Trump is driving American scientists into Europe’s arms
But the continent will have to invest more to lure top talent
John von Neumann and Albert Einstein were part of a wave of great scientists who fled Nazi Germany, went to America and created new fields of research. The effect on innovation by American scientists was vast. Patenting in chemistry increased by 71%, according to research by Fabian Waldinger, then of Warwick University, and co-authors. America later built on its huge wartime scientific boom to win technological races against its new communist rivals. For decades, America’s immense investment in research lured Europe’s best scientific talent across the Atlantic.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Draining brains”
Europe
March 29th 2025- Protests are the last thing keeping Turkey’s democracy alive
- Russia plays for time in Ukraine ceasefire talks
- Trump is driving American scientists into Europe’s arms
- Ukrainian refugees may be in Europe for good
- A fight over a cloister in tourist-filled Florence
- The prospect of war has turned Europe into a continent of preppers
From the March 29th 2025 edition
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Putin’s Easter ceasefire gimmick bodes ill for Trump’s peace deal
The Kremlin’s grey-zone war in the Black Sea shows its real intent
The threat to free speech in Germany
One of the freest countries in the world takes a hammer to its own reputation
Europe’s streets are alive with the sound of protests
An arc of discontent runs through Serbia and Turkey
Young men in Spain love the hardline Vox
They find the rough populism of the hard right appealing
Power is being monopolised in Ukraine
Critics say the presidency is becoming too mighty, and making mistakes
Trump’s Ukraine ceasefire is slipping away
The American president increasingly looks like Russia’s willing dupe