French research groups urged to welcome scientists fleeing US
By AFP
March 9, 2025
Scientists protested in New York City against funding cuts - Copyright AFP OMAR HAJ KADOUR
French officials are urging their country’s research institutions to consider welcoming scientists abandoning the United States due to President Donald Trump’s funding cuts, AFP learned on Sunday.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, his government has cut federal research funding and sought to dismiss hundreds of federal workers working on health and climate research.
“Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” France’s minister for higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, wrote in a letter to the country’s institutions.
“We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”
Baptiste urged research leaders to send him “concrete proposals on the topic, both on priority technologies and scientific fields”.
The government is “committed, and will rise to the occasion”, he added, in a statement sent to AFP on Sunday.
This week, Aix-Marseille University in the south of France announced it was setting up a programme dedicated to welcoming US researchers, notably those working on climate change.
It announced a new programme to welcome scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered” in the United States and want “to continue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence and academic freedom”.
Besides the cuts overseen by Trump’s billionaire tech tycoon ally Elon Musk, the US leader has withdrawn Washington from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement.
In protest, scientists rallied in cities across the United States on Friday, with many of their French counterparts in the southwestern city of Toulouse attending a demonstration in solidarity.
– ‘Opportunity’ for French research –
In an editorial published in Le Monde newspaper, French academics including Nobel Prize winners Esther Duflo, an economist, and Anne L’Huillier, a physicist, denounced “unprecedented attacks” on US science, saying they undermined “one of the pillars of democracy”.
The director of France’s Pasteur public health institute, Yasmine Belkaid, told French newspaper La Tribune in an interview published Sunday that she received “calls every day” from US-based European and American scientists looking for jobs.
For French research, “you might call it a sad opportunity, but it is an opportunity all the same,” Belkaid, who once worked as an immunology researcher in the United States, was quoted as saying.
“It is time for us to position ourselves as central players in this research ecosystem, which is necessary for our economic independence.”
The suspension of some grants has led some US universities to reduce the number of students accepted into doctoral programs or research positions.
Other targets for cuts include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — the leading US agency responsible for weather forecasting, climate analysis and marine conservation — with hundreds of scientists and experts already let go.
The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said NOAA and the United States were essential for providing life-saving data to monitor weather and the climate globally.
Trump’s appointment of noted vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services has also angered many scientists.
By AFP
March 9, 2025
Scientists protested in New York City against funding cuts - Copyright AFP OMAR HAJ KADOUR
French officials are urging their country’s research institutions to consider welcoming scientists abandoning the United States due to President Donald Trump’s funding cuts, AFP learned on Sunday.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, his government has cut federal research funding and sought to dismiss hundreds of federal workers working on health and climate research.
“Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States,” France’s minister for higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, wrote in a letter to the country’s institutions.
“We would naturally wish to welcome a certain number of them.”
Baptiste urged research leaders to send him “concrete proposals on the topic, both on priority technologies and scientific fields”.
The government is “committed, and will rise to the occasion”, he added, in a statement sent to AFP on Sunday.
This week, Aix-Marseille University in the south of France announced it was setting up a programme dedicated to welcoming US researchers, notably those working on climate change.
It announced a new programme to welcome scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered” in the United States and want “to continue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence and academic freedom”.
Besides the cuts overseen by Trump’s billionaire tech tycoon ally Elon Musk, the US leader has withdrawn Washington from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement.
In protest, scientists rallied in cities across the United States on Friday, with many of their French counterparts in the southwestern city of Toulouse attending a demonstration in solidarity.
– ‘Opportunity’ for French research –
In an editorial published in Le Monde newspaper, French academics including Nobel Prize winners Esther Duflo, an economist, and Anne L’Huillier, a physicist, denounced “unprecedented attacks” on US science, saying they undermined “one of the pillars of democracy”.
The director of France’s Pasteur public health institute, Yasmine Belkaid, told French newspaper La Tribune in an interview published Sunday that she received “calls every day” from US-based European and American scientists looking for jobs.
For French research, “you might call it a sad opportunity, but it is an opportunity all the same,” Belkaid, who once worked as an immunology researcher in the United States, was quoted as saying.
“It is time for us to position ourselves as central players in this research ecosystem, which is necessary for our economic independence.”
The suspension of some grants has led some US universities to reduce the number of students accepted into doctoral programs or research positions.
Other targets for cuts include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — the leading US agency responsible for weather forecasting, climate analysis and marine conservation — with hundreds of scientists and experts already let go.
The United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization said NOAA and the United States were essential for providing life-saving data to monitor weather and the climate globally.
Trump’s appointment of noted vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services has also angered many scientists.
Facing Trump Attack, People 'Stand Up for Science' at Rallies Across US and Beyond
"When research stops, people suffer and people die," said one campaigner.
