The Westminster government has again extended its funding guarantee for Horizon Europe grant winners, while insisting that “time is running out” for full association to the European Union programme.
It is the third time the government has lengthened the support period, which is designed to minimise the damage caused by UK-based researchers’ partial exclusion from Horizon, a bar the European Commission has tied to UK-EU differences on the Brexit deal’s Northern Ireland protocol.
It comes after UK science minister George Freeman launched a homegrown alternative, the International Science Partnerships Fund (ISPF), at a Times Higher Education event in Japan, with a starting pot of £119 million.
