In a recent Research Professional article, Craig Nicholson calls on Europe to support US researchers facing severe funding cuts from the US government. These budget slashes risk triggering a researcher exodus, with talent seeking opportunities abroad.
The same concerns are also voiced by the postdoc community in the US. As Thomas P. Kimbis from the National Postdoctoral Association (US) wrote on February 18th, 2025: “Actual and proposed cuts to research have driven some postdocs to transition out of academia or leave the United States to continue their work.”1 .Let’s be clear: The proposed budget cuts to scientific research in the US along with the potential limitation to free speech on university campuses are attacks on academic freedom.
It is worth recalling that the European Research Area was created 25 years ago to address Europe’s lack of competitiveness and to mitigate the brain drain from Europe to the US2. Though the brain drain from Europe to the US has been reduced in the past decades, the attractiveness of the academic career remains a concern repeatedly acknowledged by the European Commission. On the February 27, 2025 the Commission released its work programme for 2025 – 2027, which reinforces the Commission’s focus on making the European research career attractive. Indeed, making the European research career attractive must be a top priority as it is part and parcel to ensuring Europe’s competitiveness.
Making progress could be quite simple: recognize doctoral candidates, postdocs, and other early career researchers as research professionals and employ them. It should not be controversial that doctoral candidates, postdocs, and other early career researchers—who all significantly contribute to the core tasks of research and teaching of higher education institutions—should receive a salary comparable to that of others with similar length of training and professional experience working outside of academia. Salary levels and employment conditions are crucial, however, these factors are only part of making the most of the potential of internationalisation in Europe.
The conditions we offer our international researchers, whether they are EU nationals, from an associate country, or third country nationals are equally important: Many international researchers in the EU experience the current migration legislation and other frameworks that should in theory support their mobility as barriers, limiting their (and their dependents’) access to social securities, such as unemployment benefits and health care. Furthermore, more work is necessary to make the seamless mutual recognition of degrees a reality. Researchers from the US, as third country nationals, will run up against these same systemic barriers. Given the current nature of the research careers, with short term contracts, national migration legislation across member states, and a fraught path to (permanent) resident permits, the EU’s offer to US researchers comes with challenges and difficulties many individuals will experience.
In Europe, however, we are also at a crossroad, where we have to actively choose: choose to invest in research (and, since research does not exist without it: in higher education), choose to protect and promote academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and choose to ensure that the democratic values of our society remain enshrined in the institutions that educate our future citizens and leaders.
From Eurodoc the message is clear: It is time to invest in our future by investing in research and higher education. This means concretely: addressing the legal barriers that come with internationalisation, ensuring excellence across Europe with programmes such as the COST Actions, and investing in a strong FP10—in the bluesky and basic research of the ERC, the EIC, and the MSCA—as well as ensuring investments in research, higher education, and innovation at national levels.
Thus, let us ensure that we can welcome our colleagues in the US who are pressed to move to Europe as a result of decreased academic freedom and institutional autonomy by offering them the conditions that all citizens in a democracy deserve—and let us make sure that we are true to our democratic values and do the same for all third country nationals in academia.
This piece was written by
Pil Maria Saugmann, Hannah Schoch, Nicola Dengo, Norbert Bencze, and Karl Kilbo Edlund
1 https://www.nationalpostdoc.org/news/694039/
2 ERA Reference