French university courts, American researchers looking for “scientific asylum” amid Trump’s academic discounts

A university in France says that approximately 300 American researchers have applied for a space in the “Safe Science” program that was created to attract American researchers looking for “scientific asylum” in the middle Antibial academic spending discounts And other measures against colleges by the Trump administration.

Brian Sandberg, who taught history at a major American state university for nearly two decades, is one of those who sought to benefit from the program that was launched in March by the University of Aix Marcel.

He told CBS News that the United States risks losing its position as the most attractive global axis of academic research. The White House actions are expected to lead to a “mental attrition”, as many of his academic colleagues are looking for a set of topics to leave to similar programs abroad because of White House policies.

“The entire American system for research and research universities in general is under attack in various ways,” Sandberg told CBS News. “I have no internal knowledge of the Trump administration’s motives, but it is clear from their statements and actions, there is an attempt to control research and control knowledge.”

He said: “Researchers in all areas of academic research freeze their money by the federal government. In some cases, the current grants have been canceled.”

Sandberg said: “All new grant operations are politicized with some keywords used to control mainly on topics that deserve research and which is not.” “So I saw a lot of researchers talking about the search for the B.” Plan. ”

They will find a lot of options.

A number of major international universities launched academic programs in The effort made for researchers away from the United States Since the Trump administration, in recent months, has provided frozen financing, and issued executive orders targeting individual colleges throughout America.

AIX Marseilles says she will adhere to financing nearly $ 18 million to finance 15 American researchers to study in areas ranging from health, environment and climate change, to social sciences and astronomical physics.

Schools have taken from Europe, Canada and China all moves in recent months to lure the academics away from American universities with the White House continuing with the moves that they say will remove bureaucratic waste and fraud, as well as cutting the programs that The administration says “Dei radical and climate change”.

“In a context in which some scientists in the United States may feel threat or impeding their research.”

The university later said it had received requests from researchers in Stanford, Yale, NASA, the National Institutes of Health, George Washington University, and more than ten “other prestigious institutions” that “now thinking about scientific exile.”

“The United States is an international force for scientific research, the production of academic research, and the production of knowledge of the entire world. But this is exactly what is under attack now,” Sandberg said.