Europe Launches A Drive To Attract Scientists And Researchers After Trump Freezes Us Funding

The European Union launched a drive on Monday to attract scientists and researchers to Europe with offers of grants and new policy plans, after the Trump administration froze U.S. government funding linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

"A few years ago, no one would have imagined that one of the biggest democracies in the world would cancel research programs under the pretext that the word diversity was in this program," French President Emmanuel Macron said at the "Choose Europe for Science" event in Paris.

"No one would have thought that one of the biggest democracies in the world would delete with a stroke the ability of one researcher or another to obtain visas," Macron said. "But here we are."

Taking the same stage at the Sorbonne University, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU's executive branch would set up a 'super grant" program aimed at offering "a longer-term perspective to the very best" in the field.

She said that 500 million euros 566 million will be put forward in 2025-2027 "to make Europe a magnet for researchers." It would be injected into the European Research Council, which already has a budget of more than 16 billion euros 18 billion for 2021-2027.