Roma, Italia
In May 2025, EU Commission President Von Der Leyen unveiled “Choose Europe”, a program aimed at attracting foreign researchers. With the Trump administration’s crackdown on universities’ freedoms and federal funding cuts, scholars fear the US is no longer a safe place for independent research. The EU is attempting to capitalize on this demand by positioning itself as a viable new hub for international knowledge and put an end to its decades of brain drain
On May 5th, 2025, in a press conference at La Sorbonne in Paris, EU Commission President Ursula von Der Leyen launched “Choose Europe”, a program designed to attract foreign researchers who decided to move their research activities to the EU. Choose Europe aims to achieve this by strengthening the European research ecosystem: on the one hand, necessary legal protections are offered to create the pre-conditions for free research, on the other, funding is provided to ensure additional stability and means for scholars.
The Program is based on 4 pillars:
- Provide legal protection for freedom of research by embedding it into the new European Research Area Act.
- A 500 million Euros package, for the 2025-2027 period, aimed at boosting the EU’s capacity to attract scientific researchers. Part of the funding will be used by the European Research Council (ERC), via normal grants and 7-year “super-grants”. The remaining resources will be funneled into the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), which already provides research grants for scientists in EU universities. With Choose Europe, part of these grants will now be linked with long-term university careers (i.e., MSCA Choose Europe for Science grants). Universities using the new MSCA grants for their researchers will now have to provide them with a stable contract for 2-year minimum, after the end of their 3-year grant.
- A proposal for a new European Innovation Act and a Start-up and Scale-up Strategy, both aimed at reducing regulatory barriers to innovation and allowing the development of a European start-up ecosystem, thanks to venture capital.
- A pledge to connect more effectively research institutions with highly skilled workers and researchers.
The announcement was preceded by France’s own program of the same sort (i.e., “Choose France for Science”), under which the French government partially covers the grants allocated by universities to foreign researchers, especially those studying subjects of “interest” (e.g., space, quantum technology, semiconductors, biotechnology…). Similar policies have also been put into place by many other EU member states. Notably, in Spain, with the Atrae Program (“Actuaciones para la Transferencia y Retención del Talento de Excelencia”), consisting of 45 million euros to fight the brain drain, and the renewed funding for the historic Programa Ramòn y Cajal, which incentivizes hiring young researchers. Considering this, the Commission’s intervention could be seen as a way to extend what were previously fractured national initiatives to the whole EU-27.
This emphasis on talent-attraction policies, from the EU side, is tied to the visibility of the consequences of prolonged brain drain, such as loss of competitiveness and technological stagnation. Europe is now trying to revitalize its capacity to innovate and increase productivity, which depends on having a leading role in research activity, a field where it has now fallen behind many other global players, with the US being the prime example. In fact, from the 1980s, US universities have kept a hegemonic role in defining the scientific frontier and pushing technological change. This predominance had its roots in many specificities of the US education system, with the most prominent being its competitive nature, which incentivizes many private universities to innovate and specialize. For top universities, their private nature also allowed prospects of more generous funding, coming from wealthy alumni. This enabled them to expand and build large in-house research facilities, where laboratory staff, students, and teachers could conduct their activities in tandem. While US universities developed in a “campus” structure, where all components worked together to develop base research, the EU retained a more traditional outline, with smaller laboratories and non-integrated facilities. Competitive mechanisms were further reinforced by the “tenure” system, which gave selected scholars a “reward” in terms of a stable contract once they achieved excellence in research and teaching, thus operating as an incentive for outstanding performance. This mechanism has been introduced only recently in some EU countries, while it has always been the norm in the US. The sum of these factors contributed to making US universities the leading scholarly institutions in the 21st century.
However, the policies enacted during the second Trump presidency risk hindering overall US universities’ capacity to attract talent. On the one hand, federal funding cuts deeply hit universities’ budgets, obliging them to cut costs. Furthermore, the discretionary use of fund-freezing to intimidate institutions that do not fall in line with the President’s commands has made many scholars worry about the state of freedom of research. This fear was further reinforced by the Federal Government’s violent attitude towards student protests on campuses against the war in Gaza. In this context, many countries, including the EU, are seeing opportunities to reverse the historic brain drain that has caused many of their highly educated citizens to leave for the US in search of better conditions. Although this was common practice between European scholars, Member States think that the need for an unconditioned research environment will guide many of their emigrated citizens back to their shores. The EU’s policy seems especially tailored for post-doc researchers: in fact, both MSCA Choose Europe for Science and ERC grants tend to fund mostly post-doctoral research projects. This is no coincidence. While top US academics could more easily shield themselves from Trump’s funding cuts and threats thanks to their fame and influence, the same is not true for those just starting their scholarly careers. A decrease in federal funding will force university research centers to cut workforce costs, resulting in fewer job openings for young researchers.
However, the EU’s quality of offers to incoming scholars still falls short in many ways. One key aspect is the difference in pay scale for top scholars, which amounts to even 10 times less than their US counterparts, in some cases. Moreover, the lack of political unity between EU member states impedes the development of a more complex and unitary strategy, with education policy being mainly a national competence. Finally, there is an absence of important cutting-edge laboratories, integrated with research facilities, and a structured venture capital market able to provide the means to transform ideas into innovative startups. These issues are no strangers to Europeans, as they are recurring themes underlined in both the Draghi and Letta Reports. The documents provide proposals that EU institutions are already putting into place. Still, filling the gaps will require time and deeper investments, along with the political preconditions.
Bibliography:
DAAD Brussels. (2025, 05). ‘Choose Europe’: A new EU Initiative to attract global scientific talents. DAAD Brussels. Retrieved from https://www.daad-brussels.eu/en/2025/05/26/choose-europe-a-new-eu-initiative-to-attract-global-scientific-talents/#:~:text=On%205%20May%202025%2C%20Ursula%20von%20der%20Leyen%2C,researchers%2C%20academics%20and%20highly%20skilled%20professionals%20to%20Eu
European Commission. (2025). Choose Europe Fact Sheet. Brussels: Publications Office of the European Union. doi:NA-01-25-028-EN-N
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Autore dell’articolo: Leonardo Ricci, Political Economy Master’s Student at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and University of Florence. His research interests are focused on International Political Economy, economic dependency, and trade
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