Talks over UK association to Horizon Europe are stuck over Westminster’s push for a correction mechanism to prevent the UK paying in significantly more to the European Union’s research programme than its universities win back, prompting warnings over the danger of further delays.
Agreement over the Northern Ireland protocol – the source of an earlier impasse – had appeared to open the door to final resolution of UK association after Brexit.
But the latest hold-up is over issues related to the UK’s association fee for the programme, for which the government had set aside £1.6 billion in 2022-23 – subsequently returned to the Treasury after being unused.
Further delays in coming weeks risk the impasse persisting until after the summer break, meaning UK researchers would continue to lose out on international collaborations and potentially see more science funding returned unused to government coffers.
