This paper regards the ways in which European policies are implemented in the area of teaching (Bologna process), research and the labor market (strategy of Lisbon) and how they have an effect on the status of a discipline, modifying both the conditions of its reproduction and potentially the object of its investigations. A huge transformation is at stake with the construction of the European Research Area, the formulation of thematic orientations and the introduction of new techniques via the funding process and the framework programs. With a critical perspective, it draws attention to the effects of benchmarking, the generalization of competition and the impact of European incentives upon the national redistribution of the structures and domains of research. It shows the emergence of a new model of European researcher, the researcher-entrepreneur. These evolutions based on neo-liberal ideologies assign human and social sciences to the perception of their utility for the market and place anthropology in front of a series of challenges in order to defend its methodology and heuristic practices and reinforce its visibility via the consolidation of networks operating at the European level.