17 ms·

UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears

188 points by bpierre 10y ago

antr 10y ago
Unfortunately it's understandable.
- anf 10y ago
  How so?
  - jarito 10y ago
    It discusses this in the article. The challenge here is related to funding that is primary delivered by the EU structures. Now that the UK is leaving the EU, there is some concern that projects that contain UK representation, or are lead by UK researchers, will not be funded on time. This is due to the confusion around what Brexit will mean, how long it will take, how far it will go and what agreements the EU and UK will sign.
    - dekhn 10y ago
      Right, but while there is confusion and lack of clarity, it's not clear that immediately removing UK investigators is appropriate. Some amount of this is just petulance or telegraphing unhappiness, rather than rational decision making.
      - JohnStrange 10y ago
        I don't think so. It's just about the uncertainty. In many frameworks you need partner institutions from three or more EU countries. If you can replace a UK institution from one form another country, you can get certainty back and potentially greatly simplify future administration. That unfortunately makes a lot of sense.
      - czr80 10y ago
        Science funding is extremely competitive. Why would it be rational for EU researchers to take on additional risk?
        dekhn 10y ago
        What additional risk is there? Be specific.
      - wnkrshm 10y ago
        The proposals for the big EU calls like Horizon 2020 contain detailed work packages and plans for how the research effort is going to be orchestrated to be successful. To my knowledge, the quality of this planning is a decisive factor in the acceptance of a proposal. If a research partner drops out halfway through the project, the whole effort may fall apart - and with research institutions and industrial partners booking the alloted funds each month, such a failure is hard to justify for any EU officer. Of course, it is ridiculous to simply require that the UK partners be dropped from the project without a significant change of plan or adequate substitution. Edit: Also, the aim of these projects is always to strengthen industry or scientific progress in the participating countries - so politically, if the UK really drops out this would be giving something for free to a competitor.
        dekhn 10y ago
        I'm having trouble seeing why UK partners here are specifically going to drop out of a funded research project simply because Brexit.
        Symbiote 10y ago
        They may struggle to recruit staff needed for the positions, or even lose existing staff¹. For Successful projects often lead to future projects, so people thinking of projects in a few years time might not want to start collaboration in the UK, at least if there's an alternative elsewhere in the EU. ¹ For example, the UK lost me — after the 2014 European Parliament elections in the UK, where UKIP won most votes, I started looking for a job elsewhere.
      - djlastword 10y ago
        Since when were people rational? The PR effects alone are reason to break ties with the UK, similar to the situation with Panama after the Panama Papers. I'm already asking international vendors to setup corporate entities in an EU country instead to keep business as usual. When discussing this only from an EU negotiation perspective I think you're missing the psychological impact Brexit has had on us Europeans (Yes I understand many Brits still consider UK a part of Europe but so does Russia so...). If they want to leave, let them leave. It's over. Good luck, have fun.
      - _delirium 10y ago
        As far as I understand it, nobody is immediately removing UK investigators from existing, already awarded projects. Those are going on as planned (I'm part of one myself). I'm not sure it would even be possible to do so under the research programme's rules. What's happening is that people who are just now putting together new groups of investigators in order to send an application into the next funding call are thinking twice about including UK partners in their applications, because it seems like a potential risk to the project. In general a partner dropping out of a project partway through is very disruptive, so you like to avoid it. You want partners who will still be there for at least 4 years from now: 1 year for the application preparation/review, plus 3 years for the project if the application is successful. Many people are not sure if that will be true of UK partners; can you say, today, that the UK will still be part of the EU funding mechanisms through 2020? I think there's a good chance they will be, even if they leave the EU (they will probably end up joining the research framework a la carte, like Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have). But I could forgive people for considering it a risk they'd rather avoid.
        dekhn 10y ago
        I am still having trouble seeing, for certain and without ambiguity, that Brext itself implies that UK researchers can't be listed on future projects. is that a straight-line, 100% implication? Everything I've read about Brexit suggests that nobody can predict the specifics about what will happen, when it will happen, or how much will actually happen.
        _delirium 10y ago
        You're correct, basically nobody knows what will happen. That's why many people don't want a UK partner in current applications (or at least prefer a different partner if a suitable one can be found), because they don't want this risk that, in 2 or 3 years, the UK partner might have to withdraw, if the UK leaves the EU research programmes. They might not have to withdraw, too, but nobody knows for sure, so it's a risk. Hopefully by next funding round the UK's intentions/timeline will be clearer, so people will either unambiguously know that the UK will stay in the EU research programme long-term, or that it won't.
  - pyb 10y ago
    Funding for science in the EU is already very tight. European research groups will avoid starting new collaborations with British groups, if it makes funding even less likely...
  - TrickzOnU 10y ago
    I'm assuming because country of residence / citizenship of the Principal Investigators is a selection criteria for grants? (Someone can you verify? This is unfortunate...)
    - Scarblac 10y ago
      To receive EU grants, your research organisation needs to be in the EU. Isn't it the same everywhere else?
Fej 10y ago
It's always a tragedy when political maneuvering gets in the way of good science, and you know, advancing the human race.
- ckinnan 10y ago
