held in Paris to launch “Choose Europe for Science” initiative.
She also expressed the bloc’s will to reach 3% of GDP target for research and development investment by 2030, adding that they would also create a new seven-year “super-grant” under the European Research Council “to help offer a long-term perspective” to the leading scientists.
This came at a time when tensions between the incumbent US administration and elite universities escalated over issues including admissions, hiring practices, and curriculum oversight.
“We see today that the role of science in today’s world is questioned. The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation,” von der Leyen said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also deemed these policies a “mistake.”
“No one could have imagined a few years ago that one of the greatest democracies in the world would eliminate research programs under the pretext that the word ‘diversity’ appeared in them. No one could have thought that one of the greatest democracies in the world would strike out the ability to grant visas to this or that researcher — sometimes to those who had contributed to its own digital security,” Macron said, in a thinly veiled reference to the current US administration.
He further urged the audience to “cherish free science” and reject any “diktat” that would forbid conducting research in specific fields.
“There is no independence for our Europe, no strategic autonomy, without free and strong science in Europe. We have sometimes failed because it was so comfortable to be hand in hand with the Americans,” Macron added.
He stressed that many Europeans “strongly” believed that they would never be left behind.
“For my part, I want a Europe where the ability to research, to understand, to teach, to innovate depends neither on China nor on the United States of America,” Macron further said.
He further announced that the state would release an additional €100 million to attract foreign researchers to France.