World News Actuality Presented By Claire Evren French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke at the “Choose Europe for science” event at the prestigious Sorbonne university in Paris.

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World News Actuality Presented By Claire Evren

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke at the “Choose Europe for science” event at the prestigious Sorbonne university in Paris.

The two European leaders Ursula von der Leyen French President Emmanuel Macron At the conference “Choose Europe for Science” announced incentives for researchers seeking to relocate to Europe.At the “Choose Europe for Science” conference which brought together top European officials and academics, von der Leyen said the EC would invest $567 million over the next two years to “make Europe a magnet for researchers.”“Science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party,” explained Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU executive, but it requires a lot of money.

“Nobody could have imagined that this great global democracy whose economic model depends so heavily on free science (…) was going to commit such an error,” Macron said. “But here we are.” He added: “We refuse a diktat consisting of any government being able to say you cannot research this or that.” Macron said that the French government would also soon make new proposals to beef up investment in science and research.

Macron added that Europe “must become a refuge” for scientists and researchers, and he said to those who feel under threat elsewhere: “The message is simple. If you like freedom, come and help us to remain free, to do research here, to help us become better, to invest in our future.”

The EU will also allocate a “new fund of 500 million euros” for the 2025–2027 period “to make Europe a magnet for researchers,” von der Leyen further announced.

In a bid to transform Europe into a bigger global research hub, the European Union and France are launching a multi-million-euro initiative to make the EU a “magnet” for top international scientists. The move comes amid rising geopolitical tensions and concerns over political interference in scientific research, particularly in the United States.

“Unfortunately, we see today that 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, president of the European Commission, said in a speech, which didn’t mention the United States.

Von der Leyen said “open and free” science is Europe’s “calling card.” “We must do everything we can to uphold it — now more than ever before,” she added.

Von der Leyen also said the European Commission wants “to enshrine freedom of scientific research into law” and that EU member states “have to” achieve a target of investing 3% of gross domestic product in research and development by 2030.

French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the plans before several hundred researchers and university representatives gathered in the grand amphitheatre of the Sorbonne.