Von der Leyen knocks Trump’s war on universities as ‘gigantic miscalculation’

PARIS ― European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign against American higher education as she unveiled a half-billion-euro plan to attract foreign researchers.

“The role of science in today’s world is questioned. The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation,” von der Leyen said. “Science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party.”

Appearing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at Paris’ storied Sorbonne University on Monday, von der Leyen said the “Choose Europe for Science” initiative would put forward a €500 million program from 2025 to 2027 to attract foreign researchers to “help support the best and the brightest researchers and scientists from Europe and around the world. “

Several speakers at the event hit out at Trump’s efforts to gut federal research funding and threats to cut funding to universities like Harvard to the tune of billions of dollars over conservative criticisms of higher education and allegations of antisemitism on campuses. Both French Minister of Higher Education Philippe Baptiste and Robert Proctor, a prominent professor of the history of science at Stanford, called what’s happening across the Atlantic a “reverse enlightenment.” 

The head of the European executive did not name-check American researchers or Trump, but her targets were clear. She even framed her speech around the story of Marie Curie — the groundbreaking, Nobel Prize-winning scientist who fled Russian-occupied Poland for France. 

Von der Leyen also announced she would put forward a “European Innovation Act” and a “Startup and Scaleup Strategy” to cut red tape and boost access to venture capital to help turn innovative science into business opportunities.

She added that she wants EU countries to spend 3 percent of their gross domestic product on research by 2030.