> HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit. I've since left, but I'm pretty sure they've still not manage to hire a software engineer.

Just relocate your lab to be in the US and associated with a US University. Then you can hire a Masters/PhD student from Europe's top schools at that salary.