On 1 October, the European Commission announced an extra €210 million to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), the European Union (EU) flagship grant scheme supporting doctoral education and postdoctoral training.
Since its establishment in 1996, the programme has supported more than 150,000 researchers and this additional funding is set to finance over 700 more across 2026 and 2027.
Although relevant, this boost is expected to have a limited impact due to the record-breaking number of MSCA applications in the latest years. For instance, the 2026 MSCA postdoctoral fellowship call alone received more than 21,500 applications.
The measure announced by the Commission is part of Choose Europe, a broader EU initiative launched in May 2025 to attract academics and innovators to Europe.
Back then, some researchers had started considering leaving the United States (US) in response to budget cuts and policy shifts under the Donald Trump administration, an opportunity Europe tried to seize by positioning itself as an alternative.
But did the EU do enough to become a leading destination for researchers?
After spending countless hours speaking with academics to unpack complex scientific topics, Euronews Tech Talks dives into the state of European academia through the voices of leading professors and young researchers from across the continent.
Is Europe doing enough to attract academics from the US?
Since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidential mandate, research in the US has faced several challenges. Budget cuts, visa-related problems and crackdowns on campus protests have fuelled the debate on whether the country is still a good place for scientists.
In response, Europe has tried to attract talent from the US, launching both regional and national plans.
However, according to Helga Nowotny, former president of the European Research Council, these strategies have some flaws. “The intention was a good one, but the way Europe went about it was, and I’m sorry to say that, not well coordinated,” she said.
Nowotny noted that the strategy was too fragmented, with member states, universities and EU institutions almost competing among themselves.
“We are now in a more realistic phase, and we should concentrate on getting young people because the situation for young researchers in the US is getting very difficult,” she added.
With the rise of more extremist political groups around Europe, however, Nowotny thinks the EU should not take its academic freedom and scientific values for granted.
“We have to be very attentive and not fall into the trap of the illusion that just because some countries have written in their constitution the freedom of science, that this is all that is needed,” she said.
Is Europe doing enough to keep academics?
Attracting researchers to Europe, however, is only the first step.
According to Orla Feely, president of University College Dublin, Ireland, there are technical factors that Europe needs to work on to keep researchers on the continent: visa permits, strong pathways to industry and building an environment where people not only want to work, but also to live.
Particularly, Europe seems to struggle to translate research into innovation. “We know that we have great research in Europe, but we also know that as you advance further along the competitiveness spectrum, that Europe has fallen behind other countries,” Feely said.
Yet Feely is positive that things will improve: “There are a lot of things that we need to get right, but I think people are increasingly aware of these and are working together so that we join up the undoubted talent coming out of European universities and turn it into competitive advantage”.
According to Manuel Heitor, professor and former Portugal minister of science, technology and higher education, the problem in Europe is not the innovation gap.
“What we are facing is an investment gap that actually then results in an innovation gap,” he told Euronews Next. “We need to recognise that we need to align and accelerate research and innovation, and this will require an adequate funding level and better governance,” he added.
This is a crucial time to talk about investment and allocation of EU resources. Discussions are ongoing in the EU on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), the long-term budget plan for 2028-2034.
Based on the proposal presented by the Irish Presidency of the European Council on 10 October, the budget of Horizon Europe, the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation, would be €158 billion, an amount that certain universities have criticised as a reduction compared to the European Commission proposal.
Euronews Tech Talks is a podcast produced, written, presented and published in English.
