> an investment of 500 million euros between 2025 and 2027
That seems like nowhere near enough money, though. But I suppose it's better than nothing.
Europe keeps a ton of jobs gated behind language requirements. Sure, you'll get the most desperate people who need a visa this way, but Europe isn’t attracting top of the crop like the US this way.
Also, the red tape is brutal and everything requires six layers of bureaucracy. Even Amazon orders and customer service suck, but that's beside the point. It's way easier to get into a great US university and get funding for research. It's also easier to get a job afterward. The sheer number of opportunities, combined with the lack of a language barrier and less bureaucracy, makes the US better than all the other alternatives despite the poor transportation, weak social safety net, and terrible healthcare.
My problem with the post is that the claims are too broad to refute, but too FUD to not respond to.
Not where it isn't strictly necessary and I believe it is a good thing but I've seen english being used whenever people from multiple european countries are working with each other.
It is the case in IT and definitely the case in research too. Even 27 years ago when I was an intern in France, my office was next to the office of some mathematicians, I believe one japanese, a russian and another one I don't remember and they were all speaking in english.
There are plenty of European countries that do use English as the working language for technical fields, if there is not enough domestic talent.
What you say about the US research ecosystem may have been true until January 2025 but it is unfortuantely no longer the case. At the same time, the EU is finally getting its act together in both defense AND research funding. So I would forecast a sunnier future in Europe for scientists than the the US, at least for the next generation.
Care to elaborate? Last time I was in the US my prime order took over a week to be delivered because it had to get shipped from a warehouse in rural Ohio to San Diego. Here in Germany you get absolutely everything next day because the country is about the size of an average US state.
The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. But it is International English alright, which may be somewhat of a novelty to the native English speaker if they haven't been exposed.
> Even Amazon orders
That's wholly Amazon's problem. If I order something from BOL or Coolblue it arrives within 12-24 hours. Even small pop-and-mom webstores usually deliver within 1-2 business days. It's only Amazon that somehow manages to average more than a week (my last order at Amazon only arrived after 2 months. Guess why I no longer use their service).
I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag.
Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed:
1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge is that their English is top notch and anecdotally it was the case as well, I also got by purely with English.
2. Germany -- their English is also good but I needed German in edge cases. One edge case was finding an apartment (not speaking German simply pushed you down the list of candidates, even with a full time job in academia). Another one were university rules and announcements; not every email was in English, but arguably easy to get by with modern translation tools.
3. Czechia & Poland -- English is good among the professors but the percentage of locals at the university level is so high that most internal meetings, announcements, local seminars take place in the local language. In my experience, non-faculty university staff (department secretaries, payroll, entrance security) usually strongly dislike speaking English or outright do not speak it at all.
---
I've omitted some more cases where local languages are required. If you live in a country, you will eventually interact with the healthcare sector, where the language experience will likely mimic the experience at the workplace (for the countries above, it would be in the same order for the healthcare sector).
Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them.
In my experience, the helpful/good ones may try to communicate with you in English but if you need something from them or if the bureaucrat had a bad day, you better start talking in the official language.
Indeed: German is the most common first language of the EU, and French is the second-most common first language of the EU. [1] Let's from now on decide that all EU citizens have to speak one of these two languages. Language fragmentation problem solved. :-)
Or are you one of the nerds who lobbies for the idea that everybody should speak Esperanto.
Concerning the idea that "everybody in the EU should speak English": since UK left the EU, there exists no EU country anymore in which English is the only official language: only in Ireland and Malta, English is one of the official languages.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...
Some of the details are still being ironed out. The beauracracy is real! Even so, I guess the first emails will go out late next week.
How much does—or did, recently—the United States federal government invest in scientists in the USA? Is it ~$70 billion a year? [0]
Europe can achieve America's (past) results when Europe starts talking with money. Science migration has historically gone in one direction across the Atlantic, and it is 100% about who pays better. The EU isn't remotely close to funding its own scientists properly—let alone attract new ones from abroad!
If European science benefits from the ongoing government implosion in the USA, that'd be entirely due to the US' unforced error. EU's politicians deserve no credit.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_policy_of_the_United_S... ("Science policy of the United States")
Such is life when you can't infinitely print money for being the world reserve currency. When the whole world is buying your debt no questions asked, it's much easier to write some larger checks you know.
I asked ChatGPT:
"Combining both EU-level and national R&D expenditures, the total R&D spending across the EU in 2023 was approximately €505 billion." But that appears to be total, both government and industry.
Spending by national government was apparently around € 123 billion. In addition, the EU spent ~ € 13 billion a year. So a total of € 136 billion in government spending.
https://www.eureporter.co/economy/eurostat-economy/2024/08/0...
The other numbers are valuable, since they come from actual sources.
"Really trust"? Nope. But I think it gives me a good ballpark estimate and ways to check if that estimate is about right or not.
Checking the answer is quicker and potentially less error-prone than compiling the answer.
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20246/cross-national-compariso... ("Cross-National Comparisons of R&D Performance" (2024))
In the NSF's specific definition, the US greatly outspends the EU even normalizing by GDP—3.46% of GDP in the USA, against 2.16% in the EU-27.
