A raft of recent policy changes in the U.S. touching trade, immigration, education, and public spending has sparked upheaval in research communities around the globe. The American economy, once the dream destination for the most talented, suddenly looks like it could lose its allure for the world’s brightest scholars. The sudden crisis of faith in the American innovation ecosystem has also sparked a fresh debate: Can the European Union seize the moment to attract disenchanted researchers and strengthen its own innovation ecosystem?

The opportunity is real for Brussels, and the stakes are high, as the EU continues to trail the U.S. on virtually every cutting-edge technology—including artificial intelligence. A recent BCG Henderson Institute report shows that that stricter immigration rules and deep funding cuts for academic research in the U.S. raise the possibility that top AI researchers, a large share of whom are not U.S.-born, could look to take their talents elsewhere. Repatriating those top European academics is an important step for European policymakers, but to catch up, the EU must also be able to attract talent beyond the European diaspora, which is only a small fraction of the globally mobile AI talent base.

To remake itself into a tech talent magnet, Europe needs to build an academic ecosystem more closely integrated with its industries, a necessary step to provide the career pathways and information flows needed to turn academic discoveries and inventions into business value. The cost of this transformation will be considerable, as publicly discussed in, for instance, the Draghi report. Only then can the EU’s investments in academia help generate longstanding economic and geopolitical returns for the bloc.