“Just hours after opening its new program for American researchers called Safe Place for Science in reaction to Trump administration policies, Aix Marseille University received its first application,” according to The New York Times.

“Since then, the university, which is in the south of France and is known for its science programs, has received about a dozen applications per day from what the school considers ‘scientific asylum’ seekers.”

I was actually in Marseille for an academic workshop when the university launched its Safe Place for Science program and witnessed the French and international responses to it.

The workshop in Marseille was focused on Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique (Religious Wars and Climate Change). Jérémie Foa, Maître de Conférences HDR (Aix-Marseille Université and TELEMMe), and I had organized this workshop during the preceding months and it was successfully held on 11 March at the Institute for Advanced Study of Aix-Marseille Université (IMéRA).

The IMéRA is an interdisciplinary research institute based on the model of the famous Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey. The IMéRA is part of a French network of research institutes and the broader EURIAS network of research institutes across the European Union.

Jérémie Foa and I are currently collaborating on the connections between religious conflict and climate change in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period associated with the so-called Little Ice Age, when severe cooling shortened growing seasons and disrupted crop growth, producing famines and social crises across the northern hemisphere. Unfortunately, the themes of climate change and climate history would be impossible to get federal research funding for now in the United States. After our successful workshop, we hope to organize a larger conference in Marseille next year, also to be held at the IMéRA.

As a professor from an American university who was already in Marseille when the Safe for Science Program launched, I was invited to participate in discussions at Aix-Marseille Université of the impact of current Trump administration actions targeting research institutions, research funding, and higher education in the United States.

I have already written a detailed post (see below) about the discussions in Marseille and French news organizations’ coverage of the launch of the Safe for Science Program and the press conference held in Marseille.

Two weeks later, The New York Times and other news media in the United States are now starting to report on the “brain drain” of researchers from the United States toward Europe.

“Other universities in France and elsewhere in Europe have also rushed to save American researchers fleeing drastic cuts to jobs and programs by the Trump administration, as well as perceived attacks on whole fields of research.”

The New York Times emphasizes that “at stake are not just individual jobs, but the concept of free scientific inquiry, university presidents say. They are also rushing to fill huge holes in collective research caused by the cuts, particularly in areas targeted by the Trump administration, including studies of climate change, public health, environmental science, gender and diversity.”

Porter, Catherine. “As Trump’s Policies Worry Scientists, France and Others Put Out a Welcome Mat.” The New York Times (25 March 2025).

On Aix-Marseille Université’s Safe Place for Science Program and the French and European response to it, see my previous post on Attack on U.S. Research and Education: French Views.

On the workshop on Guerres de Religion et Changement Climatique held a the IMéRA, see my previous post on Religious Wars and Climate Change.

The IMéRA webpage and the Safe Place for Science Program webpage are at the Aix-Marseille Université website.