Trouble on the Horizon for vital universities cash grants
Essential research funding for universities is now under threat as the UK leaves the EU. Richard Lochhead explains
ACRUCIAL source of past funding for Scotland’s pioneering research and science community is in serious danger of being cut off, unless urgent action is taken to decide on the UK’S future role in a hugely influential EU programme.
As one of the bloc’s most vibrant research centres, for the past five years Scotland has been one of Horizon 2020’s biggest winners and driving forces.
The Eu-wide programme originally had a remit to provide €80 billion worth of funding. Of that total, the UK has received €6.2 bn, with €687 million secured by Scottish-based researchers, businesses and public bodies.
Our universities have been landing almost three-quarters of that, supporting among other things salaries of 6 per cent of all full-time university research staff in Scotland.
The initiative’s successor, Horizon Europe, is now set to run for seven years from the start of next year, with a funding budget likely to be €20bn higher.
But even at this late stage, there is a huge question mark as to the level of involvement the UK will have in it.
Last month the-then UK science minister Chris Skidmore assured Westminster he wanted the country to “associate” with Horizon Europe, allowing scientists to participate on similar terms to those they experience today.
He added, however, the vague caveat that this decision would depend on the conditions for association of the new programme, which themselves have yet to be agreed by European legislators.
Wider negotiations – including those on immigration and budgets – over Horizon Europe’s structure are also still up in the air at this point, which are likely to affect whether full association to Horizon Europe would even be possible for the UK. The UK could also make this much more dependent on pushing its own domestic priorities.
Clearly this is a hugely unsettling situation for Scottish-based researchers working with colleagues in the EU as they face urgent planning for existing and potential new joint activities after January 2021.
It is virtually impossible to accurately calculate the total benefits – in terms of multilateral co-operation, prestige and reputation, investment and infrastructure, and career opportunities for talented global researchers – that Scotland’s participation in Horizon 2020 has been worth.
It would certainly be exaggerating to say we depend on it to maintain our national research effort.
But I am confident in saying any forced reduction in – or even exit from – our involvement would leave a yawning gap in our ability to fulfil the many current and influential international research and science collaborations we have on-going, or hope to sign in future.
The knock-on effects of exit would also be serious to networking, data sharing, access to shared facilities and collections, joint clinical trials and provision of crucial laboratory supplies, given how firmly integrated Scotland has become in European, and international research and science.
The UK Government has previously stated that value-for-money considerations and domestic priorities could inform the UK decision on “association”.
While the country will still have access to Horizon 2020 and similar programmes throughout the transition period, many in Scotland’s research and science sectors have already warned me they remain in serious limbo about their future because of this lack of UK clarity, and are reluctance to think too far ahead without the commitment of access to Horizon Europe, and its related funding.
Strip out the total monetary value, and this weakened position could hurt on a number of other fronts too, but most-importantly, the UK and
Scotland no longer having influence at the top table of European research – a vital role in maintaining our ongoing research and science partnerships and collaborations with the bloc.
Dig into the list of Scottish projects to have benefited from Horizon cash and you read a hard-hitting roll-call of world-beating research and innovation, across an equally wide variety of sectors.
It contributed, for instance, to the development of the clean buses with zero emissions, which operate in Aberdeen, due to the UK’S participation in hydrogen fuel cell projects funded by the EU.
Horizon funds already extend throughout our economy. Some of the areas to have benefited include smart investment in new renewable energy technologies, revolutionising healthcare with data, making cell and gene therapies integral to modern medicine, smart sustainable production systems in food, energy and water, and artificial intelligence.
With the UK Government’s only stated intention just a commitment to negotiate full “association” to Horizon Europe, the Scottish Government not only needs far more clarity on its plans, but also a central role on deciding the business case for ongoing involvement, as well as considering UK alternatives.
For the past five years Scotland has been one of Horizon 2020’s biggest winners and driving forces