494 31 JANUARY 2020 • VOL 367 ISSUE 6477 sciencemag.org SCIENCEILLUSTRATION: DAVIDE BONAZZI/SALZMAN ARTNEWS | IN DEPTH
A
fter one referendum, two snap elec-
tions, and more than 3 years of
dithering and debate, the United
Kingdom this week becomes the
first country ever to withdraw from
the European Union. But rather
than marking the end of a process, Brexit
will start another clock: an 11-month tran-
sition during which the U.K. and Europe
will negotiate their future relation-
ship on everything from trade to
immigration to clinical trials. “We’re
not out of the woods yet,” says
Martin Smith, a policy manager at
the Wellcome Trust, a U.K. charity.
For researchers, the top issue is
U.K. participation in Europe’s re-
search program, Horizon Europe,
which will run from 2021 to 2027.
At about €90 billion, it is likely
to be the bloc’s biggest ever. U.K.
researchers now receive about
£1.5 billion per year from the
current 7-year program, Horizon
2020, and during the transition,
they will get the remaining year
of grant money owed under the
scheme. To join Horizon Europe,
however, the United Kingdom will
have to pay to access it in the same
way as 16 other non-EU countries,
including Switzerland, Norway,
and Israel.
Although U.K. and EU scientists
both want such a deal, European
politicians may use it as a bargain-
ing chip in trickier negotiations,
such as over border arrangements, says
James Wilsdon, a science policy special-
ist at the University of Sheffield. “In what
possible sense is it in [Europe’s] inter-
est to stitch up a neat package on science
and put a bow on it for London?” Indeed,
the EU research commissioner, Mariya
Gabriel, indicated in an interview this
month that the European Union would not
offer a separate deal on research.
If the United Kingdom is left out of
Horizon Europe, the impact will be un-
equal, says Graeme Reid, a science policy
researcher at University College London.
Money from Horizon 2020 amounts to just
3% of total U.K. R&D spending overall, but
in some disciplines, such as archaeology
and software engineering, it is more than
30%. The loss of those funds “is going to
make the research base in this country
look like a Swiss cheese: It’s going to be
solid overall but will have holes punched
in it in unpredictable places,” Reid says.
In November 2019, the U.K. government
released a report, co-authored by Reid, on
options if it does not join Horizon Europe.
The report called for mimicking some as-
pects of the European program—such ascreating an organization that disburses
long-term grants, like the European Re-
search Council—but not all. “We think we
should start again and optimize around
U.K. interests,” he says.
Making sure EU scientists are free to live
and work in the United Kingdom is also a
priority, Smith says. “Mobility will be a big
part of what we’re interested in in the next
11 months.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson
this week announced new fast-track visas
for researchers that will begin on 20 Feb-
ruary. There will be no cap on them, and
they will be managed by UK Research and
Innovation instead of the Home Office.
Cat Ball, head of policy at the Associa-
tion of Medical Research Charities, hasconcerns for the clinical trials her orga-
nization supports in the United Kingdom.
Now that an exit deal is in place, she isn’t
as worried as before about the delivery of
experimental medicines for ongoing trials.
But she fears Brexit’s long-term fallout will
make the United Kingdom a less attractive
place for clinical trials.
Much depends on whether the United
Kingdom ends up outside a new European
system for clinical trials that it helped
shape. The system allows trial
leaders to apply for approval only
once, through a central portal,
rather than through multiple na-
tional bodies. If the U.K. no longer
participates, EU researchers may
not want to include U.K. patients
in pan-EU clinical trials, or may
avoid leading trials in the nation,
Ball says. “This extra layer of bur-
den will disincentivize people,”
she says.
Researchers also fear that the
flow of data between the U.K. and
Europe may be choked off. The
European Union’s general data
protection regulation, a 2018 law,
allows data to be freely exchanged
between the United Kingdom
and other EU countries. Once
the transition period ends, how-
ever, the European Commission’s
Directorate-General for Justice
and Consumers will have to de-
clare U.K. data protection as
“adequate” for free exchanges to
continue. “If arrangements for
that aren’t put in place by the end
of the year, then lots of things will start to
grind to a halt,” Smith says.
The U.K. government, meanwhile, has
tried to allay researchers’ concerns by an-
nouncing its intention to increase spend-
ing on research to 2.4% of gross domestic
product, putting U.K. spending near the
top for developed countries. “We won’t
know how much of this is theater over sub-
stance for a while,” Wilsdon says. The next
budget, set to be announced on 11 March,
will give a clearer sense of what will hap-
pen, he says. “If they start to really put
proper extra money behind all of this rhe-
torical commitment, then that will further
water down opposition and concern over
the European funding question.” jBy Kai Kupferschmidt
EUROPE
After Brexit, a long road to mend ties with Europe
U.K. scientists want to join EU research program, but Europe may balk
Published by AAAS