French University to Fund American Scientists Who Fear Trump Censorship

A leading French university is inviting American scientists who fear their research on subjects like climate might be censored by Donald Trump’s administration to do their work in France.

“The program is called ‘safe place for science,’ and will provide 15 million Euros in funding for some 15 researchers over a 3-year period,” Clara Bufi, a spokesperson for Aix Marseille University, told me in an email. “It targets, but is not limited to, climate and environment, health, and human and social sciences.”

A press release from Aix Marseille University today said that the program is for American scientists who “may feel threatened or hindered in their research,” and is “dedicated to welcoming scientists wishing to pursue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence and academic freedom.”

In an interview with AFP, University management said that the invitation is in the “DNA of Marseille” values, and that it has previously invited researchers from Ukraine, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Palestine as part of a program that supports researchers and artists forced into exile. 

Aix Marseille University’s press release doesn’t mention Trump by name but is obviously referring to his administration’s unprecedented dismantling of the federal government and specifically its withdrawing of support for any research that even mentions “climate.” 

The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in particular have already frozen federal grants and loans for the National Institutes of Health, the US National Science Foundations, and fired thousands of workers across the federal government, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, critical for weather forecasting for natural disasters. The language of many of his executive orders is also so broad, researchers at public universities and other research institutions worry they’ll lose funding for their work if they even mention climate, gender, race, or equity, terms that the Trump administration has been trying to wipe off any federal site and program. 

Generously, Aix Marseille University is offering a kind of lifeboat to scientists that will not only help them earn a living, but also continue to do presumably important research on some of the greatest environmental, technological, and medical challenges facing humanity. More cynically, another developed nation is perhaps seeing an opportunity to benefit from an imminent braindrain in the United States because of the rise of an anti-science authoritarian regime. 

Either way, the offer is a dire sign of the situation in the United States. Historically, scientists and artists defected to America and other democracies from places like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, not from America.