Europe as science superpower: what it will take to rival the US and China

“Europe will always choose science,” Ursula von der Leyen announced in May 2025 in a landmark speech that kicked off a European Union-wide campaign to attract scientists fleeing the chaotic US research environment. The president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch in Brussels, didn’t explicitly mention US President Donald Trump, but she didn’t have to. Trump’s administration had in the preceding months frozen grant funding, pulled the United States from global scientific organizations and begun firing federal research staff. Europe’s leaders hope to fill the vacuum left by chaos in the United States — and position the region as an alternative research superpower. The EU has allocated nearly €900 million (US$1 billion) to its Choose Europe initiative, which aims to make the region a magnet for researchers around the world, and individual European countries have launched some 100 complementary schemes . Europe must seize the moment to lead on free and open science A renewed focus on innovation means that the EU’s main pan-national research-funding programme, Horizon Europe, could receive its largest-ever increase for the next seven-year cycle, which will run from 2028 to 2034, taking the fund’s value up to €175 billion . The programme’s reach also looks set to grow. …