  The EU's retarding democracy and human progress; European growth is non-existent, the Euro is failing, and fiscal and banking mismanagement in Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugual are destroying German and British wealth. Britain has almost all of the world-class research universities in the European Union and they will thrive outside the EU. Edit with sources: EU real per capita GDP is flat after 10 years: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdec100&plugin=1 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l... Scope of direct bailouts (note some have been repaid): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bailout_programs_for_EU_members_(since_2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bailout_programs_for_... Expanding role of the ECB in bailouts: http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/europes-qe-quandary http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/europes-qe-quandary EFSM mechanism puts Eurozone member countries (not UK) on the hook: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu_borrower/efsm/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu_borrower/efsm/index_e... Of the top 30 research universities 4 are British none are other EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Universities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Univ...
  - vmateixeira 10y ago
    "...fiscal and banking mismanagement in Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugual are destroying German and British wealth" Source?
    - setra 10y ago
      If you loan people money and they don't pay it back you loose money...
      - vmateixeira 10y ago
        When is Britain loosing money? Regarding Portugal, all I can see is a really nice investment [1] and being paid back with [2]. Which means EU lenders are actually profiting. [1] http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-portugal-imf-repayment-idUKKBN0MF2CE20150320 http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-portugal-imf-repayment-idUK... [2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/portugal_long_term_interest_rates https://ycharts.com/indicators/portugal_long_term_interest_r...
Mayzie 10y ago
This is sad. :-(
torrent-of-ions 10y ago
Again, this is exactly what was expected and we were told by the experts.
- KON_Air 10y ago
  But England had enough of experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6HNXtdvVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6HNXtdvVQ
- yAnonymous 10y ago
  Did anyone doubt what experts said? I was under the impression that most voters knew about it and still wanted to go ahead with leaving the EU, because they felt their arguments weighted more heavily than economic concerns. It's possible that both sides are correct.
  - DavidSJ 10y ago
    Yes, people doubted what experts said. Brexit, along with several other contemporary movements such as Trumpism, have been driven by a profound distrust of the establishment.
    - djschnei 10y ago
      Which is entirely understandable, no? (Hate trump personally, Brexit is a win though)
    - sievebrain 10y ago
      The term "expert" in the referendum debate almost always meant economists and referred to the long range economic impacts. You don't need to be an expert to know the EU will find all kinds of weird ways to try and "punish" the UK for leaving, you just have to listen to men like Juncker. Instead of convincing people their ideas are good, they are 100% focused on maximising the pain of disobeyed Brussels. None of these sorts of things were unexpected by anyone who voted out.
- mason240 10y ago
ThePhysicist 10y ago
A few months ago I attended the "Quantum Europe" conference in Amsterdam, where the new EU flagship project on quantum computing was kicked off and celebrated. With a total funding volume of 1 BN € this initiative is huge, and there are several British universities and research centers involved. Now with the BREXIT it's unclear whether they will be able to still participate in this project, which will start in 2018. And if they can't it will be at least doubtful if the UK government will allot them a similar amount of funding for quantum technologies... I can only start to imagine how disappointed these researchers must be now, as winning the EU flagship was such a huge deal to everyone involved and took years of preparation from dozens of industry & research partners. It really is a shame.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  So tell the EU to let British universities continue to participate regardless of EU membership. If you believe they will say no for purely political reasons, then there's the problem. There are lots of academic collaborations that span the globe. It's only the EU that artificially ties quantum computing research to immigration policies. edit: There is a massive amount of political downvoting going on in this thread. Voting is NOT intended to express agreement or disagreement.
  - Vespasian 10y ago
    Working together on EU projects is significantly easier than getting other sources of (large) funding internationally.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    As the sibling comment points out, the participation involves money. If the UK stops paying into the EU, it stops recieving payouts.
    - sievebrain 10y ago
      But it hasn't stopped paying in money, and the EU could easily strike a separate deal to allow continued participation in Horizon 2020 if it wanted to. My point stands: the EU allocates research funding based on political concerns that have nothing to do with science. And that needs to stop.
wyager 10y ago
This sounds more like political retaliatory BS than actual financial concerns. End the project when you lose funding, not in anticipation of losing funding at some point in the future.
- grraaaaahhh 10y ago
  That sounds like a great way to waste years of your life.
- NetStrikeForce 10y ago
  Dude, you didn't even read the article. These projects might not start until 2-3 years from now and are definitely not ending before that. At that time the UK won't be part of the EU. Why would you waste money in something that has no benefit for anyone? Not even for the UK scientists.
- avian 10y ago
  European research projects I know about get their expenses reimbursed after the fact. For example, you buy some (potentially very) expensive equipment, claim the expenses in the yearly financial report and (if the Commission accepts your claims after review) receive money to your institution's account. That can be a year and a half after you had to pay for your equipment and in the mean time your research institute, university, etc. must cover it for you. I don't find it surprising that people are anxious to proceed with projects when there is uncertainty whether they will get their expenses paid in the end.
  - wyager 10y ago
    Interesting. I work in a US research lab and while I do not manage finances, I am under the impression that we are never in debt.
OlliBolli 10y ago
I think we need to reconsider if we need democracy. I am serious.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
wrong_variable 10y ago
