Maintain transparency, open communication and mobility of scholars and scientists
February 10, 2017
We, as European organisations involved in science (which for us includes the social sciences and humanities), research, education and innovation, benefit from and wish to defend the open exchange of ideas and people, which constitutes the foundation of scientific endeavour.
From our multiple contacts with scientists, researchers and organisations in the USA and around the world we are aware of the anxiety among our colleagues concerning the impact of the ongoing policy reorientation under President Donald Trump and his administration. We are particularly concerned about the following developments:
The Executive Order discriminating against persons because of their nationality ;
Indications that government scientists might be affected by new administration policies limiting their communication with the press, policymakers or society at large, and that government scientists would require permission from superiors to publish;
The unwarranted credibility to views not based on facts and sound scientific processes and evidence in areas such as climate science or the safety of vaccines.
All of these are at odds with the principles of transparency, open communication, mobility of scholars and scientists, which are vital to scientific progress and to the benefit our societies, economies and cultures derive from it. Restrictions on research, scientists and research centres in inconvenient areas have no place in science.
Our colleagues working in the US will suffer, the United States and US citizens will pay a price, as will Europe and Europeans, and countries and people all across the globe. Facing unprecedented challenges the world needs solid science and research resulting from an open scientific process in which scientists, researchers, students and innovators can freely exchange approaches and results, and can move from country to country to study and work where their contributions are most valuable.
We call upon European governments and the European Commission to uphold the principles and values that underpin scientific progress, to work with their counterparts in the US administration to maintain a global science system based on these principles and to take any measure at the national and European levels to preserve and increase the world’s scientific and research capacity. These principles and values have been and will remain vital for our societies, economies and cultures to flourish.
List of signatories
- Academia Europaea
- ALLEA (ALL European Academies)
- British Biophysical Society
- Citizens of Academia, Poland
- Danish National Committee for Biophysics
- De Jonge Academie Vlaanderen
- EPSO, European Plant Science Organisation
- Eurodoc
- European Association of Social Anthropologists
- European Association of Social Psychology
- European Biophysical Societies’ Association
- European Crystallograpic Assocation
- European Educational Research Association
- European Mathematical Society
- European Physical Society
- President and Executive European Science Foundation
- European Society for Gene and Cell Therapy
- European University Association
- EuroScience
- Federation of European Neuroscience Societies
- French Biophysical Society
- German Biophysical Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Biophysik)
- Informatics Europe
- Italian Society of Pure and Applied Biophysics
- LERU, League of European Research Universities
- Marie Curie Alumni Association
- Portuguese Biophysical Society
- Pan European Region of the International Association for Dental Research
- Real Sociedad Matemática Española
- ROARS (Return On Academic ReSearch, Italy
- Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and Arts KNAW
- Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- Science Europe (Association of European Research Funding Agencies and Research Performing Organisations)
- Scientists for EU
- Sense about Science EU
- Societas biochemica, biophysica et microbiologica Fenniae
- Spanish Biophysical Society
- Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences
- Executive Committee of Turkish Biophysical Society
