Toulouse university community reaches out to USA researchers in difficulty
The March 31, 2025
In the face of the threats and drastic, targeted budget cuts affecting research in the United States, Toulouse's academic community is offering to host researchers whose work is threatened. With the support of the Occitanie region and the French government, this initiative yields a base-line of ten hosting opportunities.
There has been a marked increase in the number of attacks on science occurring across the Atlantic. The current state of affairs is of even greater than that observed in 2017, a period during which researchers were already opting to leave the United States. Presently, we are observing the looming threat of entire scientific domains facing potential extinction.
In today's globalized research environment, the academic community associated with the universities of Toulouse cannot accept that many of our own high-profile fields of research are now under threat across the Atlantic and undermined by a policy that deliberately blocks scientific progress. The future of global research hinges on addressing this critical issue.
In order to address this pressing necessity, the higher education and research communities in Toulouse have elected to take action. In the context of the “Toulouse Initiative for Research's Impact on Society”, a program co-funded primarily by the French government and the Occitanie Region, the programs for hosting international researchers will be used to enable approximately ten researchers from the United States or working in the United States to find in Toulouse the means to pursue their research in complete serenity in threatened fields such as the humanities, climate science, health, and space.
These funding opportunities will be available to postdoctoral researchers and advanced researchers over the next three years. A concerted effort will be made to support researchers who wish to protect data whose archiving could be threatened.
Applications may be submitted from April 2025, with the objective of an arrival date in Toulouse before the end of the year. Complementary funding schemes may be established, with a focus on post-doctoral researchers whose funding has been discontinued in the United States.
In alignment with the European "Choose Europe" initiative, the academic institutions situated within the Toulouse campus will extend calls through the European Alliances in which they are leaders or partners, to amplify this initiative.
By expressing solidarity with our American colleagues, the higher education and research institutions in Toulouse are reaffirming the principles they uphold for academic research, positioning themselves as a sanctuary for science in peril. This initiative offers a tangible alternative for researchers whose current or future work in the United States is impeded.
For more information on the Tiris program, contact the team: welcome-tiris @ univ-toulouse.fr
