Beyond the Horizon

The long goodbye

With the UK due to leave the European Union on 31 January 2020, what’s ahead for international research funding for UK researchers? 

European funding isn’t the only source of research funding for academics and researchers in the UK. It’s not even the largest: Horizon Europe, the new framework programme, is planning to spend €94.1bn on research during its seven year lifetime; the US National Institutes for Health spends $30bn annually. That’s more than twice Horizon Europe - just on health research.

However, European funding is incredibly important. The UK has participated in around 13,000 Horizon 2020 projects, as either lead or co-investigator, amounting to some €5.9 billion in funding. That’s 13.5% of the total, second only to Germany.

But engagement with Europe - and the world -  goes beyond funding. In the academic year 2017/18, almost one third of all academic staff in UK universities were foreign (including the EU) and almost a fifth are from other parts of the EU.

So what is going to happen when the UK leaves the EU at the end of the month?

Up until 31 December 2020: Horizon 2020

Until the end of the year there will be a period of transition. Researchers in the UK can still apply to Horizon 2020. If successful, they will be funded, either through the UK’s future association with the Horizon programme, or through the UK government’s underwrite.

After 31 December 2020: Horizon Europe

This is where it gets more uncertain. Funders, universities and individual researchers are all currently pushing for the UK to continue with its links to the framework programme. However, there are still quite a lot of other issues for the government to resolve before it gets on to research funding.

If the UK does continue to be part of Horizon Europe, it will either be:

• An Associated Country: This is the preferred option. It gives researchers a similar status to those from EU member states, and they can participate under the same conditions. Like Israel and Norway, there will be particular requirements for them to do so (the so called ‘Article 12: conditions for association’), and these would need to be negotiated. It may be the case that, even if the UK was allowed to be an associated country, these conditions wouldn’t be acceptable to it, and it would choose not to. 
• A Third Country: This is more limited. If it was a Third Country it would not be able to access ERC or Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programmes, or to lead projects. 

We should also be mindful of Brussels’ natural focus on ‘Europe first’. There is an inevitable selfishness in European funding: it has to be of benefit to EEA.

The Alternative: Recommendations of the Smith-Reid Review

In March 2019 Prof Sir Adrian Smith was commissioned by BEIS to look into options for the UK should it no longer engage with the EU’s framework programme. He worked with Prof Graeme Reid (UCL) and together the pair canvassed, consulted and considered, producing their report in November.

They made it clear that it wasn’t within their terms of reference to advocate for or against the UK’s continued engagement with the framework programme. Rather, it was just to see what the options were should the UK leave.

Broadly, they didn’t think it was worth replicating a ‘UK-lite’ version of Horizon Europe. ‘We are not convinced that a persuasive case can be made for sizeable levels of public spending on activities that replicate, line by line, EU research and innovation arrangements in the UK.’

However, as Wellcome has stated, ‘there are no quick and cheap ways to replace Horizon Europe. Implementing new multilateral or bilateral programmes at short notice will likely mean compromising on ambition, efficiency, and scale.’

Nevertheless, the Review suggested that ‘the UK could spend the same amount of money on research and innovation activities, optimised around the interests of the UK rather than the collective interests of EU programme participants.’

It recommended the following:

• An international Research Partnership Investment Fund. The RPIF gives out £10-35m grants to universities and research centres for capital projects. The winning consortia have to attract at least twice that amount from other investors. It is the biggest of Research England’s schemes, and has provided over £900m for 54 research projects in six rounds, attracting over £2bn in matched funding. Smith and Reid suggested that the international RPIF would do the same, attracting ‘sizeable investment into UK R&D by companies headquartered in other countries.’ 
• A coherent global talent strategy’. This would bring both reforms to immigration policy and a number of fellowship and post graduate programmes to try and attract and retain good researchers in the UK.
• Substantial additional funding for basic research. This is somewhat nebulous, and it’s unclear (deliberately so, I think) as to what form this could/should take. They talk about it going through ‘existing administrative arrangements’, which suggests it’s something of a top up to existing UKRI funding. 
• A flagship programme of fellowships. This has the feel of an ERC replacement - but even more generous. The Review suggested ‘funding for two – or even three - successive four year terms on a scale that is at least as great as that from funders in other countries. Funding should be available at all career stages.’
• Additional QR funding. In other words, a block grant to universities ‘for the spontaneous international collaborations.’ 
• An ‘agility fund’, with two broad elements: 
• One to invest in emerging areas of importance
• One to be used on an ad hoc basis by government ministers when negotiating bilateral agreements with other countries. 

In addition, they recognised the importance of the EU for regional research funding, and suggested that:

• The linking of the forthcoming Shared Prosperity Fund ‘to the Innovate UK agenda’ - by which we assume they mean the Industrial Strategy. 
• The establishment of ‘major new centres of research and innovation – each on the scale of a medium-sized university - that would embark on missions to address the world’s most pressing challenges while signaling the scale and ambition of the UK’s agenda’. Wow. This is quite an ask, when the Review made clear that UK spending on a framework replacement should be within the current £1.5bn annual spend. 

The Review also forcefully made the point that it was essential for there to be as little disruption as possible to existing projects and funding, ‘an immediate programme to protect and stabilise capabilities’.

They are all sensible recommendations - well, perhaps not so much the ‘major new centres’ - but the devil will be in the detail. It’s unlikely that all will be implemented wholesale. As Graeme Reid self-deprecatingly commented at a recent UUK event, ‘not everybody listens to everything I say all of the time.’