High-flying scientists from Poland working at UK universities could be crucial to improving research cooperation between the two countries, says a study that suggests the fast-growing east European economy is likely to be a key market for innovative British companies post-Brexit.
With Polish-British research links hit by the UK’s three-year absence from Horizon Europe, the report from the Polonium Foundation, in partnership with the UK Science and Innovation Network, says Poland’s scientific diaspora should play a leading role in re-establishing research ties.
Just over half of Polish researchers working abroad are based in the UK, the paper notes, with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge employing at least 18 Polish principal investigators in STEM fields alone. Polish scientists working in the UK have won nearly as many advanced European Research Council grants in STEM subjects (seven) as Poland has received in total (nine), it adds. The UK has won some 528 advanced grants since 2007 despite its removal for Horizon since 2021.
These émigré scientists could prove a useful conduit to increase research cooperation between the two countries, said Agata Nyga, team lead for research and policy at the Polonium Foundation, a not-for-profit advocacy group for Polish science. “There is certainly a diaspora of Polish scientists who have won prestigious grants and fellowships while in the UK and settled down. We’re not saying ‘You must go back to Poland’, but [rather] asking people to think how we take advantage of these connections to enhance talent in both countries,” said Dr Nyga, head of research and development for a Cambridge-based biotechnology company.
