At the end of World War Two, most of Europe lay in ruins. The Nazis had been defeated but at a terrible price to both the allied nations and the axis powers, including Germany. A former U.S. ally, the Soviet Union, had emerged as a dangerous threat to Europe.
On June 5, 1947, in a graduation speech at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall issued a call for a comprehensive program to rebuild Europe, both to combat Communist expansion and to help the devastated, starving, and displaced peoples of Europe. Subsequently, Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act in March of 1948, the so-called “Marshall Plan,” approving $12 billion for rebuilding Western Europe.
It worked. The future of Europe and the free world was salvaged. It is time now, in the face of the vicious war against American science, to create a second Marshall plan; this time in the reverse direction: the “Curie Plan to save our science. (CURE SOS).”
Citizens of European states who remember American generosity decades ago; East Asian nations who have sent many of their best students here for training; Canada and wealthy nations in the Middle East banking their futures on science and health care delivery ought to come together to save the future of the world’s science. They should create a single fund to provide fellowships, lab space, travel costs, room and board and mentors to any American scientist or bioethicist, grad student or post-doctoral student under 30 who is willing to move overseas for up to four years to keep their careers afloat.
In institutions all over the U.S. young scientists from here and other nations are being laid off, summarily fired, or dismissed without cause. Students in the sciences are finding themselves with no grant support. They are unable to find positions, identify mentors, or are being let go as probationary new hires. Schools and research institutes are downsizing, and many are limiting admissions to their Ph.D and M.D./Ph.D programs. Bioethics programs are at grave risk both financially and because they stand for equity, inclusion, diversity, the protection of human and animal research subjects, and scientific integrity. The very future of American science and, thus, of international public health is in grave jeopardy.
The rest of the developed world has a huge interest in saving the greatest engine of scientific progress the world has ever seen and from which the whole world has benefited. As under the Marshall Plan, the developed nations of the world can work together, putting aside national interests to compete in hiring in favor of creating a single fund to rescue the best and brightest young people working in the U.S.
Those launching the war on science are betting that science, which they despise, and bioethics which they despise just as much, won’t recover from the huge and indiscriminate cuts they are making to research and to experts that they do not want to hear or heed. A Curie rescue plan can prevent that from happening. It would guarantee that there will be a trained, talented cohort of scientists and ethicists ready to resume their important work in the U.S. when this war ends, or remain in their new national homes and continue to contribute to the world’s health, safety, equity and security.
Some efforts are already underway at universities in Canada, France and some EU states to recruit American scientists who find themselves prohibited from pursuing their research or left in the lurch as their grants are cut. Harvard and some other schools are heading to court to fight radical grant cuts. But these efforts are too scattered and too small. A big push, transparently administered by nations with all contributing and having a fair chance to recruit, supplemented by foundations, publishers, and equipment manufacturers is what America and the world need.
The U.S. once realized it needed a strong Europe to help friends in need and to build a prosperous future for itself. Europe, Canada and other technological societies can do the same by prudently guaranteeing a path to preserve the future of the science that undergirds the world’s health.
Arthur Caplan, PhD, is the Drs. William F. and Virginia Connolly Mitty Professor of Bioethics at the Division of Medical Ethics, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Department of Population Health, NYU Langone Health