Scientists are furious that £1.6billion of funding that could have been spent on a UK alternative to an £84billion EU scheme has been returned to the Treasury, according to a lobby group representing British researchers. Britain had been planning to contribute £15billion over a seven-year period to the EU’s Horizon Europe, an £84billion flagship innovation programme that the UK negotiated to take part in under the 2020 Trade and Cooperation Agreement. But the EU told Britain it cannot associate until the Northern Ireland Protocol dispute is resolved.
British scientists have been desperately waiting for over two years for the UK to be let back into this programme which allows them to access prestigious grants and to collaborate with European partners.
The Government has also been urging the EU to end the impasse and let the UK associate. But as the delay dragged on, Westminster promised to put aside the funds and spend a portion on UK research and development (R+D) as part of a domestic alternative (George Freeman’s Plan B) if the EU continued to block Britain from rejoining.
However, the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CASE) lobby group has claimed that £1.6 billion of the funds that the Government promised to spend on R+D has gone back to the Treasury.
The group cited central Government supply estimates from 2022-23, detailing how the now disbanded Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) dealt with the cash which had been allocated for Horizon Europe association or a domestic alternative.
Sarah Main, CASE’s executive director, said: “The Government has repeatedly stated that R&D budgets would be protected and that the money allocated for association to Horizon Europe would be spent on R&D.
“The Government must follow through its ambition for science and innovation with coordinated action and investment across Government, not reversals and false starts. Can the Prime Minister now set out how he plans to mitigate this loss and put science and engineering at the heart of the UK’s future?”
Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, said it was the failure of both the EU and the UK and the long drawn-out political feud that researchers were dragged into which has seen this cash taken plunged from British science.
He said: “The failure of all sides to secure the UK’s association to the EU’s research programmes has now cost UK science £1.6billion.
“That comes on top of the talented researchers who have left the UK in order to carry on their collaborative work. How does this sit with the Government’s stated mission to have the UK as a science superpower? The Treasury must now ensure that this money is reinvested in research in the coming years.”
Prof John Hardy, Professor of Neuroscience at UCL, said the UK’s target of becoming a “science superpower” is now at risk.
He said: “This confirms all my worst fears about the difference between the claims that Britain is a science super-power and the reality. I fear the opposite is happening.
“We are fading fast and having just done a review meeting in Paris, I fear we are being overtaken. And it’s definitely getting harder to attract bright students and postdocs to London. It’s depressing that the Government promised to protect this money for R&D but now appears to have given it back.”
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Dr Mark Downs CBiol CSci FRSB, Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Biology, said: “The Royal Society of Biology is disappointed and concerned that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has decided to return £1.6billion of funds to the Treasury which had been set aside for international science and technology collaboration, primarily through the EU programme Horizon Europe.
“This is not simply returning unspent funds with no impact on the future. The reality is that £1.6billion of R&D funding, that could have benefitted UK science, has been lost.
“With new Government departments recently announced, that include a seat for science at the cabinet table, we urge the Government to deliver on the promise to protect historic R&D funding commitments by making this funding available to future programmes.”
Prof Liam Smeeth, Director, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said: “The lack of agreement to allow the UK to continue to play a full role in the European Union Horizon funding programme severely threatens our success.
“Achieving full association with EU funding programmes must remain the primary aim but will take considerable political skill and determination.
“Until today, the UK Government did – as a constructive interim measure – appear to be committed to filling any shortfalls in science funding that occurred because of Brexit. This appears to no longer be the case and we face major cuts in investment in science and innovation as well as continued uncertainty over EU funding.
“The UK’s position as a global scientific leader is severely threatened. Once our position is lost, rebuilding the excellence of our science and education base in the face of fierce international competition may be an impossible task.”
The Government has been approached for comment.
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