"John von Neumann and Albert Einstein were part of a wave of great scientists who fled Nazi Germany, went to America and created new fields of research. The effect on innovation by American scientists was vast. Patenting in chemistry increased by 71%, according to research by Fabian Waldinger, then of Warwick University, and co-authors.
America later built on its huge wartime scientific boom to win technological races against its new communist rivals. For decades, America’s immense investment in research lured Europe’s best scientific talent across the Atlantic.
European policymakers now see an opportunity to reverse the flow. The Trump administration is cutting funding and targeting researchers such as climate scientists for political reasons. Columbia University recently agreed to change disciplinary policies and the political orientation of teaching in some departments after the government threatened to cut $400m in federal grants. In a letter to the European Commission on March 20th, 13 science ministers of European Union countries called for “immediate action” to make Europe more attractive to “brilliant talents from abroad who might suffer from research interference and ill-motivated and brutal funding cuts”.
Universities and research funders are also looking into short-term opportunities. The European Research Grant (ERC), an EU fund for senior scientists, will be beefed up, says an official. Germany’s Max Planck Society says it has been contacted by top scientists in America interested in moving, and is examining its options. Karolinska Institutet, a medical university in Stockholm, has set up a task force. Aix-Marseille University launched an initiative this month to attract 15 US-based researchers, and has had numerous applications. “The core of our programme is indignation and shock at witnessing the policies of the Trump administration,” says Eric Berton, the university’s president.
Giving refuge to researchers from America is part of Europe’s new urgency about boosting science. “Research, science and talent...are necessary to enhance European strategic autonomy,” write the 13 ministers in their letter. The threat from Russia demands that Europe catch up on cutting-edge military technologies. China is ahead in emerging fields such as quantum computing and cyber-security. Europe’s dependence on digital services from Silicon Valley no longer looks wise. As its industrial model and its population age, it must get better at innovating if it wants to lift growth and build next-generation industries and services.
Whether Europe can match America as a science and innovation superpower is uncertain. It has improved its output of highly cited scientific papers, says Reinhilde Veugelers of KU Leuven, a university in Belgium. But Nature Index, a ranking of citations in 145 natural-science journals, shows Europe falling behind while China and India climb. To make progress, Europe needs more money, more talent and more freedom.
The EU spends about 2% of GDP on research and development, barely half America’s 3.6%. Most of the gap is explained by lower R&D spending by businesses. That calls for deeper capital markets to provide risk capital for innovative firms, and a more unified and less regulated market to allow them to scale their products.
Project Europe, an initiative of over 150 European tech founders, helps talented young people in Europe who want to solve technical problems and start businesses. “Europe has all the ingredients, but we fail to bundle them,” says Matthias Knecht, one of the founders. He sees a deep frustration “that Europe doesn’t get its act together”.
Paying boffins better
In higher education overall European spending holds up well, but the continent distributes more of its cash to lower-ranked universities. America has a lot more institutions in the top echelons. “Innovations based on science are the most valuable, economically, and they usually come from the top labs and universities,” explains Monika Schnitzer of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Europe needs to overcome a preference for regional equity and provide more funding for elite institutions—and as continued investment, not as a one-off programme. Building political majorities for such a shift will be difficult.
Europe also needs more talent. “In America, unlike in Europe, there is a hunger for foreign talent. Or at least there was,” says a US-based biomedical researcher from India.
If America keeps hassling immigrant researchers, Europe could gain. When the first Trump administration tightened eligibility criteria for H-1B specialist visas in 2017, applicants flocked to Canada. That raised domestic firms’ output and natives’ wages, according to a new paper by Agostina Brinatti of Yale University and Xing Guo of the Bank of Canada.
Europe is an attractive place to live, though it could be more welcoming to outsiders, in terms of both visas and career prospects.
The final ingredient is freedom to do research. European universities’ administrative burdens and cumbersome data-access procedures should be simplified. The continent needs more world-class facilities and wider research networks to collaborate globally. Indeed, there is a risk that treating researchers as a strategic resource will segregate science along national lines. That is what happened during the first world war, and researchers’ productivity declined as a result. This time around Europe hopes to strengthen research co-operation with America, even as it competes to poach its scientific stars.” [1]
1. Draining brains. The Economist; London Vol. 454, Iss. 9441, (Mar 29, 2025): 29.
Komentarų nėra:
Rašyti komentarą