Top researchers leave USA for the Netherlands (in Dutch)

Because there is less competition for jobs and grants. Europe spends more on academic research (as a fraction of GDP) than the US, but there are more people competing for the funding.

It's extremely feasible. English is the defacto language of most research in the EU. I spent some time in Italy during my masters degree and know lots of people who have gone on to research or university instructor jobs in various countries in the EU. You definitely have to learn at least some of the local language for day-to-day life though.

Likely not a problem, especially in Academia. A family member is doing Phd in Poland, everyone is English speaking and they have lots of students from all over the world. Could be worse in places like France, where English proficiency is historically lower, but I doubt it would be a factor in higher education.

The keywords in the headline are "Nobel laureate". They are superstars in academia and are getting money, resources and convenience that a tenured US professor cannot dream of. These are extremely rare compared to the number of Chinese professors in US universities.

unfortunately people won't see how bad this is.

most of the A.I researchers are already Chinese.

now imagine other talented researchers on their way to earn Nobels - they're already in China & other countries but not visible yet.

this corrupt US administration fxxked the US in ways that will be felt for decades.

>Whether China is immigration friendly or not is debatable.

Compared to the US or Europe? No it's not debatable.

No dual citizenship at all, most probably no citizenship. Harder residency. Good luck bringing family there.

Not going to even mention the obscene difference in racism OR the language barrier, both of which are enormous factors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_China has a good summary (click through to its sources); as of 2020 there were about 1.5 million immigrants in China, just under 600K of which from Hong Kong/Macao/Taiwan; as of 2023 there's 12.000 people with permanent residency cards, which would be the expats that live and work there without nationalizing.

For comparsion, in the US as of 2023, nearly 48 million inhabitants (14.3% of total) are foreign-born (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_Stat...). Or the Netherlands, 4.4 million of its ~18 million inhabitants are from abroad (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Netherland...).

In total, China has roughly the same amount of immigrants as Ireland.

China is also objectively becoming more closed, not more open.

I've never been to China either. It's a huge country and it probably depends on where you are (hong kong probably friendlier than a random place in the mainland), but from what I heard/read:

* language issues. Many chinese don't speak english. Also a problem in many european countries (esp latin and slavic speaking ones), but at least the european languages are easier to learn. Compare this to Amsterdam, Goteborg, Berlin-Mitte or Kopenhagen where everyone speaks english.

* citizenship is one of the hardest to get in the world.

* I heard complaints about onboarding into the chinese app/digital ID ecosystem.

Though it was years ago now, I did spend a couple of years frequently traveling to China for fairly long stays. I learned enough Mandarin to get by on my own. The "scariest" thing is realizing you might have to walk for an hour in a random direction to come across a landmark like a known metro station or a hotel where you can get a taxi and have the concierge translate your desired destination.

I was mostly in first tier cities, though I did travel through some more obscure places. The worst hostility I experienced was 5 foot tall grandma with sharp elbows determined to cut in line in front of the big stupid foreigner who is passive aggressively placing his wheelie bag in her way.

If you're curious, just go. The cities are amazing, the people are friendly. Even in Beijing you can easily avoid the tourist traps. While it's not as perfectly safe as Japan or Taiwan, I spent a lot of jet lag recovery time wandering the streets late at night. Once I spent half an hour in a taxi garage at 2am at some unknown location after a 45 minute misdirected taxi ride, arranging a ride to my intended hotel. I think that's about as lost as one can get and it was fine.

The finger-pointing by the US about lack of aircon in europe is just a stupid republican talking point. As everything that comes out of republicans these days it's misdirected and purely politically motivated. And it's none of their business anyway. They're just trying to stir up extreme-right sentiment here.

Yes many houses don't have AC. We didn't need it so much until climate change (of which the US is one of the largest contributors no less). But if you move here and care about it just pick a place that has it or where you can install it. It's available if you want it.

It's not a big thing that should be influencing any decision to move. It's just being blown up and politicised because of the current heatwave. Aircon is not prohibited nor frowned upon here, it's just that we didn't really need it so much before and people are still reluctant to invest in it. Especially in the more northern countries it's not really needed anyway, during a heatwave yes but that's a couple weeks a year. Also, it's not a complete solution. Most of us here live outdoor much more, we don't drive cars much so we need to deal with the heat outside anyway.