Demonstrators take part in a "Stand Up For Science" rally at Washington Square Park in New York on March 7, 2025.
(Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Mar 07, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Scientists and their supporters in dozens of U.S. cities—as well as across Europe—rallied on Friday to demand the Trump administration end its assault on federal agencies, including those that research health, the climate, and other life-or-death issues.
The main "Stand Up for Science" rally was held Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial, with advocates responding to a call made by Emory University doctoral candidate Colette Delawalla last month—as federal employees were learning of President Donald Trump's efforts to limit research grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the administration's order for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to purge any articles that mention gender identity or LGBTQ+ issues, and as Lee Zeldin, who has opposed clean air and water protections, took the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
"I'm planning a Stand Up for Science protest in D.C.," wrote Delawalla in frustration on the social media platform Bluesky on February 8.
Since Delawalla and other organizers, including University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill doctoral student J.P. Flores and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory biologist Emma Courtney, began planning the event in Washington, the science community's alarm over the actions of the Trump administration has only grown.
In late February, reporting showed that the Trump administration had circumvented court rulings in order to block tens of billions of dollars in NIH grants that fund crucial research on numerous diseases.
At the rally on Friday, former NIH Director Francis Collins said the science research that takes place at the agency is "for the people."
With numerous global public health threats currently evolving—the spread of avian flu and several measles outbreaks in the U.S. and a new variant of mpox discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo—Collins said that "this would be a terrible time to dismantle our infectious disease research and our global public health efforts."
"The success of the American public science enterprise, which is the envy of the rest of the world over the past decades, it is of the people, by the people, and for the people," said Collins. "It's one of our nation's greatest achievements, enabling stunning discoveries about how life works, extending life expectancy, reducing disease burden, and, by the way, science is responsible for more than 50% of the economic growth of the United States since World War II."
Other recent anti-science actions by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress include: the passage of a bill to end the Methane Emissions Reduction Program; right-wing billionaire Elon Musk's continued efforts via the so-called Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) to cut science and research spending at federal agencies, and the last week's firing of hundreds of staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Trump and Musk's actions have led universities to begin reducing admissions and even rescinding placement offers to post-graduate programs, threatening the future of biomedical research.
"When research stops, people suffer and people die," said Samantha Jade Durán, a disability justice advocate, at the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington, D.C. on Friday. "We cannot let that happen. We have seen what's possible when we invest in science. Polio was eradicated. HIV was transformed from a death sentence to a manageable and undetectable condition. Cancer treatments are getting better every year, and these breakthroughs didn't happen by accident. They happened because we chose to fund science."
On social media, organizers on Friday posted images of large rallies in Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City.
Solidarity marches also took place in Paris and Montpelier, France.
The rallies on Friday, said U.S. organizers, are "just the beginning."
"Our policy goals include a restoration of federal scientific funding, the reinstatement of wrongfully terminated employees at federal agencies, an end to governmental interference and censorship in science, and a renewed commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science," said organizers in the U.S. "We are also committed to empowering scientists—and anyone who has benefited from scientific advancements—to engage in sustained advocacy in the years to come."
"When research stops, people suffer and people die," said one campaigner.
Demonstrators take part in a "Stand Up For Science" rally at Washington Square Park in New York on March 7, 2025.
(Photo: Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)
Julia Conley
Mar 07, 2025
COMMON DREAMS
Scientists and their supporters in dozens of U.S. cities—as well as across Europe—rallied on Friday to demand the Trump administration end its assault on federal agencies, including those that research health, the climate, and other life-or-death issues.
The main "Stand Up for Science" rally was held Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial, with advocates responding to a call made by Emory University doctoral candidate Colette Delawalla last month—as federal employees were learning of President Donald Trump's efforts to limit research grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the administration's order for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to purge any articles that mention gender identity or LGBTQ+ issues, and as Lee Zeldin, who has opposed clean air and water protections, took the helm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
"I'm planning a Stand Up for Science protest in D.C.," wrote Delawalla in frustration on the social media platform Bluesky on February 8.
Since Delawalla and other organizers, including University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill doctoral student J.P. Flores and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory biologist Emma Courtney, began planning the event in Washington, the science community's alarm over the actions of the Trump administration has only grown.
In late February, reporting showed that the Trump administration had circumvented court rulings in order to block tens of billions of dollars in NIH grants that fund crucial research on numerous diseases.
At the rally on Friday, former NIH Director Francis Collins said the science research that takes place at the agency is "for the people."
With numerous global public health threats currently evolving—the spread of avian flu and several measles outbreaks in the U.S. and a new variant of mpox discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo—Collins said that "this would be a terrible time to dismantle our infectious disease research and our global public health efforts."
