The President, President-elect and Chief Executive of The Physiological Society have written to the Prime Minister to express concern about an imminent risk to UK science funding.
While the Government has made statements about wishing the UK to be a ‘Science Superpower’, there is now an imminent threat to research and development budgets. The Brexit deal agreed at the end of 2020 enables the UK to fully associate with Horizon Europe, the successor programme to Horizon 2020. When the UK was a member of the European Union, involvement in European research programmes was funded as part of the UK’s membership fee. However, now that the UK is outside of the EU, it will be required to pay a separate association fee to participate.
This fee is expected to be between £1-2 billion per year. There are concerns that the Government will require that this fee is paid from existing R&D budgets, which will result in a huge cut in science funding.
In the letter, The Physiological Society warns that:
- The possible cut to the science budgets of over £1 billion – and potentially much more in future years – is equivalent to the cost of funding the entire Medical Research Council and Science & Technology Facilities Council combined. It is also equivalent to cutting more than 18,000 full time academic research posts.
- This could amount to a further reduction of up to £1.6 billion in private R&D that it would have stimulated.
These concerns come on top of the recent Government announcement to cut ODA funding by £120 million, which will curtail successful programmes that have bolstered the UK’s place in the world and helped tackle the challenges faced by developing countries.
In the letter, Professor David Paterson (President), Professor David Attwell (President-elect) and Dariel Burdass (Chief Executive) warn that:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the immense value of a strong R&D base in responding to a public health emergency. These cuts in science budgets would cause significant damage to UK science – hampering our national resilience to future challenges and stifling our ability to innovate our way out of the economic downturn. Importantly, science R&D cannot be turned on and off like a tap.”
Download the letter here.