When Éric Berton, president of Aix-Marseille University (AMU), launched the Safe Place for Science initiative on March 7, 2025, he had a clear idea in mind: to create a scientific haven for U.S.-based researchers seeking refuge elsewhere due to the Trump Administration’s budget cuts and restrictions. The aggressive measures imposed on Berton’s colleagues in American laboratories and classrooms served as a warning of what was to come. What was unexpected, however, was the success of his idea.
On the day that the platform opened, Safe Place for Science registered its first application. By the deadline, it had received around 300 applications, while another 600 arrived after the deadline. The United States, which since the end of World War II had been the world center for researchers in all scientific fields, no longer held the same appeal it had a few years prior. And Europe saw an opportunity.
In May 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced the launch of the Choose Europe for Science program, with funding of approximately €500 million to attract American candidates. In addition to France, nine other European countries, including Spain and even the EU itself, have developed similar initiatives.
The German federal government also created the Global Minds Initiative Germany and the Meitner-Einstein Programme, while the German Max Planck Society presented the Max Planck Transatlantic Programme. Earlier this year, a spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry explained to EL PAÍS that the number of residence permits granted to U.S. citizens in the country increased by 32% in the comparative period from January to September between 2024 and 2025. Some of these permits were granted for work purposes, a category that researchers fall under. In Austria, there was a similar initiative called APART-USA with the same goal: to capitalize on this brain drain.
Alka Patel, one of the candidates selected for Safe Place for Science, arrived in France at the beginning of last year, accompanied by her husband, Didier, a French national, and their daughter. In a video call with this newspaper, she acknowledges that she left the U.S. before Trump took office. “The turning point for me was in 2024, before the election, with the extremely violent repression of the students who were demonstrating on my own campus at the University of California [where she was teaching],” she explains.
Patel was brought to the U.S. from India by her parents as a child. She had been planning her departure for three years, ever since Trump returned to power. “I don’t think that whole phenomenon [the brain drain] was instantaneous. I think, unfortunately, it was a process that developed over time,” she explains. Trump’s budget cuts sealed her decision. “If I had any remaining doubts about the educational landscape, the opportunities, and so on, those doubts were resolved,” she affirms.
In the early days of his second term, the Trump administration launched an even more aggressive offensive against agencies and institutions that bothered the Republican president. For example, climate oversight agencies saw their work on climate change and related grants restricted. “There have been budget cuts, researchers have been laid off, and databases have been deleted,” lamented the president of AMU in a phone conversation. However, some of that content was recovered through court orders. According to the president of the French university, some applications to the French program even arrived via private messaging and were encrypted, due to the applicants’ fear of being identified.
The three-year Safe Place for Science program focuses on two areas of study: the social sciences and humanities (environment and climate, gender, history, geography) and the classical sciences (such as biology and medicine). “All the subjects banned by the Trump administration,” Berton adds.
Patel’s research has focused on South Asia and its connections to Iran and Central Asia, including land and maritime networks in the Indian Ocean—topics she plans to continue exploring during her time at AMU. While some of her family remains in the U.S., she says she cannot consider moving back there, though she does hope to travel to the country in the future.
France, a pioneering country
Following the launch of the Safe Place for Science program in Marseille, President Emmanuel Macron launched another similar and complementary project just a month later: Choose France for Science. Co-financed by the French government, it allows researchers like Patel to develop their projects in institutions throughout France.
Paris-Saclay University, in the French capital, is one of the higher education institutions that have joined the campaign. “We have two programs. One for doctoral students and another for established researchers,” Mehran Mostafavi, Vice President of Research at Saclay, explained to this newspaper by telephone. Financial support from the CentraleSupélec and Gustave Roussy foundations has allowed the faculty to expand its capacity to eight and ten candidates, respectively.
After the three-year program, both candidates hosted in Marseille and those in the national program can apply for an extension of their stay. “After two years, the scientists must present their project to the European Research Council (ERC),” Mostafavi explains. The ERC will then decide whether to renew their funding for another five years. Otherwise, the vice-president assures that each application will be reviewed.
For now, Patel’s next step is clear: “I’ve been offered a position at the CNRS [the French National Centre for Scientific Research],” she admits shyly.
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