Viewpoint: as the US sinks, Europe must rise for global science

If you were wondering what Trump means for global science, the French embassy here in Washington DC had something worth seeing this week. 

On stage at the embassy’s auditorium on February 24, Franco-American chemist Moungi Bawendi recounted the discovery of “quantum dots” for which he shared a Nobel Prize in 2023. It was a classic tale of scientific curiosity leading, after many years, to real-life products, in this case a key component in high-end video monitors and other devices. 

So what, he was asked, does he make of the Trump administration’s plans to slash the US science budget?

“It’s going to be absolutely catastrophic for any sort of research,” he said. He is now a professor at MIT, one of the world’s richest universities, but even so, he said, “I don’t know if I am going to be able to fund any graduate students.” Apparently “we can’t rely on the federal government to fund this anymore.”

That kind of horror is spreading through the American science community, the world’s largest and most productive. As ever with Trump, we don’t know yet how much of his plans are trash-talk or real. But we do know they are already echoing around the global scientific community. At risk: US participation in hundreds of multi-country climate and health research projects; the US contribution to Europe’s ITER fusion reactor, the CERN high-energy physics lab and the International Space Station; the viability of US-based research infrastructures that foreign governments have already co-funded; the reimbursement rate to universities for federal research; staffing levels at the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health  – all in turmoil, driven by a president with no understanding of and no interest in how science works. 

Lean on industry

So far, the American science community has done little more than moan. Many of its leaders are trying to rationalise cooperation with Trump’s minions, in hopes of saving a few extra bucks from the Republican chopper. But there is no point in negotiating with a dictator. The only voices Trump will heed are those of the stock market and his billionaire cronies. And they will only speak up for science if they fear the loss of new technologies and products. So, rather than lobbying a paralysed Congress, academics should now be rattling their own friends in the defence, pharma, energy, aerospace and tech industries. 

Yet for the global scientific community – especially for Europe – this could be an opportunity. 

We have already seen the value of international cooperation in science and technology. It produced COVID vaccines in less than a year. It nearly eradicated polio and suppressed deadly measles (until the anti-vaxxers now in Washington mobilised). Mobile phones are a global endeavour, starting with Nordic Mobile Telephone in the 1970s and moving to 5G and 6G in China, the US and Europe. The satellites, electric cars and other gadgets that fuelled Musk’s billions are the product of decades of global research and development. Weather forecasting, climate science, renewable energy: not a single significant innovation of the past century has come from one country working alone, though it was often the well-funded and highly respected US scientific community that catalysed action. 

Europe can lead

So, if American science is out to lunch for at least a few years, who could step up?

Europe, to begin with. Its €93.5 billion Horizon Europe is already the most open large R&D programme in the world, with 20 nations from Canada to South Korea joining the 27 EU member-states in every field of research and innovation. It is a template for how a multi-lateral, world-wide science programme can operate, with or without US participation. 

Yes, Horizon has many problems: heavy paperwork, policy flip-flops, wide variation in effectiveness – from a super-successful European Research Council for fundamental science to unproductive budget-mummery in many industrial collaborations. But the EU is working on these issues as it shapes its next big R&D initiative, Framework Programme 10.

More difficult for Europe is its endless bickering over money and methods. Even before Trump, the “frugals” among EU members were urging budget restraint, rejecting calls to double the Framework budget. In reaction, rival camps in the research community – universities, industries, small companies, eastern countries – have been battling one another for those budget scraps that might remain. They have been bickering for control over this and that pillar and cluster and partnership in the Framework Programme, ignoring the very real possibility that the entire structure could become collateral damage in the dash to boost defence and deliver the EU’s “competitiveness agenda”. Just as the US science community must unite and act, so must the European research world. And to be heard, it must enlist the aid of politically significant industries. 

Still, these are internal EU disputes; they will get resolved. Despite the political messiness, the Horizon model remains one proven way to unite researchers around specific scientific and technical goals. Because it works (more or less), it should be the first rallying point for a post-American approach to global science. Rather than a world of competing sci-tech empires, we could build a truly multi-lateral science system, supported by many countries, enabling free movement of talent, permitting open access to ideas, and setting clear rules for commercial exploitation of results.

A world of new leaders

Nor is it only Europe that should lead. India, Brazil, South Africa, Canada, Australia, Korea, Japan – lots of greater and lesser science powers around the world should initiate Horizon-like efforts, in specific science and technology domains for which they have unusual expertise. Nor should this exclude China, the world’s second largest scientific power. Despite its autocratic government and rivalries with the West, it has a great scientific workforce that can help solve global problems like climate change and pandemics. 

To be clear, I am not advocating a United Nations for science; notwithstanding the success of the International Panel on Climate Change, most serious endeavours in science or technology need a clear leader whose vision inspires others to join with their money and talent. But who is better placed than Brazil to initiate a new, global research programme on rainforest preservation, or Canada on Arctic research and exploitation?

With the madness of King Donald, the world’s scientific community has a rare opportunity to reinvent how it works. We could see many initiatives, from many countries. But because Europe has already had 40 years of experience in successful cross-border R&D, it should be first to move. Now is the time for Europe to lead in global R&D, and to put the money where its future lies.

Richard L. Hudson is a co-founder and associate editor of Science|Business.