Aix-Marseille University to Welcome 31 American Researchers: "What's Happening in the United States is Anti-Science, It's the Arrival of Obscurantism"

Aix-Marseille University (AMU) will welcome 31 American researchers next academic year, whose academic freedom has been threatened by Donald Trump's policies, as part of its Safe Place for Science program. ("a safe place for science"), announced its president Eric Berton on France Inter on Friday, July 18.

By March 31, the application deadline, AMU had received 300 applications, and a total of 600 American researchers had expressed an interest in working at the Marseille university, one of the largest in France in terms of student numbers (80,000, including 12,000 international students).

The 31 researchers selected "are senior profiles, high-level professors" who work in environmental sciences, in the fields of humanities (gender studies, history, geography), biology, health, epidemiology, immunology, and "more surprisingly, colleagues who come from NASA and will join us in our astrophysics laboratories," added Mr. Berton.

"The hardest part of this episode is the poignant messages from the people we didn't take on," he said, believing, however, that "these colleagues will also be able to find solutions in other French universities and in Europe" thanks to the Choose France program and European scholarships. "They are under pressure, the databases of colleagues who work in the climate field are sometimes erased, they can no longer work, but they are asked to justify their salaries, which is quite comical," Mr. Berton said.

"What's happening in the United States influences the whole world" : in France, "programs are being stopped because they've been stopped in the United States. We have to rise to the occasion. What's happening in the United States is anti-science, it's the arrival of obscurantism. It's an honor for French universities to bring a glimmer of hope to these colleagues," he emphasized.

The president of AMU, who, alongside former President François Hollande, defends the status of "scientific refugee" , recalled that Aix-Marseille University also welcomes "25 colleagues who come from Iran, Lebanon, Ukraine, Palestine" . "Just like a political opponent, the scientist can hinder the power in place, when [the latter] is climate sceptic for example" , he added.

Since Donald Trump's return to the White House in January, researchers and universities have been in his administration's crosshairs, and billions of dollars in research grants have been cut.