Europe must respond to Trump's science cuts
BarcelonaCatalan science has already begun to feel the impact of the Trump administration's cuts in various areas of research. The hardest hit is the biomedical field, as much research falls under the control of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has had a significant portion of its funding withdrawn. According to the journal NatureThis decision completely changes the scientific landscape worldwide and leaves thousands of research projects and clinical trials on emerging infectious diseases, cancers, and pediatric diseases in suspense. And since in today's science, many of these ongoing investigations are international in scope and involve centers in different countries, the impact has already reached Catalonia, as Javier Martínez-Picado, an Icrea researcher at IrsiCaixa, told ARA. Martínez-Picado explained the case of two projects that were being carried out jointly with American researchers and are now paralyzed. But the impact is expected to be much greater and affect many more projects.
Faced with this situation, which is likely to be repeated in all European countries, the European Union must react quickly and apply the prescription included in the famous Draghi Report, which already warned that a colossal effort was needed to bring community science up to the same level as that of its competitors. Draghi warned of the danger of Europe being left behind in the global technological race, given that only four of the top fifty companies in the sector are European. He also emphasized the importance of investing in the university system, highlighting the fact that of the ten Nobel Prizes in science awarded in 2024, none came from an EU university and all worked in the United States.
The reality is that the US administration is taking advantage of the major mistake it is making to give a definitive boost to European science and attract the minds that, in the current context, do not feel comfortable in a country that views them with suspicion. The Catalan government has already announced a plan to attract talent from the United States, but now the priority should be ensuring the viability of ongoing projects. Furthermore, the United States is leaving a huge gap in the world that, if Europe doesn't act quickly, will quickly be filled by China. Thus, for example, the Trump administration has suspended more than 200 grants for research into HIV and AIDS, a disease that has a lethal impact on the African continent.
Europe must understand that the world has changed and that its relationship with the United States can never be the same, at least while Trump is in office. The current US administration despises the European Union, despises any type of international collaboration, and even despises science, as is becoming clear. And in the face of this, there is only one way forward: to make a virtue out of necessity and take the necessary steps to regain the global scientific leadership that was lost after World War II.