Large Multinationals like Unilever, even for incremental decisions - like changing the type of light bulb, takes years to execute. This is why a large change in their business is so difficult and you need a very good CEO ( ask Marissa Mayer ) The decision UK made to leave the EU is akin for Unilever to switch from selling shampoos to selling software - and we are not talking about a multinational with 100,000 employees. We are talking about an entire country. The UK -> EU export is 40% but even the rest of the 60% happens through EU treaties with other non-EU countries. Not only will the EU trade treaty need to be renegotiated, but so does the 50 other trade treaty with other nations - those treaties took a lot of time and over 600+ negotiators to write, the UK only have 30 negotiators and about 2 years. A reworking of the economy usually results is a lot of unemployment and retraining. Imagine if the C standard library made a small change in some function. Retraining means public investment or as the austerity people put it - deficit spending - not sure how much appetite the UK govt has to do something like that. Regardless of how much people hate on Java and Oracle - if they suddenly disappeared it would be chaos and lose of GDP for many years before we retool our software on Python/Go etc. Also there is uncertainty - usually the horizon for bringing new laws into action are declared ahead of time by 4-5 years to give people/businesses time to plan.
- hardlianotion 10y ago
  I think that the reaction will be simply to adopt minimal changes in the short term in ways in which Euro treaties and laws are brought wholesale onto Westminster statute books. Significant change will only occur over time and limbo is to be avoided where possible - not just for the UK, but for everyone else as well. This is the only thing that would make sense even if everything was planned and orderly, which I think we can all agree is not the case.
  - wrong_variable 10y ago
    If I am not mistaken - individual countries are not willing to negotiate trade treaties before the UK invokes article 50. Even if by some miracle Theresa May decides to withhold invoking article 50 before creating new treaties using back channels with the 50 other trading partners of the UK, it wont be possible to enact them until the UK leaves the EU and negotiates a new trade deal with the EU.
lhnz 10y ago
Is it really likely that Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities are no longer going to be allowed to do Science alongside European universities? Is Theresa May and the conservative government against investing in Science? It seems to me that most of this is is just knee-jerking, and it's likely that there are quite a few people who will work to ensure that things continue to work as they should. Edit: That University Ranking chart posted earlier says it all really. The US and UK dominate the charts - you don't see EU universities until page two. This is just a few people cutting their noses off to spite their face.
- PLenz 10y ago
  They'll of course be allowed to do the research - the question is who is going to pay for it as much of the funding comes from the EU.
  - endeavour 10y ago
    EU money doesn't come out of thin air. It comes from taxpayers. The UK is a net contributor to the EU so the UK government could choose to fund all current commitments and still be better off.
    - mpweiher 10y ago
      Except for...revenues are not going to stay the same. For example, George Osborne has just proposed to slash the corp. tax rate from 20% to 15%, in order reduce (not eliminate) the almost certain reduction in UK investment. Last year, CT net receipts were £ 42 billion[1]. At the current 20% rate. At 15%, that would be £ 31.5 billion, for a reduction of £ 10.5 billion. Let's divide that by 52 weeks and you get £ 200 million. Which happens to be £ 10 million more than the UK's net contribution to the EU budget. So all your "savings" just evaporated just with corporation tax alone, and that's assuming that Osborne's plan works and there is no reduction in activity/investment, which is dubious. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524565/Corporation_Tax_Statistics_May_2016.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...
codecurve 10y ago
I just finished an EU funded CompSci Masters degree in Wales, the poorest country in the UK and it's devastatingly sad to think that once the EU research funding stops, those opportunities will be gone forever for future students coming through the department. There aren't enough large tech companies in the area for there to be any sponsored degrees available, which probably means that when the funding finishes, the research will start to dry up and the interesting researchers will leave with it. Take away the research and what's left is a department of third-rate lecturers. That's not an inspiring way to learn. Will the NHS get some of the £350m? Maybe, maybe not. It's likely to be up for discussion. Will the post-Brexit government allot research funding for CS departments in North Wales? Not a chance.
- niccolop 10y ago
  Agreed, and think what it will mean for non-STEM research funding.
- tosseraccount 10y ago
  Private, endowment and British funds can make up for the EU. Getting out from under EU regulations and negotiating as a free agent is a better deal for most Brits. [ edit: must have touched a nerve. +1 to -4 in an instant. ]
  - creshal 10y ago
    > Private, endowment […] funds can make up for the EU Ah, yes. Private charities providing public services, the driving force behind the rise of communism in the 19th century. > Getting out from under EU regulations and negotiating as a free agent is a better deal for most Brits. People keep saying that, but why? Britain is now in a much worse negotiation position than before.
  - peteretep 10y ago
    Could you specify some of the "EU regulations" that we should be getting out from under?
    - 10y ago
JohnStrange 10y ago
If there is one deal that can be negotiated successfully, then it's probably to continue existing science cooperation. Still, as a researcher myself, I'd also be wary about participating UK institutions in a Horizon2020 project right now, until more details have been negotiated and Article 50 has been triggered. Nobody knows for sure now what's going to happen, and the administrative burdens are already high enough as is.
pluma 10y ago
A lot of these concerns have been dismissed as "fearmongering". This case shows that whether the fear is justified or not, it affects the behaviour both in the UK and out. This is the real reason experts were warning about the consequences: perception trumps reality. There may not be a direct impact, but the fear of an impact affects behaviour which in turn can create the exact impact itself.
throwaway991132 10y ago
Better this than the alternative. I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBo7Ug_1M8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBo7Ug_1M8k If you are British and was in the STAY camp. I encourage you to watch this.
awestley 10y ago
I wonder how many other things like this will be impacted. By "like this" I mean not terribly obvious, but when you hear about it; you realize it should have been.
kriro 10y ago
