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00:00Well, when it comes to this speech, basically, Emmanuel Macron pledged 100 million euros of specific budget in order to receive these scientists.
00:09And you're so la van der Leyen, as you heard, 500 million.
00:12Now, there was a very strong message today.
00:14It was interesting to listen to Emmanuel Macron, for example, explaining that it was remarkable to see one of the world's largest democracies, as he put it, make such a mistake, as he said, when it came to science,
00:28saying that, indeed, a lot of the United States wealth was built upon its research and innovation, and that, indeed, they are now closing the door to that situation.
00:38So both the leaders we heard today, Emmanuel Macron and Arsala van der Leyen, very much stress the fact that Europe was a free area for academic research, that there would be no pressure put on scientists.
00:50Jocelyn van der Leyen actually saying that what she wanted to see was a European freedom of academic freedom bill act being voted into law, because she says, of course, there are some threats upon academic freedom around the world, and that this needs to be enshrined in European law.
01:13So basically, the idea is for these two leaders to try and attract these scientists who are working in the fields that are not aligned with Donald Trump's policy, namely climate, for example, also reproductive and women's health, trying to bring them across the Atlantic Ocean so they can carry on their research here in Europe.
01:36Why would American researchers want to come to Europe, James?
01:41Well, simply because a lot of them have actually lost their jobs or lost their grants or financing of this research over the past 100 days that, indeed, Donald Trump has been in power.
01:54If I give you just a very recent example, this was just last week, the climate assessment report, which is a pluriannual reference report when it comes to climate change in the United States, well, has basically been put on hold as the Trump administration has relieved all these researchers working on this report from their work.
02:17Basically, one of them was saying that it amounts to basically killing the report.
02:22So this is critical research, both for the federal government, but also for American companies in the decisions they make long term.
02:30And you could cite a lot of fields that are being affected simply because, for example, the word diversity is part of the research.
02:38We've seen American universities losing their federal grants, for example, Harvard's lost $2.2 billion in grants.
02:47Also, Colombia has had $400 million taken away.
02:51So very much a maximum pressure that is imposed on scientific research in the United States in a certain amount of fields.
02:59And that, of course, means that these programs are being either terminated or put on hold.
03:04These researchers are losing their jobs.
03:06Others also who are foreigners who live in the United States on long term visa or a green card are worried that they might get arrested and deported.
03:15So that's another reason for them to potentially flee the United States, if you will.
03:20And what Europe is trying to do is to attract these very brilliant minds in Europe in order to boost research and innovation.