For more than a year, a question mark has hung over the links that will exist between UK scientists and their European Union counterparts after Brexit. Could these strong and vital ties survive unscathed? A lot is at stake.
So hopes were high when last week the UK government, as part of Brexit negotiations, finally set out its hopes on this. It was widely expected to summarise the relationship that the UK has enjoyed within the EU and express a desire to fully continue that scientific collaboration. On this, its was strong and positive.
However, given the title 鈥� Collaboration on Science and Innovation: A future partnership paper 鈥� the document was notably devoid of solutions to the obstacles that Brexit throws across the path of that desire. It didn鈥檛 even document them. As such, this is only half a paper.
Advertisement
There are three major barriers: money, law and the rights of EU citizens. If the UK wants to be an associate member of the EU science programme after Brexit, a status that allows non-EU nation participation, these must be cracked.
Financial contributions are trickier than imagined. Currently, the UK pays into the overall EU budget. That covers agricultural subsidies, the science programme, investment into struggling regions and more. It is a package deal.
Ongoing bill
If the UK were outside the EU wanting to pay into just the science part of the budget, that raises the question of how much is fair. Other advanced EU economies are shouldering the costs of developing the research and innovation capacities of weaker members. They may demand that the UK carries on doing the same. All this could be a problem, given rhetoric in prime minister Theresa May鈥檚 party against continued payments to the EU budget.
Another government red line concerns ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over the UK. It was for this reason that May said Brexit meant pulling out of the Euratom treaty, which oversees nuclear research and safety.
However, the ECJ is the EU鈥檚 dispute resolution mechanism for project-level issues within the science programme. The Swiss, who buy into the EU science programme from outside the union, happily accept this.
Finally, the most significant hurdle will be that of 鈥渇reedom of movement鈥�: the right of citizens to travel and work freely within many European countries. The UK has explicitly said this will end post-Brexit. Although non-European countries such as Israel and Tunisia are associate members in EU science programmes without freedom of movement, within Europe such a stance is troublesome. The Swiss were partially excluded from the EU science programme from 2014 to 2016 for reneging on free movement.
With the sands of time running quickly on Brexit negotiations 鈥� the UK is set to leave by April 2019 鈥� science will be one of many issues competing to be resolved. The UK and EU need to start tabling real ideas now so that productive European science collaboration doesn鈥檛 become collateral damage of toxic Brexit politics.