I'd actually go hard for British (elite) universities as partners for the next round of Horizon. It'll take longer until they get no funding and others will avoid them. Most importantly there's still going to be plenty of Brits from said universities reviewing the applications :D
DiabloD3 10y ago
This isn't really political. If the UK exits, they are no longer paying their EU club dues, which means the EU will no longer fund UK people/project in return; and it is easier to preemptively block further UK funding that hasn't already been funded and then (re-)fund it in the near-future if Brexit doesn't happen (no reason currently to think it won't, the UK just needs to get their shit together and actually do it), than it is for the reverse, semi-funding UK people/projects until Article 50 is signed by the UK. This is the path of least bullshit, as far as I can tell. Given that the UK has to leave the EU to survive, wants to leave the EU, and the EU has given them significant reason to go ahead and leave the EU and not go down with the ship. I'm trying not to judge anyone, but France/German bailout of Greece, and the failure to save Spain in any respectable manner; all the while Iceland did the correct thing (and from the viewpoint as an American, our founding fathers would be applauding Iceland), the EU's economy is going to have their own Japan-style Lost Decade over this. Side note: The point of investments is that they are not guaranteed. This is why investments have return, and there is an entire industry around calculated risk and the mathematics that go into it. As in, a low risk investment pays little (but most likely will pay it), a high risk investment must, in turn, have the chance of paying out a lot (but also has a high risk of paying nothing). Given that (something everyone on HN should know, given HN was started as YC's news outlet, and grew into a rather nice community later on), if an investment fails, it must fail if that is the only way out. Continually bailing out bad investments is almost literally theft from everyone else who didn't fund that investment. FDIC in the US exists for a reason: disconnect people's non-investment money from banks being commercial enterprises, and let people rationally choose to invest (or not invest) using a safe and well understood system. Telling Wall Street (or the European equivalents) that it's okay to just aim for the stars and pretend to get there every single time, teaches them that hyperinflation is okay and the little people don't matter. The little people matter, because there's several thousand of us for every one of them, and the only "us vs them" mentality going on isn't some white collar vs blue collar shit, and it never will be, no matter how much CNN, Fox, and MSNBC bang that drum; instead, the only "us vs them" mentality I see going on is really is the 99% vs the 0.1%. When push comes to shove, we shove back with several times more force. I'm already seeing an unprecedented push for locally grown/raised/manufactured/built/whatevered food/products/services. As in, city first, metro/county/whatever area second, state third, region of the US fourth, the US fifth, and first world countries that don't treat their citizens like shit sixth, with India/China/etc being firmly rejected as they are vehicles for legalized slavery, and only serve to enrich the already enriched. There has always been this movement, but now I'm seeing poor people, people who simply can't afford to do this... doing it. And it's working. Hell, I'm not rich, I'm not even middle class (I'm probably the poorest regular on HN), and I'm buying $3 a dozen eggs because the money stays local, and the guy raising the chickens buys Blue Seal seed, which they themselves are largely anti-anti-nutritional (ie, not using garbage protein and fat sources, and not loading it full of corn and soy), are medium businessy (13 mills across the US, maybe only employing a thousand people across all of them), and only small local businesses are dealers for it. Their chicken feed is higher quality (== healthier chickens that live longer and produce more, and == better eggs with more nutrition, AND == more eggs), and less expensive than the garbage Purina/Cargill produces and sells to small time farmers. So, yeah. There is my rant for the day. Good morning, everyone.
egocodedinsol 10y ago
> One university said it had serious concerns about its ability to recruit research fellows for current projects. I have heard rumblings of researchers' reluctance to work in the UK due to concerns about funding availability in 3 years. No one I know personally, but I have heard that active offers are being reconsidered. If the UK can demonstrate a commitment to funds, that would mitigate the reluctance, but given recent events uncertainty is high to say the least. And science is uncertain enough already. Put another way, the UK might have to commit much more resources to attract researchers than before, to compensate for the added risk.
joeyspn 10y ago
As a founder who tried to apply and build a couple of consortiums with my previous startup, for FP7 and Horizon2020 project funding, I totally understand the fears. This is the key part of the article: > Only 12% of bids for Horizon 2020 funds are successful, a rate that falls by more than half in highly competitive areas. Given the low probability of winning funds at the best of times, Gorman said it was natural risk aversion to be cautious of UK partners. UK politicians simply don’t understand this, and think it is ‘business as usual’, at least until negotiations have been completed. They are wrong, the problems start right now Brexit could endanger a whole project if british companies are members of your consortium. There's quite a bit of research money at stake, and some companies depend a lot on this kind of funding. Once you find the companies that are going to partner with you and apply, then starts a long journey together, of several years (2 to 5) until the projects are finished... you can't just start the projects, and "do business as usual" and then see how UK companies are forced to abandon ship after few months for political reasons. The projects could collapse, and this is too much uncertainty. IMO until the doubts are 100% cleared and we have a new EU <-> UK treaty for science collabs in place, many EU companies will be reluctant to partner with UK companies/institutions. Brexit is bad for UK research and UK scientists knew this... https://www.facebook.com/scientistsforeu https://www.facebook.com/scientistsforeu
gaius 10y ago
The UK is still in the EU for at least 2 more years, and discrimination against another EU citizen is illegal.
djlastword 10y ago
There is nothing discriminatory about this. They broke up with us and are on their way out, of course we're not going to keep paying their bills. I think there is a lot of truth in this "British organisations will have to bring more to the table to justify the risk of them being included in a consortium", not only related to science but business in general. If EU businesses are supposed to trade with non EU members, of course they need to offer more.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

