The European Union plans to offer a new 500 million euro package for 2025-2027 to make Europe a “magnet for researchers”, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced on Monday.
Stressing the crucial role of science, von der Leyen lamented the doubts currently being cast on fundamental, free and open research, describing such scepticism as a gigantic miscalculation. “I believe that science holds the key to our future here in Europe,” she said at the end of the Choose Europe for Science conference.
The conference, held in Paris and initiated by French president Emmanuel Macron, aimed to attract scientists from the United States, whose research efforts are threatened by the Trump administration’s policies.
Super grant
Von der Leyen highlighted Europe’s “stable and sustained investments” and favourable infrastructure for research, and unveiled measures to address its shortcomings, including a new seven-year “super grant” and a doubling of the top-up for research grants by 2027.
The EU aims to invest 3 per cent of GDP in research and development by 2030, von der Leyen said. She reiterated her commitment to “enshrine freedom of scientific research into law in a new European Research Area Act”.
To facilitate the arrival of researchers, the EU wants to “support public and private institutions to better link up to highly skilled workers and researchers” and “speed up and simplify the entry for top researchers” into the European Union. “Because bringing the best from across the world is about bringing out the best of Europe,” said von der Leyen.
