UK at risk of 'brain drain' as scientists leave Britain to avoid losing EU research funding

A total of 22 UK-based scientists have now decided to leave Britain rather than lose their EU research funding, as uncertainty continues around the future of Research and Development (R&D) support post-Brexit.

Scientists and engineers have told Sky News the UK’s position as a world leader in research is at risk from “significant brain drain” amid doubts about what will replace funding after negotiations with the European Union stalled.

The UK was negotiating a deal to remain in the EU’s £84billion Horizon Europe funding programme.

However, Brussels is refusing to resume talks until other Brexit-related disagreements such as Northern Ireland are solved.

If unsuccessful, the government has committed to match the EU funding already awarded to any researchers who already have grants.

But because many existing research programmes are EU wide, that promise is not enough for some researchers.

“Nobody told me I have to leave, but it wasn’t a welcoming environment,” said Moritz Treeck who leads a team studying malaria at the Francis Crick Institute in London.

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“I didn’t want to take the insecurity of the condition of this research grant of staying the UK and the implications for all the people I hire.”

Treeck, originally from Germany, says the opportunities offered by working in UK science were “huge”. But now the situation looks different.

“Saying you want to build an economy and you want to be an international superpower and then facing inwards… I feel that it’s a step back, not a step forward,” he said.

Researchers who have no intention of leaving the UK say the impasse over Horizon funding is also impacting the UK’s long standing leadership role in international collaborations.

Professor Carsten Welsch is head of the physics department at the University of Liverpool and runs a programme developing new particle accelerators to replace the likes of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva.

He recently had to surrender part of his Horizon-funded project to a collaborator in Italy as UK institutions can no longer hold leadership roles in the scheme.

His concern is that will undermine the UK’s standing in other, much larger collaborations – like particle accelerators.

“If you don’t hold the leadership role in that multimillion pound or euro project, then how likely is it that you have the same leadership role in that much, much larger international project?” he said.

The longer the uncertainty continues, the greater the risks, argues Baroness Brown of Cambridge, Julia King, who chairs the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee.

In a worst-case-scenario, she said: “I think we will see a brain drain of our brightest talents going overseas. I think we will see more of our best technology-based companies finding that it’s easier to get their scale-up funding overseas to list on stock markets in the US rather than in the UK.

“It won’t be instantaneous to the UK economy, but in medium to long term it will have significant impacts,” she said.

In a statement, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “The UK government’s preference remains association to EU programmes, but we cannot wait for the EU much longer.

“Successful awardees do not need to leave the UK – the Horizon Europe guarantee means that eligible, successful applicants will receive the full value of their funding at their UK host institution.”

Under Boris Johnson the government committed to doubling UK research funding to 24% of GDP by 2025.

However, some experts are concerned that Prime Minister Liz Truss‘ spending plans may result in cuts to money to make up the EU shortfall.

“As they eye up low-hanging fruit for spending cuts, the £6 billion earmarked to replace Horizon Europe certainly looks like it might be vulnerable,” said James Wilsdon, who studies research policy at the University of Sheffield.

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