188 points by bpierre 10y ago

antr 10y ago

Unfortunately it's understandable.

anf 10y ago
How so?
- jarito 10y ago
  It discusses this in the article. The challenge here is related to funding that is primary delivered by the EU structures. Now that the UK is leaving the EU, there is some concern that projects that contain UK representation, or are lead by UK researchers, will not be funded on time. This is due to the confusion around what Brexit will mean, how long it will take, how far it will go and what agreements the EU and UK will sign.
  - dekhn 10y ago
    Right, but while there is confusion and lack of clarity, it's not clear that immediately removing UK investigators is appropriate. Some amount of this is just petulance or telegraphing unhappiness, rather than rational decision making.
    - JohnStrange 10y ago
      I don't think so. It's just about the uncertainty. In many frameworks you need partner institutions from three or more EU countries. If you can replace a UK institution from one form another country, you can get certainty back and potentially greatly simplify future administration. That unfortunately makes a lot of sense.
    - czr80 10y ago
      Science funding is extremely competitive. Why would it be rational for EU researchers to take on additional risk?
      - dekhn 10y ago
        What additional risk is there? Be specific.
    - wnkrshm 10y ago
      The proposals for the big EU calls like Horizon 2020 contain detailed work packages and plans for how the research effort is going to be orchestrated to be successful. To my knowledge, the quality of this planning is a decisive factor in the acceptance of a proposal. If a research partner drops out halfway through the project, the whole effort may fall apart - and with research institutions and industrial partners booking the alloted funds each month, such a failure is hard to justify for any EU officer. Of course, it is ridiculous to simply require that the UK partners be dropped from the project without a significant change of plan or adequate substitution. Edit: Also, the aim of these projects is always to strengthen industry or scientific progress in the participating countries - so politically, if the UK really drops out this would be giving something for free to a competitor.
      - dekhn 10y ago
        I'm having trouble seeing why UK partners here are specifically going to drop out of a funded research project simply because Brexit.
        Symbiote 10y ago
        They may struggle to recruit staff needed for the positions, or even lose existing staff¹. For Successful projects often lead to future projects, so people thinking of projects in a few years time might not want to start collaboration in the UK, at least if there's an alternative elsewhere in the EU. ¹ For example, the UK lost me — after the 2014 European Parliament elections in the UK, where UKIP won most votes, I started looking for a job elsewhere.
    - djlastword 10y ago
      Since when were people rational? The PR effects alone are reason to break ties with the UK, similar to the situation with Panama after the Panama Papers. I'm already asking international vendors to setup corporate entities in an EU country instead to keep business as usual. When discussing this only from an EU negotiation perspective I think you're missing the psychological impact Brexit has had on us Europeans (Yes I understand many Brits still consider UK a part of Europe but so does Russia so...). If they want to leave, let them leave. It's over. Good luck, have fun.
    - _delirium 10y ago
      As far as I understand it, nobody is immediately removing UK investigators from existing, already awarded projects. Those are going on as planned (I'm part of one myself). I'm not sure it would even be possible to do so under the research programme's rules. What's happening is that people who are just now putting together new groups of investigators in order to send an application into the next funding call are thinking twice about including UK partners in their applications, because it seems like a potential risk to the project. In general a partner dropping out of a project partway through is very disruptive, so you like to avoid it. You want partners who will still be there for at least 4 years from now: 1 year for the application preparation/review, plus 3 years for the project if the application is successful. Many people are not sure if that will be true of UK partners; can you say, today, that the UK will still be part of the EU funding mechanisms through 2020? I think there's a good chance they will be, even if they leave the EU (they will probably end up joining the research framework a la carte, like Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have). But I could forgive people for considering it a risk they'd rather avoid.
      - dekhn 10y ago
        I am still having trouble seeing, for certain and without ambiguity, that Brext itself implies that UK researchers can't be listed on future projects. is that a straight-line, 100% implication? Everything I've read about Brexit suggests that nobody can predict the specifics about what will happen, when it will happen, or how much will actually happen.
        _delirium 10y ago
        You're correct, basically nobody knows what will happen. That's why many people don't want a UK partner in current applications (or at least prefer a different partner if a suitable one can be found), because they don't want this risk that, in 2 or 3 years, the UK partner might have to withdraw, if the UK leaves the EU research programmes. They might not have to withdraw, too, but nobody knows for sure, so it's a risk. Hopefully by next funding round the UK's intentions/timeline will be clearer, so people will either unambiguously know that the UK will stay in the EU research programme long-term, or that it won't.
- pyb 10y ago
  Funding for science in the EU is already very tight. European research groups will avoid starting new collaborations with British groups, if it makes funding even less likely...
- TrickzOnU 10y ago
  I'm assuming because country of residence / citizenship of the Principal Investigators is a selection criteria for grants? (Someone can you verify? This is unfortunate...)
  - Scarblac 10y ago
    To receive EU grants, your research organisation needs to be in the EU. Isn't it the same everywhere else?

