Netherlands launches $58mln fund in quest to recruit top researchers

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Bloomberg
12 Jul 2025 18:04

The Tulip Fund is designed to bring 50 researchers to the Netherlands, offering institutions up to €1 million ($1.2 million) for each researcher they hire.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof during a visit to the headquarters of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, on July 7, 2025 (Social media)

The Netherlands has announced the creation of a €50 million ($58.5 million) fund aimed at attracting leading international researchers, as US President Donald Trump continues to implement widespread cuts to federally funded science and research.

The Tulip Fund is designed to bring 50 researchers to the Netherlands, offering institutions up to €1 million ($1.2 million) for each researcher they hire. The fund will be open to all prominent researchers working outside the European Union, regardless of their nationality.

Dutch Minister of Education, Robbert Dijkgraaf, wrote in a letter to the Dutch parliament on Thursday that there exists intense competition for talent worldwide, and geopolitical tensions are currently increasing the international mobility of scientists.

The Tulip Fund is set to open for applications in the second half of July, with research institutions given six months to nominate candidates. The final selection will be made by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

American ‘scientific refugees’ arrive in France

In early July, the first wave of American academics leaving the US under Donald Trump's presidency landed in France.

Aix-Marseille University (AMU) welcomed eight US-based researchers as part of its “Safe Place for Science” initiative, designed to attract scholars who face or fear funding cuts under the Trump administration. The program offers these researchers a new beginning in the sunny Mediterranean city of Marseille.

Although France and the broader European Union have each launched multimillion-euro efforts to draw scientific talent from the US since Trump took office in January, AMU’s program is the first of its kind in France. As a result, the eight scholars now settling at AMU are considered the first “academic refugees” to formally relocate to France.

Speaking from the university’s hilltop astrophysics institute, AMU President Éric Berton drew a stark historical parallel, comparing the current exodus to the flight of European academics from Nazi persecution during World War II.

“What is at play here today is not unrelated to another dark period of our history,” Berton said.

Both Berton and former French President François Hollande have advocated for the recognition of a special "scientific refugee" status to support displaced researchers.