After two years of absence, British researchers will be able to participate again in European scientific projects starting next January 1. The European Commission and the Government of the United Kingdom announced yesterday an agreement for the reintegration of the country in the Horizon and Copernicus programs, abandoned much to their regret by British researchers as a result of Brexit.
The negotiations have lasted two years due to disagreements over economic conditions but, having overcome the last obstacles, yesterday both parties celebrated the decision as a boost to their bilateral relations. “The European Union and the United Kingdom are strategic partners and allies and this agreement demonstrates it. “We will continue to be at the global forefront of science and research,” the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a statement.
“Associating with the Horizon Europe program will further strengthen and deepen the ties between the scientific communities of the United Kingdom and the EU, encourage innovation and allow researchers to work together on common challenges such as climate or health,” he noted. the office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, architect of a notable improvement in bilateral relations with the EU that already resulted, in March, in the signing of an agreement on the fit of Northern Ireland in Brexit.
The return of European scientific programs was a firm demand to London by British researchers, frustrated because, despite the possibility being included in the EU withdrawal agreement reached in 2020, disagreements about the situation in this territory halted work to develop a regulatory framework that would make it a reality.
Specifically, the agreement announced early yesterday foresees that British scientists can participate in Horizon Europe from 2024. Endowed with 95.5 billion euros for the period 2021-2027, it is considered the largest multilateral research program in the world and more from 40 countries participate in it through their scientists and companies. Sunak led a tough negotiation over the project association fees that he will have to pay to participate and has finally managed to not have to contribute to the programs from which he has been excluded since 2021.
London will also once again be part of Copernicus, the ambitious Earth observation program based primarily on data collected by the Sentinel satellites. The British Government is full of praise for the level of this technology and celebrates that its scientists will be able to participate in this “crucial moment” of the project, which will be even more focused on trying to understand and manage climate-related phenomena.
Brussels calculates that London will pay about 2.6 billion euros a year, on average, to participate in Horizon Europe and Copernicus. The agreement, which must now be ratified by EU member states, includes a clause that ensures that, if British universities receive less funding than the Government has provided, the EU will give them financial compensation. “The entire research community within our universities will be delighted to know that an agreement has been reached,” Universities UK, the body that represents these educational institutions and which has strongly pressured the Government to resolve the matter, celebrated in a statement. sooner. Their goal now is to get back into the leadership positions they previously held in many programs.
London also considered participating in the Euratom program again, but has finally ruled it out. The official explanation is that London has decided to follow its own path and develop its own nuclear fusion energy strategy for which it has already announced an injection of 650 million pounds between now and 2027. Brussels’ version is slightly different: the United Kingdom has made the decision after verifying, through its own evaluation, that the impact of the United Kingdom’s absence from the Euratom and F4E/ITER programs “could not be reversed.” In other words, there was no way to make up for lost time.