Fej 10y ago

It's always a tragedy when political maneuvering gets in the way of good science, and you know, advancing the human race.

ckinnan 10y ago
The EU's retarding democracy and human progress; European growth is non-existent, the Euro is failing, and fiscal and banking mismanagement in Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugual are destroying German and British wealth. Britain has almost all of the world-class research universities in the European Union and they will thrive outside the EU. Edit with sources: EU real per capita GDP is flat after 10 years: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tsdec100&plugin=1 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l... Scope of direct bailouts (note some have been repaid): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bailout_programs_for_EU_members_(since_2008) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Bailout_programs_for_... Expanding role of the ECB in bailouts: http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/europes-qe-quandary http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/europes-qe-quandary EFSM mechanism puts Eurozone member countries (not UK) on the hook: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu_borrower/efsm/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/eu_borrower/efsm/index_e... Of the top 30 research universities 4 are British none are other EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Universities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Univ...
- vmateixeira 10y ago
  "...fiscal and banking mismanagement in Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugual are destroying German and British wealth" Source?
  - setra 10y ago
    If you loan people money and they don't pay it back you loose money...
    - vmateixeira 10y ago
      When is Britain loosing money? Regarding Portugal, all I can see is a really nice investment [1] and being paid back with [2]. Which means EU lenders are actually profiting. [1] http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-portugal-imf-repayment-idUKKBN0MF2CE20150320 http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-portugal-imf-repayment-idUK... [2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/portugal_long_term_interest_rates https://ycharts.com/indicators/portugal_long_term_interest_r...

Mayzie 10y ago

This is sad. :-(

torrent-of-ions 10y ago

Again, this is exactly what was expected and we were told by the experts.

KON_Air 10y ago
But England had enough of experts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6HNXtdvVQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a6HNXtdvVQ
yAnonymous 10y ago
Did anyone doubt what experts said? I was under the impression that most voters knew about it and still wanted to go ahead with leaving the EU, because they felt their arguments weighted more heavily than economic concerns. It's possible that both sides are correct.
- DavidSJ 10y ago
  Yes, people doubted what experts said. Brexit, along with several other contemporary movements such as Trumpism, have been driven by a profound distrust of the establishment.
  - djschnei 10y ago
    Which is entirely understandable, no? (Hate trump personally, Brexit is a win though)
  - sievebrain 10y ago
    The term "expert" in the referendum debate almost always meant economists and referred to the long range economic impacts. You don't need to be an expert to know the EU will find all kinds of weird ways to try and "punish" the UK for leaving, you just have to listen to men like Juncker. Instead of convincing people their ideas are good, they are 100% focused on maximising the pain of disobeyed Brussels. None of these sorts of things were unexpected by anyone who voted out.
mason240 10y ago

ThePhysicist 10y ago

A few months ago I attended the "Quantum Europe" conference in Amsterdam, where the new EU flagship project on quantum computing was kicked off and celebrated. With a total funding volume of 1 BN € this initiative is huge, and there are several British universities and research centers involved. Now with the BREXIT it's unclear whether they will be able to still participate in this project, which will start in 2018. And if they can't it will be at least doubtful if the UK government will allot them a similar amount of funding for quantum technologies... I can only start to imagine how disappointed these researchers must be now, as winning the EU flagship was such a huge deal to everyone involved and took years of preparation from dozens of industry & research partners. It really is a shame.

sievebrain 10y ago
So tell the EU to let British universities continue to participate regardless of EU membership. If you believe they will say no for purely political reasons, then there's the problem. There are lots of academic collaborations that span the globe. It's only the EU that artificially ties quantum computing research to immigration policies. edit: There is a massive amount of political downvoting going on in this thread. Voting is NOT intended to express agreement or disagreement.
- Vespasian 10y ago
  Working together on EU projects is significantly easier than getting other sources of (large) funding internationally.
- pjc50 10y ago
  As the sibling comment points out, the participation involves money. If the UK stops paying into the EU, it stops recieving payouts.
  - sievebrain 10y ago
    But it hasn't stopped paying in money, and the EU could easily strike a separate deal to allow continued participation in Horizon 2020 if it wanted to. My point stands: the EU allocates research funding based on political concerns that have nothing to do with science. And that needs to stop.

wyager 10y ago

This sounds more like political retaliatory BS than actual financial concerns. End the project when you lose funding, not in anticipation of losing funding at some point in the future.

grraaaaahhh 10y ago
That sounds like a great way to waste years of your life.
NetStrikeForce 10y ago
Dude, you didn't even read the article. These projects might not start until 2-3 years from now and are definitely not ending before that. At that time the UK won't be part of the EU. Why would you waste money in something that has no benefit for anyone? Not even for the UK scientists.
avian 10y ago
European research projects I know about get their expenses reimbursed after the fact. For example, you buy some (potentially very) expensive equipment, claim the expenses in the yearly financial report and (if the Commission accepts your claims after review) receive money to your institution's account. That can be a year and a half after you had to pay for your equipment and in the mean time your research institute, university, etc. must cover it for you. I don't find it surprising that people are anxious to proceed with projects when there is uncertainty whether they will get their expenses paid in the end.
- wyager 10y ago
  Interesting. I work in a US research lab and while I do not manage finances, I am under the impression that we are never in debt.

