As of 1 January 2024, UK scientists may once again participate in Horizon Europe, the €95.5 billion ($101 billion) framework for research and innovation that runs through 2027. An agreement last month between the UK and the European Union ends nearly three years of limbo tied to Brexit.
“A big cheer!” That sentiment, voiced by Peter Knight, chair of the Quantum Metrology Institute at the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, is echoed across the UK and Europe. “It’s great news, long overdue,” says Robert-Jan Smits, who ran the previous EU research framework program and is now president of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. “It was a pity that politics got in the way of excellent scientific cooperation.”
The sticking point was how to assure free movement of goods between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member. That was smoothed over in March 2023 with the Windsor Framework, which paved the way for discussion on other UK–EU post-Brexit relations, including Horizon Europe.
Since Brexit, the UK government has paid for grants to UK-based scientists that would have been awarded by Horizon Europe. That was a welcome stopgap measure, UK researchers say, but those grants had to stay in the UK. The main decision on the UK side, explains Knight, was whether to rejoin Horizon Europe or to continue with a national scheme. “The money has always been there for science,” he says. “The question was how best to use it. The UK science community was pretty much unanimous in preferring Horizon Europe.”
The program fosters mobility and multinational collaboration among researchers at all career stages and across academic and industrial settings. It also aims to boost the EU’s global scientific competitiveness and to solve societal challenges. Winning one of its prestigious European Research Council awards can be a turning point in a scientist’s career.
“The big benefit of the European projects is being involved in collaborations with people from different countries and different expertise,” says Andrew Daley, who works in quantum computing and simulation and recently joined the Oxford University physics faculty. “Being seriously on the inside of these projects is a fantastic environment for generating and developing new ideas.” Those who are not part of that bigger research environment, he says, “lose opportunities to be involved at the cutting edge.”
During the time that the UK was on the sidelines, UK-based researchers could participate in some Horizon Europe projects but were barred from leadership roles. And uncertainty led to European researchers excluding UK partners lest their participation dim a project’s chances at winning funding. It also spurred some scientists to leave the UK. “A number of talented researchers have decided to fulfill their career aspirations by moving to Europe,” says Knight. “We have seen a hemorrhage of talent.” There has been damage, agrees Ian Walmsley, an experimental physicist and the provost of Imperial College London. “I hope we can recover quickly.”
Students and researchers from Europe will continue to need a visa to work in the UK, and vice versa. The number of students flowing back and forth has dropped since Brexit, Walmsley says.
Going forward, the UK will be an associate member of the framework program. Associate member countries can win back no more than the GDP-based amount they put in; their researchers may be excluded from some high-security projects in areas such as space, artificial intelligence, and quantum technologies; and they won’t be able to help shape future framework programs.
Daley hopes to be able to rejoin a Horizon-funded quantum simulation project. “It’s subject to possible restrictions,” he says. “I was heavily involved in the project leadership for the current phase and then wasn’t able to participate because of Brexit.”
Along with Horizon Europe, the UK is rejoining Copernicus, a European Earth-observing program. So far it is not rejoining Euratom, the EU’s nuclear research program. The UK is seeking ways to continue participating in ITER, the international fusion test reactor under construction in Cadarache, France.
