Giving US researchers a new home

This call for action was originally published in German in Der Spiegel by Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, Ulrike Malmendier, Monika Schnitzer, Moritz Schularick, Achim Truger, Georg Weizsäcker, Martin Werding and Cornelia Woll.

Lise Meitner and Albert Einstein not only stand for scientific excellence, but also for the many people who once turned their backs on Germany in order to continue their work in academic freedom. Lise Meitner fled to Stockholm in 1938, where she analysed the data from the first nuclear fission, while Albert Einstein had already been conducting his research in theoretical physics at Princeton University since 1932.

The exile of Meitner and Einstein is symbolic of an experience that is both formative and tragic for the German scientific landscape: through intolerance, repression, and expulsion, Germany lost many of its brightest minds. Since then, a high proportion of the world's best researchers have settled in the United States, drawn by its networks, prestige, the promise of academic freedom, and generous research funding.

Now, cracks are beginning to show in the image of the American scientific landscape, as the Trump administration threatens students with deportation, freezes funding streams, and dictates content-related priorities. These include the dismantling of research programmes at the National Institutes of Health, sweeping closures within the Department of Education, the withdrawal of public funding for universities like Columbia and Johns Hopkins, as well as threatening letters currently being sent to many other American universities.

“We can reverse the brain drain and, in doing so, not only strengthen our own capacity for innovation and research, but also help to offset the global loss in scientific progress”

This development poses a huge risk for all countries in the world, as it undermines one of the most important global sources of innovation and prosperity. Yet it also presents an opportunity for Germany and Europe: we can reverse the brain drain and, in doing so, not only strengthen our own capacity for innovation and research, but also help to offset the global loss in scientific progress.

We already have a highly developed scientific infrastructure in Germany and will benefit enormously from the ideas of newly attracted top researchers. In our institutes and lecture halls, they can continue to develop and pass on their knowledge.

But anyone who thinks we just need to open the doors to our research labs and universities for the research elite from the US to stroll right in is mistaken. Even though Trump’s policies stir up a lot of uncertainty and fear, researchers in the US still enjoy at least equally strong infrastructure, high salaries, and excellent networks. We need to make a real effort and develop generous and well-targeted plans to attract professors and young researchers from the US.

The establishment of the “Meitner-Einstein Programme” is intended to do just that and specifically promote the appointment of outstanding researchers from the US to German universities and non-university research institutions. Under the umbrella of the German Research Foundation and funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, a larger number of professorships - up to 100 -   could quickly be created.

Such a programme can also fund younger outstanding researchers, depending on how it is structured by the applying institutions. The programme is intended to cover the personnel costs of the funded professorships, along with appropriate resources, which, however, should ideally also be provided from existing funds.

The programme is aimed at researchers whose work in the US can no longer be continued or can only be continued to a limited extent. At the same time, the programme should focus on strategic future-oriented fields in which Germany has a particularly high need for innovation, such as artificial intelligence and robotics, research areas relevant to climate and health, as well as other STEM subjects. Aside from these specifics, however, the decision to participate in the programme should be based solely on scientific excellence.

Einstein is said to have once claimed that it is harder to crack prejudice than an atom. But today, we can challenge and refute the prejudice that Europe plays only second fiddle in research. At the same time, we can fill the vacuum created by the cutbacks in the US. As troubling as the science policy landscape is in the United States, it offers Germany and Europe the chance to make their own research landscape more dynamic. Let’s take it, for the good of science.

This article was first published in German by Der Spiegel on 01.04.2025. Read the full article here.

Article co-authored by:

Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln
President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center and Professor of Macroeconomics and Development at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Ulrike Malmendier
Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Monika Schnitzer
Professor of Comparative Economic Research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Chair of the German Council of Economic Experts.

Moritz Schularick
President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Achim Truger
Professor of Socioeconomics at the University of Duisburg-Essen and member of the German Council of Economic Experts.

Georg Weizsäcker
Professor of Economics at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Martin Werding
Professor of Social Policy and Public Finance at Ruhr University Bochum and member of the German Council of Economic Experts.

Cornelia Woll
President of the Hertie School and Professor of International Political Economy.