Andrew Mackenzie, Head of Policy & Communications, The Physiological Society
Today Boris Johnson was confirmed as the new Leader of the Conservative Party and the UK’s next Prime Minister. The next few days will show British politics at its most theatrical: a final Prime Ministers’ Questions for Theresa May, the ride to Palace to see the Queen, Prime Minister Johnson’s first speech on the steps of Downing Street, and the jockeying for positions by new Cabinet members.
Yet all the pomp and pageantry won’t distract from the cliff-hanger just around the corner.
Over the course of the last few months, the looming spectre of a ‘no deal’ Brexit has gone from distant notion to very real prospect. Boris Johnson has said that the UK is leaving on 31 October “come what may, do or die”. During the EU referendum no one seriously discussed crashing out – indeed, we were told this would be the “easiest deal in history”. Those who advocate no deal as a realistic outcome are no longer at the fringes, but right at the top of British politics.
The UK is a science superpower: while we make up just 0.9% of the world’s population and 4.1% of the world’s researchers, the UK produces 15.9% of the world’s most highly cited articles. Since 2007 the UK has beaten every other country in the G7 in field-weighted citations. The life sciences sector alone supports 240,000 UK jobs and generates a turnover of £70 billion per year.
We have achieved this enormous success by being open to the world and participating in international networks. Over the last 20 years, the proportion of UK publications arising from international collaboration has risen from 26% to 55%. Last week the Royal Society published a new analysis highlighting that links with the EU are of growing importance to UK science. One in six academic staff in UK universities is from another EU country and the UK’s collaboration rates are increasing most quickly with EU nations. More than a third of UK research papers are co-authored with the EU or a Horizon 2020 country, compared with 17.6% with the USA.
‘No deal’ will put the research funding, collaboration and our international reputation at risk.
It means the UK could lose access to over £1 billion a year in EU research funding and risks locking British researchers out of the EU’s new €100 billion Horizon Europe programme, which will be one of the largest science funds in the world. While the UK government has given some guarantees, they go nowhere near replacing this funding stream. These funding programmes have evolved over decades and if the UK walks away we will spend years trying to rebuild our own versions.
These programmes are important for more than just funding; they provide an unparalleled platform for collaboration. A ‘no deal’ that results in the UK losing access to EU networks will jeopardise the cooperation that R&D relies on. Research is a global endeavour and if the UK becomes less welcoming or research funding and partnerships becomes harder to obtain, EU researchers can easily build their careers elsewhere. The uncertainty is already having an effect as we see European scientists choosing not to come and make their home in the UK. A ‘no deal’ could make that position worse as while currently EU researchers don’t require a visa to work in the UK, if this changes they could face having to pay thousands of pounds in fees.
UK science needs a Brexit deal that delivers on the core issues of funding and mobility. It is vital we retain access to research networks and maintain an environment that attracts highly talented people. Maintaining regulatory and governance arrangements is important for us not to lose access to new medicines and technology.
When the new Prime Minister stands on the steps of Downing Street and talks of leaving on 31 October “come what may” as an ideological necessity, the scientific community must be clear about the danger this presents. The consequences for UK science of a ‘no deal’ Brexit, and the country as a whole, cannot be willed away with patriotism or ‘belief’ in Britain. We have built our scientific success on our internationalism and we put that at risk at our peril.