OlliBolli 10y ago

I think we need to reconsider if we need democracy. I am serious.

deleted 10y ago

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wrong_variable 10y ago

Large Multinationals like Unilever, even for incremental decisions - like changing the type of light bulb, takes years to execute. This is why a large change in their business is so difficult and you need a very good CEO ( ask Marissa Mayer ) The decision UK made to leave the EU is akin for Unilever to switch from selling shampoos to selling software - and we are not talking about a multinational with 100,000 employees. We are talking about an entire country. The UK -> EU export is 40% but even the rest of the 60% happens through EU treaties with other non-EU countries. Not only will the EU trade treaty need to be renegotiated, but so does the 50 other trade treaty with other nations - those treaties took a lot of time and over 600+ negotiators to write, the UK only have 30 negotiators and about 2 years. A reworking of the economy usually results is a lot of unemployment and retraining. Imagine if the C standard library made a small change in some function. Retraining means public investment or as the austerity people put it - deficit spending - not sure how much appetite the UK govt has to do something like that. Regardless of how much people hate on Java and Oracle - if they suddenly disappeared it would be chaos and lose of GDP for many years before we retool our software on Python/Go etc. Also there is uncertainty - usually the horizon for bringing new laws into action are declared ahead of time by 4-5 years to give people/businesses time to plan.

hardlianotion 10y ago
I think that the reaction will be simply to adopt minimal changes in the short term in ways in which Euro treaties and laws are brought wholesale onto Westminster statute books. Significant change will only occur over time and limbo is to be avoided where possible - not just for the UK, but for everyone else as well. This is the only thing that would make sense even if everything was planned and orderly, which I think we can all agree is not the case.
- wrong_variable 10y ago
  If I am not mistaken - individual countries are not willing to negotiate trade treaties before the UK invokes article 50. Even if by some miracle Theresa May decides to withhold invoking article 50 before creating new treaties using back channels with the 50 other trading partners of the UK, it wont be possible to enact them until the UK leaves the EU and negotiates a new trade deal with the EU.

lhnz 10y ago

Is it really likely that Oxford, Cambridge and other Russell Group universities are no longer going to be allowed to do Science alongside European universities? Is Theresa May and the conservative government against investing in Science? It seems to me that most of this is is just knee-jerking, and it's likely that there are quite a few people who will work to ensure that things continue to work as they should. Edit: That University Ranking chart posted earlier says it all really. The US and UK dominate the charts - you don't see EU universities until page two. This is just a few people cutting their noses off to spite their face.

PLenz 10y ago
They'll of course be allowed to do the research - the question is who is going to pay for it as much of the funding comes from the EU.
- endeavour 10y ago
  EU money doesn't come out of thin air. It comes from taxpayers. The UK is a net contributor to the EU so the UK government could choose to fund all current commitments and still be better off.
  - mpweiher 10y ago
    Except for...revenues are not going to stay the same. For example, George Osborne has just proposed to slash the corp. tax rate from 20% to 15%, in order reduce (not eliminate) the almost certain reduction in UK investment. Last year, CT net receipts were £ 42 billion[1]. At the current 20% rate. At 15%, that would be £ 31.5 billion, for a reduction of £ 10.5 billion. Let's divide that by 52 weeks and you get £ 200 million. Which happens to be £ 10 million more than the UK's net contribution to the EU budget. So all your "savings" just evaporated just with corporation tax alone, and that's assuming that Osborne's plan works and there is no reduction in activity/investment, which is dubious. [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/524565/Corporation_Tax_Statistics_May_2016.pdf https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm...

codecurve 10y ago

I just finished an EU funded CompSci Masters degree in Wales, the poorest country in the UK and it's devastatingly sad to think that once the EU research funding stops, those opportunities will be gone forever for future students coming through the department. There aren't enough large tech companies in the area for there to be any sponsored degrees available, which probably means that when the funding finishes, the research will start to dry up and the interesting researchers will leave with it. Take away the research and what's left is a department of third-rate lecturers. That's not an inspiring way to learn. Will the NHS get some of the £350m? Maybe, maybe not. It's likely to be up for discussion. Will the post-Brexit government allot research funding for CS departments in North Wales? Not a chance.

niccolop 10y ago
Agreed, and think what it will mean for non-STEM research funding.
tosseraccount 10y ago
Private, endowment and British funds can make up for the EU. Getting out from under EU regulations and negotiating as a free agent is a better deal for most Brits. [ edit: must have touched a nerve. +1 to -4 in an instant. ]
- creshal 10y ago
  > Private, endowment […] funds can make up for the EU Ah, yes. Private charities providing public services, the driving force behind the rise of communism in the 19th century. > Getting out from under EU regulations and negotiating as a free agent is a better deal for most Brits. People keep saying that, but why? Britain is now in a much worse negotiation position than before.
- peteretep 10y ago
  Could you specify some of the "EU regulations" that we should be getting out from under?
  - 10y ago

JohnStrange 10y ago

If there is one deal that can be negotiated successfully, then it's probably to continue existing science cooperation. Still, as a researcher myself, I'd also be wary about participating UK institutions in a Horizon2020 project right now, until more details have been negotiated and Article 50 has been triggered. Nobody knows for sure now what's going to happen, and the administrative burdens are already high enough as is.

pluma 10y ago

A lot of these concerns have been dismissed as "fearmongering". This case shows that whether the fear is justified or not, it affects the behaviour both in the UK and out. This is the real reason experts were warning about the consequences: perception trumps reality. There may not be a direct impact, but the fear of an impact affects behaviour which in turn can create the exact impact itself.

throwaway991132 10y ago

Better this than the alternative. I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBo7Ug_1M8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBo7Ug_1M8k If you are British and was in the STAY camp. I encourage you to watch this.