"The success of the American public science enterprise, which is the envy of the rest of the world over the past decades, it is of the people, by the people, and for the people," said Collins. "It's one of our nation's greatest achievements, enabling stunning discoveries about how life works, extending life expectancy, reducing disease burden, and, by the way, science is responsible for more than 50% of the economic growth of the United States since World War II."
Other recent anti-science actions by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress include: the passage of a bill to end the Methane Emissions Reduction Program; right-wing billionaire Elon Musk's continued efforts via the so-called Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE) to cut science and research spending at federal agencies, and the last week's firing of hundreds of staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Trump and Musk's actions have led universities to begin reducing admissions and even rescinding placement offers to post-graduate programs, threatening the future of biomedical research.
"When research stops, people suffer and people die," said Samantha Jade Durán, a disability justice advocate, at the Stand Up for Science rally in Washington, D.C. on Friday. "We cannot let that happen. We have seen what's possible when we invest in science. Polio was eradicated. HIV was transformed from a death sentence to a manageable and undetectable condition. Cancer treatments are getting better every year, and these breakthroughs didn't happen by accident. They happened because we chose to fund science."
On social media, organizers on Friday posted images of large rallies in Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City.
Solidarity marches also took place in Paris and Montpelier, France.
The rallies on Friday, said U.S. organizers, are "just the beginning."
"Our policy goals include a restoration of federal scientific funding, the reinstatement of wrongfully terminated employees at federal agencies, an end to governmental interference and censorship in science, and a renewed commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in science," said organizers in the U.S. "We are also committed to empowering scientists—and anyone who has benefited from scientific advancements—to engage in sustained advocacy in the years to come."
Scientific researchers across France have voiced solidarity with their American colleagues by joining the "Stand up for Science" movement, protesting against massive budget cuts and what they say is 'sabotage' by Donald Trump's administration.
THE THREE STOOGES
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the US Capitol in Washington. © Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP
By:RFI
07/03/2025 -
Under the banner "Stand up for Science France", a collective scientists held several demonstrations and conferences in cities across the country on Friday in support of similar events organised in the United States.
The "Stand Up For Science" movement is calling for an end to censorship, the protection of funding and the rehabilitation of researchers who have been brutally removed from their work since Donald Trump came to power.
Mass firings and sweeping cuts overseen by Trump's senior advisor Elon Musk in recent weeks have targeted research in a range of areas including climate and health.
"Science has become a target," prominent French climate science researcher Valérie Masson-Delmotte told French news agency AFP.
"Today I am talking about obscurantism: making scientific knowledge inaccessible and spreading disinformation. All of these attacks are of an unprecedented gravity in a democracy".
Freedom of speech curbed
In an interview with Franceinfo on Friday, Delmotte said that academics' freedom to communicate had been severly curbed, which was a form of "sabotage to the detriment of American society ... and scientific progress in the world."
"Researchers from federal agencies – the equivalent of the CNRS in France for example – are banned from exchanging with colleagues from other countries," she said.
She gave the example of NASA's chief scientist, Kate Calvin, co-chair of Group 1 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who was banned from participating in the last plenary session of the IPCC last week. "She was also banned from speaking to the press and her support team has been dismantled," Delmotte says.
Delmotte was one of many French scientists who published an editorial in Le Monde on Tuesday with the title "Defend science against new obscurantisms".
The signatories insist that the US brutal budget cuts were already directly affecting society and would affect international cooperation and data sharing.
Trump vows to act with 'historic speed and strength' via executive orders
For example, hundreds of scientists and experts have been fired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a leading US agency responsible for weather forecasting and climate analysis, Democratic Congressman Jared Huffman said last week.
In response, France's Aix-Marseille University announced a new programme this week to welcome scientists who "may feel threatened or hindered" in the United States and want "to continue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence and academic freedom".
University president Eric Berton told AFPTV that he would have preferred to not to have had to issue this "recruitment call".
"The risk these researchers face is that their projects will lose funding and that they themselves – if they are foreigners – will have to return to their home countries," he said.
Scientists afraid to speak out
"It is a real danger," he emphasised, particularly for academics who work on "sensitive subjects such as the climate, social sciences and the humanities in general".
Berton said his university could not take in everyone, adding: "I hope we can launch a national movement".
The university's "Safe Place for Science" programme will provide upto €15 million that can accommodate around 15 researchers over three years.
UN rights chief deeply worried about 'fundamental shift' in direction in US
French astrophysicist Olivier Berné, a researcher at the CNRS, says he has received anguished testimonies from some of his American scientific colleagues.
"Already, for a certain number of them, they are afraid to speak out," he told Franceinfo.
"They are afraid of losing their jobs. We do not realise at all in France what is happening in these circles. In the United States, there is an extremely strong attack on the scientific world. Donald Trump has announced that people who go to demonstrations on campus could be thrown in prison or expelled from American territory".
