Emmanuel Macron and Ursula von der Leyen ask for foreign researchers, particularly threatened in the United States by Trump administration policies, organizing this Monday, May 5 with the European Conference for Science, with the key to possible financial incentives to attract them.
The event, which will bring together representatives of European European and Commissioners, as well as ministers of research, will be closed at the end of the French president and that of the European Commission, in the historical facilities of the prestigious University Campus of La Sorbonne, in the heart of Paris.
“Defend our strategic interests”
The threats that weigh on academic freedom in the United States are an opportunity to “defend our strategic interests and bring a universalist vision,” says an advisor to Emmanuel Macron.
The president had announced the conference conference in mid -April, when a election of France for science was launched. Before the announcement of a similar initiative of the National French Research Center (CNRS), the first European agency in number of researchers.
It is about showing “at a time when academic freedoms experience a series of reflux or threats, which Europe is a continent of attractiveness,” according to the Elysée.
Since Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, researchers and universities have been in the sights of their government and have been afraid for their future, between academic and mining research, sanded.
An “shocking” initiative for French unions
Monday’s conference will mix concrete ads and reflections on the future. For France, “there are credits, there are amounts” that will be announced, possibly in the form of fiscal incentives, said an advisor to President Macron.
The Choice France for Science platform indicates that the State could abound up to 50% of certain research projects, to deserve. But operators await an ad in the general envelope that will be assigned.
The initiative makes the teeth of higher education and research unions in French consider it “shocking, even indecent.” They denounce the “chronic sub -counted” of the sector, “forced groups” of the establishments, but also “of almost incessant attacks on academic freedom”, remembering controversies about wokism in university.
Nothing has yet leaked any measure that Ursula von der Leyen can announce, who said Tuesday that Brussels would make “proposals to help scientists and researchers ‘choose Europe'”.
It is about making France and the old continent more attractive, where remuneration and amounts dedicated to researchers and research are well below the United States.
Even if the continent has undeniable assets in this area, either in the quality of its research infrastructure for their work or at the reception of their families.
European dependencies
These ads will be flexed towards research in the fields of health, climate and biodiversity, digital and artificial intelligence, space or agriculture, according to the Elysée.
The event will take place in a “European sense” format, according to the Elysée, with British, Swiss and Norwegians. The morning will include two round tables, including American academics and industrialists.
One on the issue of academic freedoms and the contribution of research to global public goods. As in particular the databases, many of which are international, and whose access to some could be threatened by the decisions of the US administration.
The second will study precisely the means to fight against European research dependencies. But also the strategic guidelines that will be taken in terms of “financing, innovation and research structuring at the French level and European level,” according to an Elysée advisor.
In fact, according to this source, the American disconnection of many associations “can have consequences in our safety, especially in terms of health monitoring and also in the main cooperation programs”, such as those related to the climate.
The day will continue with a meeting of European Research Ministers, by invitation of its French counterpart Philippe Baptiste. Welcome European investigation institutes to their ministry.
Source: BFM TV
