European universities are hoping to benefit from academics looking to escape funding cuts and political pressure in the United States. Yet with the climate changing on this side of the Atlantic, too, these institutions may be doing little more than luring people from the fire into the frying pan.
Institutions of higher education such as Belgium’s Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Aix-Marseille University (amU) in France have both launched programmes aimed at attracting academics from across the pond. VUB has opened 12 postdoctoral positions specifically for American scientists. AmU's “Safe Place for Science” has attracted around 100 applicants.
The Netherlands has also launched a fund to attract researchers to the country.
These efforts are a response to President Donald Trump's visible assault on academia. Although many of the institutions in his sights are private, they rely on government money, tax breaks and certifications. Many work directly with government agencies.
When the Trump administration announced it was withholding $400 million in funding to Columbia University over alleged antisemitism on campus, it was quick to cut a deal that many of its faculty found shameful.
At Harvard, a federal review threatens $9 billion in contracts and grants, also due to allegations of antisemitism amid student protests of Israel's calamitous offensive in Gaza.
In a statement to its students and faculty titled “our resolve,” university president Alan Garber wrote that Harvard would “take the measures that will move Harvard and its vital mission forward while protecting our community and its academic freedom.”
The US Department of Education, which is undergoing a drastic downsizing along with much of Trump's federal government, is investigating over 50 universities across 41 states for alleged DEI-related discrimination. Government datasets that academics rely on for their research have also been tinkered with.
In a statement, VUB rector Jan Danckaert said he sees it as a "duty to come to the aid of our American colleagues.” His French counterpart, Aix-Marseille's president Éric Berton, called his university's new programme a kind of "scientific asylum.”
Developments in the US and the European response reflect a more intense iteration of Trump's first term. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron also made an overture to US-based researchers.
"What we are seeing in terms of the arbitrary reductions in funding, the threatened investigations and retaliations, the public harassment, that is of a degree that is highly unusual,” Frank Geary, director of Scholars at Risk Europe, an advocacy network, told The Parliament.
He called the Trump administration's move against academia a “self-inflicted wound,” yet it's unclear if any more people will flee across the Atlantic in Trump's second term than his first.
Academic freedom at risk
Those who do might find themselves confronting similar dangers.
Several EU member states, such as Greece and Hungary, have moved down in the Academic Freedom Index. While Hungary's backsliding is well known, Greece’s downturn comes amid increased police presence on campuses and deportations of pro-Palestinian student protesters.
In Germany, home to one of Europe's most extensive networks of higher education, lawmakers passed a nonbinding resolution in January calling for stronger action against alleged antisemitism in schools and universities. The vote, which received widespread support including from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), is part of a series of legislative efforts to exert more political control over cultural and academic programming.
Opponents have said these steps violate constitutional protections of academic freedom while doing more to protect Israel from criticism than protect people from hate crimes. Artists and academics, including Jewish ones, have endured censorship and professional harm in Germany as a result of their support for Palestine.
“Universities are there to help us solve problems with climate change, find the energy sources of tomorrow, solve the decline in democracy,” Jens Jungblut, a political science professor at the University of Oslo, told The Parliament. “The problem is this draws the universities and higher education into these political debates.”
Earlier this year, Joseph Daher, an academic working for Lausanne University in Switzerland, found his module on Middle Eastern politics abruptly cancelled and his yearslong relationship with the university effectively ended.
"My case is not an isolated one, unfortunately," Daher told The Parliament, seeing the cancellation as a consequence of his outspoken support for Palestine. "It's part of larger campaigns to silence, to criminalise, to punish academics."
The university did not respond to a request for comment, but in a letter to its rector in support of Daher, the British Society for Middle East Studies called the termination procedure “arbitrary.”
Budget cuts and competitiveness focus
Beyond political pressures, there are financial ones. In 2024, Macron proposed budget cuts amounting to €904 million for research and higher education. The move sparked open letters and protests from academics, who argued they were bearing a disproportionate burden of short-term budgetary discipline.
Educators are also concerned about how EU policy may be trying to shoehorn academic pursuits into the renewed focus on economic innovation and competitiveness. The Union of Skills plan aims to elevate EU-wide skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) over social sciences and humanities.
While the plan intends to improve education, critics worry that putting business leaders in charge of it will put profits ahead of learning.
“When education is in the service of innovation, the economy, the labour market, it’s a very dangerous and very un-educational and unscientific direction,” Jelmer Evers, the director at the European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE), told The Parliament. “And very undemocratic direction.”
Research, science and education are more than just about an economic bottom line, Evers added, but “about what kind of society you want.”
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