People around me tend to be in the RSE (Research Software Engineer) scene, which is growing in Europe. I, and many of my cohort, could fit in as research staff or faculty in many different disciplines.
Wouldn't get rich or famous, but certainly have a comfortable living working on interesting problems.
Before you start criticizing Saudi government, the reason we are discussing this right now is because a fascist government is forcing scientists out of the US.
Europe will not spend even 0.1% of its pension/welfare fund on big research bets. The private investors their will only want real estate investments, not fancy wancy "VC".
Young talent will flow one way from other countries to the US, because they've already seen what the grass is like on their side.
The population shift introduces new ideas, new perspectives, new ways of operating research, new connections towards funding and money, new views on what big bets even means.
The influx of foreign scientists and academics into America over the last century caused significant shifts in how America operated and viewed the idea of research and academia. Post-war Europeans (Von Braun's crowd being an obvious example) caused a large shift in the way America funded "big bet" projects. Saturn V perhaps. Same may happen in Europe.
Those academics can use HN from the opposite side of the Atlantic. VC money especially has the possibility of being territorially bound, yet its often far less constrained by the those types of lines in the dirt than many funding opportunities.
There aren't countries with unfilled academic positions awaiting people from the US. If anything, the landscape is even more competitive outside the US.
… a critical tool of which we’re currently dismantling…
I think a lot of these guys and gals are fooling themselves with the whole, "find another country" thing. There is no other country that is A) doing research at these levels, B) Flush with cash, and C) needs you because they don't have a population that produces the necessary thinkers. That's basically only the US.
Those then work with the country level organizations of Science Europe, and those together each spend about EUR 25B each year. [3] It's not insignificant. I tend to pay attention to space, and lately almost all there's been is European achievements in telescopes and astronomy.
[1] Horizon Europe, https://www.ffg.at/sites/default/files/downloads/HorizonEuro...
[2] ERC, https://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/erc-glance
[3] Science Europe RFOs, https://www.scienceeurope.org/about-us/members/?type=Researc...
For comparison, the NSF budget is about $8 billion. DOE Office of Science is about the same. NIH is $45 billion
(Also, compare that with the profit of large tech companies)
US firms are also very highly priced relative to their profits when compared to firms elsewhere. So while things are probably not quite sensible in the US there's still money.
