“Offer a light of hope” to scientists “forced to asylum”. The former President of the Republic, François Hollande, as well as the president of the University of Aix-Marseille, Éric Berton, advocate the creation of a status of “scientific refugee” for researchers forced to exile by the Trump administration, in a forum published Friday in Liberation.
“This would allow them to welcome them in good conditions, while promoting innovation, scientific, French, even European diplomacy,” they write. Between cancelled or threatened funding, fear of censorship and damage to their freedoms, more and more researchers or aspirants researchers are thinking of leaving the United States, which has so far considered as research paradise in many areas.
According to a survey published at the end of March by the specialized journal Nature and carried out with more than 1,600 people, more than 75 % of scientists are today thinking of such a departure due to the policies put in place by Donald Trump.
“Considerable impact on global research”
“On March 6, Aix-Marseille University launched Safe Place for Sciencean asylum program for scientists in the United States, ”underline François Hollande and Éric Berton in their column. “In less than a month, nearly 300 applications have reached, mainly by encrypted messaging, and with them, worrying testimonies, sometimes swallowing, from American researchers on the fate reserved for them by the Trump administration.”
According to the authors of the gallery, “the policy of the Trump administration already has a considerable impact on global research”. “This is why we make an urgent request heard, up to the moment we live: the creation of a status of scientific refugee They write. “To all these scientists chased from their laboratory, forced to asylum, we must offer a light of hope”.
“In the same way as journalists or political opponents, when hampered, scientists must therefore necessarily be able to be recognized as refugees in its own right,” continue the two authors. This status would allow, they underline, to “welcome the researchers in good conditions, while allowing them to develop their integration into laboratories, universities or research centers”.