Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) UK researchers have welcomed Britain’s breakthrough agreement with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Researchers hope the deal will give them access to the Horizon Europe program worth 100 billion euros, according to The Guardian reporting on Tuesday.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described the deal with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as “good news for scientists and researchers in the EU and in the UK.”
Speaking at a press conference announcing the deal, she added that the EC was prepared to start working on an association agreement, “which is the precondition to join Horizon Europe.”
Francis Crick Institute head Paul Nurse noted “the government policy was to associate with Horizon Europe and the only blockage to that was acrimony over the Northern Ireland Protocol.”
He stressed that the recent agreement between von der Leyen and Sunak opens doors to cooperation, which he sees as crucial for research in the UK.
The nurse pointed out that North America, Asia, and Europe are the “three main science groupings in the world” and warned, “if you’re outside one of those groupings, you’re going to find it very difficult to be a major science nation because you’re not part of the collaborations.”
Cooperation to revive research
The nurse added that UK research was “damaged in the last year or two by not being associated and, of course, we’ve lost collaborations and networks and we’ve seen reductions in the proportion of projects that we’re holding in the UK.”
Venki Ramakrishnan, former president of the Royal Society, welcomed the agreement and called on the government to work with the EU on full participation in Horizon Europe. “Science should never have been a hostage to other political issues,” he concluded.
According to Roslin Institute director Bruce Whitelaw, “if this [agreement] paves the way for rebuilding closer science collaboration with our European colleagues then this is definitely good progress.”
James Wilsdon, professor of research policy at University College London, stated “yesterday’s agreement has rightly been greeted with a sigh of relief by the research community, who remain strongly supportive of continued association with Horizon Europe.”
He predicted that “haggling between London and Brussels” would take “a few months” and warned that repairing collaborative networks would take longer