Freedom of movement warning for sciences
● NHS research chief says Brexit is a threat to the standard of work
Restrictions on freedom of movement between the EU and the UK after Brexit are likely to lower the quality of scientific research carried out in Scotland, one of the Scottish Government’s top advisers has warned.
Professor David Crossman, who takes up the role of Chief Scientist for Health this week, said Scotland may no longer be able to attract the best experts in their fields if they face barriers to working and living in the UK.
He also suggested that a second referendum on independence should be taken off the table, calling for the SNP to “move on” from the issue to avoid adding to the uncertainty being created by Brexit.
Professor Crossman, who is also Dean and Head of the School of Medicine at the University of St Andrews, is being put in charge of research carried out by the NHS in Scotland and will oversee an annual budget of around £65 million.
He said one of the key priorities of his three-year tenure would be bringing scientific rigour to ministerial decisions about improving the nation’s health, focusing on major issues such as obesity, diabetes and alcoholism.
However, he warned that Scotland’s world-leading scientific research community faced a “lot of threat” from Brexit, which could cause a brain drain of existing talent and discourage the top experts from moving to the UK.
“Uncertainty is a real problem. There are lots of things that could happen that could be bad or even very bad for medical and life sciences research in the United Kingdom, that could flow from crashing out without any form of mitigating arrangements,” Professor Crossman said.
“We simply, at the moment, don’t know what those are. The uncertainty is a problem, and the uncertainty if it goes on for long will lead to people leaving who have opportunities to go elsewhere. That’s just human nature.”
He added that “some form of free movement” was essential after Brexit to ensure that researchers were able to move to Scotland without “endless visas and checks” and other barriers such as not being able to bring their families.
“When you try to recruit people to a research job in the NHS, what you want is the best,” he said. “Research is all about being the first person to do that thing in the world. If you aren’t getting the best person, you’re getting the second best or the third best.”
0 Professor David Crossman warned that vital NHS research could suffer post-brexit