Science minister George Freeman has warned that it might take another year before the UK is allowed to join Horizon Europe, saying that millions of pounds set aside for Plan B should be released while a deal is hammered out.
Playing down hopes that UK association to the European Union’s flagship research scheme was imminent after a deal on Northern Ireland trade rules was agreed earlier this week, Mr Freeman told an audience in London on 1 March that “very, very high geopolitics is sitting in the prime minister’s in tray” and that a similar deal for Switzerland to re-enter Horizon Europe back in March 2016 had taken almost a year to take effect.
Speaking at a conference on research organised by the Higher Education Policy Institute and Elsevier, Mr Freeman said he “did not want to be signing something in 11 or 12 months and we lose another year of funding”, referring to the recent decision by the Treasury to claw back £1.6 billion in unused science funding that had been set aside for Horizon Europe in 2022-23.
“We made a commitment to the sector, and we want to honour that commitment,” he added, on promises that UK science would not be financially worse off if it remained outside Horizon Europe.
