News from the MCAA - Choose Europe: shaping the future of science and research - September 2025

Choose Europe is the EU’s new initiative to attract the world’s brightest researchers. With fresh funding, easier mobility, and a strong commitment to scientific freedom, it aims to make Europe the global hub for innovation. By choosing Europe, scientists can shape discoveries that define our future.

Choose Europe is the ambitious new initiative of the European Commission to support science and innovation, announced by President von der Leyen at an eponymous event held at the University of La Sorbonne in Paris in May 2025. As the name suggests, its main goal is to attract the brightest scientists in the world, in the hope that they will choose Europe as the long-term place to conduct research and deliver impact, both in terms of knowledge production and innovation. To achieve this goal, the initiative plans to act on three main levels.

New grant schemes, new challenges

The first level is the release of specific new grants aimed at both senior and early-career researchers. For the former, the Commission intends to put forward €500 million to fund 7-year super-grants under the European Research Council, with calls in 2026 and 2027. For the latter, a pilot scheme is planned as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme with a budget of €22.5 million for the call opening in October.

While in general the initiative has been very favourably welcomed, we should also acknowledge that there are minority voices within the research community concerned about the consequences of increased competition and the expected impact on being able to survive in the already challenging academic environment. I suspect that many readers of this article have had similar conversations with colleagues or perhaps share these doubts themselves. While I understand this reaction on a human level, I think it arises from focusing on a narrower perspective.

If we want to convince taxpayers and governments that research and innovation are indeed crucial for the future of our societies, we need to deliver real impact and truly excellent science. And for this, attracting international researchers with novel ideas is crucial, not only for them to do excellent research in the EU, but to encourage discussion, bring new ideas to the EU research ecosystem, as well as creating new collaborations that could end up in exciting breakthroughs. As a former MSCA individual fellow of the global track, I know from my personal experience how transformative it can be to engage with leading research groups internationally. I have spoken with friends and colleagues from many disciplines who have had similar experiences. I believe attracting scientific excellence to Europe, and bringing it directly into our research ecosystem, has the extraordinary potential to benefit not only European society at large but also all researchers based in Europe, at all career stages, whether directly funded by Choose Europe or not.

Pietro Pampili

Bionote

Pietro Pampili is a researcher at the Tyndall
National Institute in Cork, Ireland. Originally
from Italy, he began his career in the
electronics industry, where he worked for
over a decade before returning to academia
to complete a PhD at Tyndall and University
College Cork. He was awarded a Marie
Skłodowska-Curie Actions Global Fellowship,
through which he spent two years at Nagoya
University in Japan conducting research on the
epitaxy of III-nitride materials. In addition to
his research activities, he currently serves as
Vice-Chair of the Ireland Chapter of the Marie
Curie Alumni Association.

Inclusion as the key element for our future

But one-off funding is not enough to create a sustainable system. Particularly for early- career researchers, there is a clear need for career progression support and the removal of unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles. Anyone who has spent some years in academia knows how frustrating it is when valuable collaborators are denied access to conferences or project meetings, or how much time and energy they must spend keeping up with the paperwork needed to maintain residence permits or secure travel permission. As former or current MSCA fellows, we have already fully embraced the concept of scientific mobility, but the associated challenges for researchers and their families need to be recognised and addressed. As highlighted by the MCAA on many occasions (Castellano-Pellicena et al., 2025; MCAA, 2024), the research environment needs to be more inclusive and equitable. From this perspective, it is really encouraging to hear that the second level on which Choose Europe plans to act is the inclusion of specific tools for streamlined relocation, improved visa procedures, and career support.

The third, and I believe the most important, level of Choose Europe is the strong commitment of the Commission not only to recognise the principle of scientific freedom, but also to enshrine it in European legislation through the forthcoming European Research Area (ERA) Act. As President von der Leyen said in her speech at La Sorbonne, “Science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party.” Only a science that is independent from politics and the influence of power groups can truly support evidence- based policymaking. For a long time, we have taken these values for granted, but the current political situation is a clear warning that this is no longer the case. In a world in which science is under attack on many fronts for short-sighted political interests, putting scientific freedom at the core of European legislation is a very significant step that the research community should strongly value.

The MCAA has expressed strong support for Choose Europe, welcoming it as a timely step to reaffirm Europe’s commitment to research, innovation, and international collaboration. The recent MCAA Policy Paper (Castellano-Pellicena et al., 2025) highlights the initiative’s focus on scientific freedom and openness, which closely aligns with the Association’s core values. While MCAA and other organisations broadly support the initiative, some concerns remain that future EU funding could lean too heavily towards scale-up and competitiveness. This might favour top-down priority setting over long- term, bottom-up, curiosity-driven, and basic research – the very foundation of ERC and MSCA programmes’ enduring success.

Pietro Pampili
Orcid
LinkedIn
Vice-Chair, MCAA Ireland Chapter and Policy WG
pietro.pampili@tyndall.ie