(Notably, China also recently surpassed the EU, at 2.43%).
Now that was 2015, but the number is very similar the EU figure of €136 billion.
There will be be differences, but the point stands that comparing the tiny delta provided by this specific program to total spending is not serious.
The nsf.gov page has a breakdown table, too, of government vs. industry spending.
From a purely financial perspective, a country like Denmark for example, would need to pay more than the US to be as attractive, to account for the fact that it is a tiny country where the main language is not English and where the overall career prospects are more limited.
For people who value money over everything else
Consider a post doc or junior professor who do not know if they will ever get a tenure position or if you even want to remain in academia their whole life. Their plan B is to get an job in industry. Now consider having access to the whole US job market vs. having access to one tiny EU country. Not to mention that when you bias for cutting edge industry R&D there are industries which only have a significant presence in the US.
People value not having to step over the homeless to get to work, lower crime, free healthcare, no risk of deportation for having a view on Palestine etc etc
The US isn't that pleasant of a place to live.
Not just for this, same for finding startups, helping Ukraine or Palestine.
It's a marriage of convenience between states that know they are ignored if they speak on their own. But each of them sees all others as a way to amplify their own voice but surely not have an independent thought. It's the penultimate example of trying to herd cats.
Europe is good at commerce because it has to, the member states want to sell to each other. In the same way, it's bad at politics, military and vision because it still can afford to.
- Europe has, sadly, also been the main sender of aid to, effectively, Hamas. I wish they would stop.
I don’t have an answer, but there has to be some other option.
When Russian scientists were escaping the horrible realities of Putin's regime, had someone in Europe attempted to "lure" them? No, they were fired by hundreds [1] and students were not allowed anymore [2]. Not counting the immense indirect pressure like closing their bank accounts and not prolonging their existing residence documents even when they had jobs.
When Ukrainian scientists tried to escape the horrible war of aggression and cruelty that Russia brought on them, did someone try to "lure" them in? No, they had some charity help and some temporary programs, but mostly they get "emergency temporary" permits with the condition they have to go home afterwards. These temporary protection measures are now being phased out [3] and many Ukrainian scientists will be shown the door.
Now, American scientists are escaping the horrible realities of their regime. But for them, EU is much more friendlier and welcoming.
What is the difference?
[1] https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/science/cern-to-expel-500-russi...
[2] https://t-invariant.org/2024/12/swiss-cross-on-russian-stude...
[3] https://www.icmpd.org/blog/2025/phasing-out-temporary-protec...
I am a Russian scientist too (not CERN affiliated). I live in a European country since 2005. I donated many thousands dollars to Ukrainian causes, and brought hundreds of thousands of value with donations I organized. Now, my bank account is blocked just for the reason of my nationality, and my residence permit is not being renewed. Meanwhile, Russian oligarchs continue managing shadow fleets from European countries, and exchange millions of dollars freely (e.g. with Raiffeisen bank), and everybody knows that (I am not allowed, of course, to open any bank account, neither in Raiffeisen, not anywhere else in Europe). And many EU countries still pay hundreds of millions for Russian natural gas, and this money directly finance Russian military power.
I personally know Ukrainian scientists who lost their temporary protection permits too. Some of them moved back to war-thorn Ukraine, others went to other countries to try their luck there.
You can say "well, tough luck". But tough luck will be for many other people. Some Americans are now wondering why they are being turned away, asking "but we never voted for him!" And they weren't indeed. Judging people by their nationality is not good for everyone involved.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine are currently known for their bleeding-edge scientific research, and I'm saying this as a Russian myself. I'm sorry but almost everyone who was worth their salt left both countries long before 2022.
Maybe the difference is the fact that russia invaded Ukraine and is murdering, raping and pillaging there? Or maybe the fact that most of russian society is actively supporting that invasion? But those are just my opinion. I guess we'll never now what's the difference :)
If you want to get paid, by American standards, lower middle class wages, then sure, come to Europe. You can also enjoy arcane organizations and bureaucratic nightmares.
Anyway, I think this is smart. I live in Berlin and I noticed a bit of an uptick in the amount of US people coming this way lately. The politics in the US might have something to do with that. There's definitely an interest for people to leave there.
Also, the US has been leaning a lot on foreigners to keep its research departments going for decades now. Indians, Chinese, and indeed Europeans. If you look at Silicon Valley, there are a lot of immigrants running companies there. With all the madness around immigration in the US, it has become a bit less attractive as a country to move to. I think this is as much about making the EU a more attractive place to that group of people than it is about luring actual US citizens this way.
The EU has its own issues on immigration. But it's there and there are a lot of opportunities here. I noticed a sharp uptick in Indian job applications recently. There's a lot of talk about money. But most academics aren't on the huge fees you would need to sustain yourself in places with extremely high cost of living on the East and West coast.
Academics don't earn a lot in Europe. I used to be one. But you can live well on what you earn nevertheless.
shivajikobardan•5h ago
stop50•4h ago
sschueller•4h ago
kelnos•3h ago
But non-citizens, especially those who are being pushed to self-deport (or worse)...? I feel like something like this will be an easy sell for them.
manoweb•2h ago