"There is also an attack on data with a pure and simple suppression of access to data concerning climate studies," the scientist underlines.
Asked about welcoming US scientists, France's higher education and research minister Philippe Baptiste said it was necessary to "strengthen" existing systems for international scientists.
"But this discussion must also take place at the European level," he told the French parliament, lamenting budget cuts by the Trump administration that were "contrary to scientific consensus".
'Snowball effect': World's top scientists reportedly poised to get the ax
Sarah K. Burris
March 7, 2025
Sarah K. Burris
March 7, 2025
RAW STORY
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attend a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
President Donald Trump continues to support dramatic government staffing cuts, and next on the list are some of the world's best scientists who have been working at the National Institute of Health.
Rolling Stone reported on Friday that new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could gut NIH.
About 65% of NIH employees have annual or multi-year contracts, and about 35% have university-style tenure.
Sources told Rolling Stone that the cuts aren't being done with the "scalpel" that Trump said speaking to the media allowed to gather in the Oval Office Thursday. As the Daily Beast characterized, Trump promised there wouldn't be any more chainsaws taken to the staffing.
The cuts will begin with only a few dozen scientists, and further scientists will not have their contracts renewed.
"The NIH is best known for funding a broad spectrum of research science at universities with approximately $40 billion in annual grants. But it also runs its own government labs, with the main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, with a $5 billion annual budget," the report said.
There are contract researchers with decades of experience working on cures and treatments for chronic diseases. They range from cancer to diabetes to obesity and dementia.
The report, citing NIH sources, said Kennedy wants these privatized, with corporations taking over the work for profit rather than public service.
"NIH has been able to attract, previously, people that are held at the highest esteem, internationally, by their peers," one tenured NIH scientist told Rolling Stone. They fear retribution and asked not to be named.
"You don't get a great salary — but you do it because you love science," he explained. The benefit has been "job security and the confidence to explore your ideas. That's all being eroded."
He lamented no one feels any job security now, much less respect for their research.
Rolling Stone said that it's had an impact on staffers who will remain.
"It's a snowball effect. It signals the end of research [inside NIH]," the scientist said. "Who is going to want to join a career like that?"
There's also an immigration issue. Many scientists who are from other countries are in the U.S. working at NIH on H-1 B visas. So, if their positions are terminated, they'll be sent back to their home countries. It ultimately means a "brain drain" not just for the federal government, but for the country as a whole, the report said.
When he came into office, Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency by executive order. That initiative has been behind the upheaval and dismantling of government agencies. Websites, grants, programs, and employees have been cut or frozen under the promise that Trump will save taxpayers trillions.
Read the full piece here.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attend a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
President Donald Trump continues to support dramatic government staffing cuts, and next on the list are some of the world's best scientists who have been working at the National Institute of Health.
Rolling Stone reported on Friday that new Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could gut NIH.
About 65% of NIH employees have annual or multi-year contracts, and about 35% have university-style tenure.
Sources told Rolling Stone that the cuts aren't being done with the "scalpel" that Trump said speaking to the media allowed to gather in the Oval Office Thursday. As the Daily Beast characterized, Trump promised there wouldn't be any more chainsaws taken to the staffing.
The cuts will begin with only a few dozen scientists, and further scientists will not have their contracts renewed.
"The NIH is best known for funding a broad spectrum of research science at universities with approximately $40 billion in annual grants. But it also runs its own government labs, with the main campus in Bethesda, Maryland, with a $5 billion annual budget," the report said.
There are contract researchers with decades of experience working on cures and treatments for chronic diseases. They range from cancer to diabetes to obesity and dementia.
The report, citing NIH sources, said Kennedy wants these privatized, with corporations taking over the work for profit rather than public service.
"NIH has been able to attract, previously, people that are held at the highest esteem, internationally, by their peers," one tenured NIH scientist told Rolling Stone. They fear retribution and asked not to be named.
"You don't get a great salary — but you do it because you love science," he explained. The benefit has been "job security and the confidence to explore your ideas. That's all being eroded."
He lamented no one feels any job security now, much less respect for their research.
Rolling Stone said that it's had an impact on staffers who will remain.
"It's a snowball effect. It signals the end of research [inside NIH]," the scientist said. "Who is going to want to join a career like that?"
There's also an immigration issue. Many scientists who are from other countries are in the U.S. working at NIH on H-1 B visas. So, if their positions are terminated, they'll be sent back to their home countries. It ultimately means a "brain drain" not just for the federal government, but for the country as a whole, the report said.
When he came into office, Trump created the Department of Government Efficiency by executive order. That initiative has been behind the upheaval and dismantling of government agencies. Websites, grants, programs, and employees have been cut or frozen under the promise that Trump will save taxpayers trillions.
Read the full piece here.
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