The United Kingdom’s role in the European Union’s €95 billion Horizon Europe funding program is now crumbling thanks to lingering Brexit disputes, forcing many U.K. grant winners to give up grants they thought they could count on.
A few months ago, Teresa Thurston, a cellular microbiologist at Imperial College London, could not have imagined losing her €1.5 million European research grant. But the United Kingdom’s role in the European Union’s €95 billion Horizon Europe funding program is now crumbling thanks to lingering Brexit disputes, forcing many U.K. grant winners like Thurston to give up grants they thought they could count on.
In the meantime, a transitional program promises to make up for Horizon grants already won by U.K. researchers. Thurston plans to accept the government’s offer, but she says this backstop doesn’t carry the same prestige or networking opportunities. “It’s not the same,” she says. The Brexit deal was supposed to preserve U.K. participation. In an arrangement similar to those for other non-EU countries that receive Horizon Europe funds, such as Israel, Turkey, and Norway, the United Kingdom would pay approximately £15 billion into the program over its 7-year period, allowing its researchers to compete for funding. The European Parliament still had to ratify the agreement, but U.K.
For Thurston, moving to Europe was not practical, because her collaborators were all in the United Kingdom. She also did not want to uproot her family, and she points out that a short-notice move to Europe would be hard for researchers taking care of children, which means women likely face greater impact.
In theory, the United Kingdom could join Horizon Europe at any time in the coming 7 years if political disputes over Brexit were settled. And Horizon association remains “Plan A,” the U.K. science minister, George Freeman, said in a 15 June parliamentary committee hearing. He could not be reached for comment, but a department spokesperson said, “The U.K. is pushing for association to Horizon Europe as swiftly as possible.
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