[Lutger]

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).

[ericmay]

The OP is using the terms incentive and bribe interchangeably. People do that in the US all the time. I don't think anyone really thinks it is wrong or morally disagreeable what the Netherlands is doing nor are they using the term in the legal sense. I was just explaining why someone might have used that term, obviously the OP probably should speak for themselves though in case they did mean it in the legal sense or something.