May 5 (UPI) -- European Union nations plan to spend more than half a billion dollars to attract foreign researchers after the Trump administration cut funding to universities.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday appeared alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at Sorbonne University in Paris to unveil the initiative.
"Choose Europe for Science" would provide $566 million from 2025 to 2027 to attract foreign researchers to "help support the best and the brightest researchers and scientists from Europe and around the world," she said.
In her speech, von der Leyen didn't mention Trump or the United States. The Trump administration has terminated several billion dollars in research grants. Also his next budget includes billions cut in science.
"The role of science in today's world is questioned," von der Leyen said. "The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation. I believe that science holds the key to our future here in Europe. Without it, we simply cannot address today's global challenges -- from health to new tech, from climate to oceans.
"So more than ever we need to stand up for science," she added. "Science that is universal -- shared by all humanity -- and that is unifying. Because the pursuit of knowledge and the yearning to understand how things work are values that bring us together as people, as it has done today."
The Trump administration, besides slashing research grants, has cut spending to the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other science agencies.
Universities have lost funding because of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including Harvard.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education said Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Michael Garber, saying the school would not get any new grants, more than $1 billion, until it makes changes.
The Ivy League school already had $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million for contracts paused over its policies, including activism on campus. Also, Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard's tax-exempt status. Harvard has filed a lawsuit.
"We can all agree that science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party," von der Leyen said. "And as such it does play a crucial role in connecting people and creating a shared future in today's fractured world. We believe that diversity is an asset of humanity and the lifeblood of science. It is one of the most valuable global goods and it must be protected.
Macron also said France separately would commit another $113 million.
"We must not downplay what is at stake today," Macron said. "No one could have imagined a few years ago that one of the world's largest democracies would abolish research programs on the grounds that there was the word diversity in their programs," Macron said. "No one could have imagined that one of the world's greatest democracies could, in one fell swoop, strike out the possibility of obtaining a visa for a researcher."
Also, Von der Leyen announced she would put forward the "European Innovation Act and a Startup and Scaleup Strategy, to remove regulatory and other barriers, and to facilitate access to venture capital for innovative European startups and scaleups."
She wants EU countries to spend 3% of their gross domestic product on research by 2030.
"And we will put forward ambitious proposals on research and innovation funding in the next long-term budget," she said. "Because we know that an investment in science is an investment into our future."
The United States spent 3.6% of its GDP on research and development in 2022, according to World Bank collection of development indicators.
Trump's proposed budget cuts include $4.9 billion to the National Science Foundation, $1.5 billion to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $6 billion to NASA, $18 billion to NIH, $3.6 billion to the CDC. Health and Human Services will have discretionary funding slashed by 26%.
Macron said Monday that France can "welcome the best researchers" with their work on climate science under threat.
Over the last 40 years, the European Union has funded 33 Nobel Prize laureates.
During the 1930s when fascists took power in Europe, many scientists fled to other countries, including the United States. Albert Einstein fled Germany and settled in the United States before Adolf Hitler took power.
