The first American academics fleeing Donald Trump's America for France have arrived.
Aix-Marseille University last week introduced eight U.S.-based researchers who were in the final stage of joining the institution's “Safe Place for Science" program, which aims to woo researchers who have experienced or fear funding cuts under the Trump administration. AMU offers the promise of a brighter future in the sun-drenched Mediterranean port city.
While both France and the European Union have launched multimillion-euro plans to woo researchers across the pond since Trump assumed the U.S. presidency in January, AMU's initiative was the first of its kind in the country — meaning the eight researchers who were welcomed are the first academic refugees planning to trade the United States for France.
Speaking from the university’s hilltop astrophysics lab, AMU President Eric Berton likened the situation to that of European academics who fled persecution by Nazi Germany both before and during World War II.
Posted by John3262005
3 Comments
The monkey’s paw with bringing in American-based knowledge talent is that it’s going to drive xenophobia through the roof unless the governments start allowing massive amounts of housing to be built.
This feels kind of fake.
Real brain drain is a quieter sort of game. As a brain sink, any actual trend in US academia would be extra-quite. Would be migrant researchers who simply never came.
I remember region president Renaud Muselier (centre-right member of Macron’s party Renaissance, formerly member of LR who left because of Ciotti) happily announcing this initiative a few months ago.