We also have nice community options like climate shelters here.

Europe is lacking AC because we never had to deal with 30°C at night before the last 5-10 years. And for the regions where we needed to (like, around the Mediterranean), guess what, AC is everywhere there.

You know what, me, an European, just received this morning ? The AC unit I ordered.

It's not hard to install AC in Europe, it's just that until a few years ago, we never needed it. The only real blocker today is when you are living in an apartment and the condominium council refuses AC installation for esthetical reasons, but it's something that can change (either by the vote of co-owners, or by law if needed). And if you are renting, you are stuck until the legislation changes and forces owners to provide summer comfort the same way they must provide heating in winter.

That's pretty regional, countries that historically had warmer summers have them available on basically every house.

Where the heatwave is only recent, there are some bureaucratic issues (like historic buildings should not get "defaced" by the external unit and whatnot), but I think this is way too exaggerated when talking about the whole of the EU.

A lot deeper than active wars and energy supply issues???

Europe's economy has been slowing down since 2007, which is the peak of conventional oil. The problem of Europe is that is doesn't have access to abundant energy like the US does. The US likes to think that they have a better economy because they are smarter/work harder, but the reality is simple: abundant energy makes the economy.

For a lot of people it's easier to learn English than Chinese - you wouldn't get far if you don't speak the language in China. English gets you very far in Europe though, most research institutions, universities, high end professions, etc already have English as the going language because of the international character of these places.

Chinese are far more open to working in foreign environments/contexts that Americans are, IMO. Just look at the foreign language learning statistics: most Americans tend to only know English, unless their family was fairly recently from a non-English speaking country. Meanwhile the Chinese landing in the US tend to already have decent English education, and dive right into doing what they're there to do.

Either they underestimate, which is ignorance, or they estimate properly and are anti-truth.

What use do propagandists and fascists have for research? It only stands to continually disprove their lies. They obviously hate science and truth and want it gone, to be replaced with cult of personality and Christian nationalism.

> the biggest company in the Netherlands and its products (ASML and high end lithography machines), is built on top of the works of only a handful of researchers.

This is... wildly wrong. ASML is a multi-national company that licenses IP largely from USA and Japan, but also Taiwan and Germany. The actual EUV light source is developed and produced in California by Cymer, which ASML acquired in 2013. But ASML was only permitted to acquire the company under a strict technology sharing and export control agreement with the US government. Additionally, a huge portion of the photolithography research is directly developed (and owned) by US companies and research organizations such as IBM, Albany NanoTech, and SEMATECH.

There is a reason why ASML's next-generation research photolithography machine is currently being installed and developed in upstate New York, and not somewhere in the Netherlands. The same reason that Cymer is still in San Diego instead of being relocated to Europe.

[0] https://www.eetimes.com/asml-to-build-400-million-us-researc...

[1] https://www.eetimes.com/asml-sematech-team-on-manufacturing-...

[2] https://research.ibm.com/blog/euv-center-albany-nstc

Dutch researcher salaries are also pretty high (compared both to median Dutch salaries and academic salaries around the world), so it's still not like you're leaving USA to live in poverty

Yup I wasn’t confused about that.

Our Glorious Leader <-> Their Wicked Despot comic comes to mind.

The money isn't really for the researchers personally, but for doing the research. They are merely offered a job at a time where their jobs are on the line in the USA. And not even that, they still have to apply and compete with top researchers from other parts of the world. Really hard to call that a bribe, even in a morally neutral way. At most you could say the Netherlands - and other European countries - are taking advantages of the situation where the USA is abandoning their top researchers.

But for years it has been the other way around. Top talent from the Netherlands has been moving to the US in order to get funding (and a bigger salary).

Sometimes. But bribery is also a crime, so using that word invites comment.

> In the US we sometimes use the term “bribe” in morally neutral or even positive situations.

I live here in the US. I've NEVER heard the term bribe in a neutral or even positive way. It might be used in a mocking way, as if to mock the idea of bribes, but never seriously.

So, unless you are confusing that mocking nature as morally neutral or even positive, this is incorrect.

Independence from a country doesn't require excommunication of all citizens of that country

That's part of the decoupling. Onshoring as much knowledge as possible.