British universities are facing a brain drain as the Brexit dispute in Northern Ireland threatens £ 250 million in EU research funding, it has become clear.
The European Research Council (ERC) has written to 98 scientists and academics who were recently approved for € 172 million (£ 145 million) in grants, telling them that if the UK’s associate membership in the Horizon Europe program is worth 80 billion will not be ratified, they will not meet the conditions. to withdraw money.
The researchers said they were now trying to find alternative EU institutions to accept the funding, with some already refusing ERC money and hoping the UK government’s promise of replacement money would be provided.
But they say it is “devastating” in both cases, as the ERC is considered one of the most prestigious programs in the world.
Receiving an ERC grant is “a mark of honor for every researcher and a signal for world-class research,” which is a great attraction for talent from the United States and elsewhere, said Ethan Ilzetsky, an associate professor of economics at the London School of Economics.
“The continent’s higher education institutions are drooling over the prospect of capturing this talent – higher education will be hurt for years to come if it is not allowed,” he said.
The then Brexit secretary, David Frost, fought hard to gain associate membership in Horizon Europe as part of negotiations for a 2020 trade agreement, but ratification was delayed until the United Kingdom failed to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol.
British scientists say they have been punished. Payam Gammage, a scientist at the Beatson Institute at the University of Glasgow, said: “This is a strange choice for the EU. The United Kingdom will not notice it immediately. It will take a long time to have any impact. All that is happening is that a lot of scientists have been deprived of many opportunities or their lives are simply much more difficult. We are the only victims. ”
Gammage received € 2 million to expand research on mitochondrial genetics and tumor mutations, but decided to turn down an ERC grant and apply for replacement funding from the UK’s Research and Innovation Fund. He said it was not the same, as there were no details on funding conditions.
“The idea that the United Kingdom can replicate the system and apparatus of something like the ERC in the near to medium term is unrealistic at best,” Gamage said.
Thiemo Fetzer, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick who was approved for 1.5 million euros in funding, said: “We all had reason to believe that the UK association was just a matter for the UK to implement the free trade agreement. Now we are waking up to reality. It’s very devastating. “
A molecular biologist who received 2m euros for a five-year research program said he would now want to travel to Ireland or Belgium. “My main priority is to get funding, because a reward at this level of funding happens once in a lifetime,” she said.
The initial grant is worth € 1.5 million each, and the consolidators are worth up to € 2 million, with additional grants of up to € 2.5 million to be awarded next month, which could lead to total funding for United Kingdom up to about € 300m.
Science Minister George Freeman has promised to extend guaranteed funding for the replacement until December 2022.
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The president of the ERC, Prof. Maria Leptin, said he “strongly hopes” that the negotiations between the United Kingdom and the EU will be finalized and “lead to an association” with Horizon Europe.
“Our letters to the recipients should have indicated the possibility of the grant being transferred outside the United Kingdom, but no one here has any desire to entice anyone to leave the United Kingdom,” she said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said the delay in ratification caused “uncertainty for researchers, businesses and innovators based in the UK, and [has] has a detrimental effect on important cooperation between the United Kingdom and European partners.
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