The Netherlands attracts 29 top scientists from the US

Science is under pressure worldwide, such as in the United States. This is regrettable, but it also presents opportunities for Dutch academia. The previous cabinet saw this as an opportunity to attract prominent scientists.

The Ministry of Education and the Dutch Research Council (NWO) earmarked 50 million euros for the so-called Tulip Fund, aimed at scientists who wish to come to the Netherlands. 

Though it is not specifically focused on the US, 29 of the 34 candidates are from there. They are coming from universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, and Yale, as well as from federal research institutes such as the National Cancer Institute. According to NWO, Americans are not the only ones contemplated by the funds: Europeans returning to the Netherlands have received grants, too.

Utrecht University looks forward to welcoming the economist Marieke Kleemans, who has been awarded a Tulip Fund grant. She investigates which factors stimulate economic development and how they can help reduce poverty and inequality, especially in developing countries. She studied at Eindhoven University of Technology and Yale University, after which she obtained her PhD in economic development and migration at UC Berkeley. Since 2016, she has been working as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

Criterion
Other researchers are coming here from countries like Israel, Turkey and Singapore. There is also someone coming from the United Kingdom. Although the UK may not be a country where academic freedom is under threat, that was not a criterion in the awards process, explains a spokesperson for NWO. Candidates simply had to be working outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland. Since Brexit, the UK has fallen outside that area.

“Their arrival is good news for the Netherlands,” says the Minister of Education, Rianne Letschert, in a press release. “This really makes a difference. Every additional scientist means access to new knowledge, networks and fresh perspectives for researchers in our country.”

The researchers had to be working “in fields of clear importance to the Netherlands”, wrote then-Minister of Education Eppo Bruins at the Tulip Fund's launch. The selected candidates' research areas include vaccines, nuclear energy, cancer, Alzheimer’s, mental health, climate, food production, astrophysics and democracy.

Privacy
NWO cannot provide a list of names and institutions for privacy reasons. “Some haven't told their current employers that they are leaving yet,” says a spokesperson. “Someone else said: ‘I want to be in the Netherlands with my whole family before the news gets out.’”

A few institutions have already announced their candidates. Kelly Holley-Bockelmann is moving from Vanderbilt University to the Dutch institute SRON to continue her research on gravitational waves, in collaboration with scientists at NASA.

The researchers are coming here on the recommendation of Dutch universities, universities of applied sciences and other research institutions. They must be among the world’s leading experts in their field. For each researcher, the institution receives up to one million euros over five years. Further grants from the Tulip Fund will follow in 2027.