awestley 10y ago

I wonder how many other things like this will be impacted. By "like this" I mean not terribly obvious, but when you hear about it; you realize it should have been.

kriro 10y ago

I'd actually go hard for British (elite) universities as partners for the next round of Horizon. It'll take longer until they get no funding and others will avoid them. Most importantly there's still going to be plenty of Brits from said universities reviewing the applications :D

DiabloD3 10y ago

This isn't really political. If the UK exits, they are no longer paying their EU club dues, which means the EU will no longer fund UK people/project in return; and it is easier to preemptively block further UK funding that hasn't already been funded and then (re-)fund it in the near-future if Brexit doesn't happen (no reason currently to think it won't, the UK just needs to get their shit together and actually do it), than it is for the reverse, semi-funding UK people/projects until Article 50 is signed by the UK. This is the path of least bullshit, as far as I can tell. Given that the UK has to leave the EU to survive, wants to leave the EU, and the EU has given them significant reason to go ahead and leave the EU and not go down with the ship. I'm trying not to judge anyone, but France/German bailout of Greece, and the failure to save Spain in any respectable manner; all the while Iceland did the correct thing (and from the viewpoint as an American, our founding fathers would be applauding Iceland), the EU's economy is going to have their own Japan-style Lost Decade over this. Side note: The point of investments is that they are not guaranteed. This is why investments have return, and there is an entire industry around calculated risk and the mathematics that go into it. As in, a low risk investment pays little (but most likely will pay it), a high risk investment must, in turn, have the chance of paying out a lot (but also has a high risk of paying nothing). Given that (something everyone on HN should know, given HN was started as YC's news outlet, and grew into a rather nice community later on), if an investment fails, it must fail if that is the only way out. Continually bailing out bad investments is almost literally theft from everyone else who didn't fund that investment. FDIC in the US exists for a reason: disconnect people's non-investment money from banks being commercial enterprises, and let people rationally choose to invest (or not invest) using a safe and well understood system. Telling Wall Street (or the European equivalents) that it's okay to just aim for the stars and pretend to get there every single time, teaches them that hyperinflation is okay and the little people don't matter. The little people matter, because there's several thousand of us for every one of them, and the only "us vs them" mentality going on isn't some white collar vs blue collar shit, and it never will be, no matter how much CNN, Fox, and MSNBC bang that drum; instead, the only "us vs them" mentality I see going on is really is the 99% vs the 0.1%. When push comes to shove, we shove back with several times more force. I'm already seeing an unprecedented push for locally grown/raised/manufactured/built/whatevered food/products/services. As in, city first, metro/county/whatever area second, state third, region of the US fourth, the US fifth, and first world countries that don't treat their citizens like shit sixth, with India/China/etc being firmly rejected as they are vehicles for legalized slavery, and only serve to enrich the already enriched. There has always been this movement, but now I'm seeing poor people, people who simply can't afford to do this... doing it. And it's working. Hell, I'm not rich, I'm not even middle class (I'm probably the poorest regular on HN), and I'm buying $3 a dozen eggs because the money stays local, and the guy raising the chickens buys Blue Seal seed, which they themselves are largely anti-anti-nutritional (ie, not using garbage protein and fat sources, and not loading it full of corn and soy), are medium businessy (13 mills across the US, maybe only employing a thousand people across all of them), and only small local businesses are dealers for it. Their chicken feed is higher quality (== healthier chickens that live longer and produce more, and == better eggs with more nutrition, AND == more eggs), and less expensive than the garbage Purina/Cargill produces and sells to small time farmers. So, yeah. There is my rant for the day. Good morning, everyone.

egocodedinsol 10y ago

> One university said it had serious concerns about its ability to recruit research fellows for current projects. I have heard rumblings of researchers' reluctance to work in the UK due to concerns about funding availability in 3 years. No one I know personally, but I have heard that active offers are being reconsidered. If the UK can demonstrate a commitment to funds, that would mitigate the reluctance, but given recent events uncertainty is high to say the least. And science is uncertain enough already. Put another way, the UK might have to commit much more resources to attract researchers than before, to compensate for the added risk.

joeyspn 10y ago

As a founder who tried to apply and build a couple of consortiums with my previous startup, for FP7 and Horizon2020 project funding, I totally understand the fears. This is the key part of the article: > Only 12% of bids for Horizon 2020 funds are successful, a rate that falls by more than half in highly competitive areas. Given the low probability of winning funds at the best of times, Gorman said it was natural risk aversion to be cautious of UK partners. UK politicians simply don’t understand this, and think it is ‘business as usual’, at least until negotiations have been completed. They are wrong, the problems start right now Brexit could endanger a whole project if british companies are members of your consortium. There's quite a bit of research money at stake, and some companies depend a lot on this kind of funding. Once you find the companies that are going to partner with you and apply, then starts a long journey together, of several years (2 to 5) until the projects are finished... you can't just start the projects, and "do business as usual" and then see how UK companies are forced to abandon ship after few months for political reasons. The projects could collapse, and this is too much uncertainty. IMO until the doubts are 100% cleared and we have a new EU <-> UK treaty for science collabs in place, many EU companies will be reluctant to partner with UK companies/institutions. Brexit is bad for UK research and UK scientists knew this... https://www.facebook.com/scientistsforeu https://www.facebook.com/scientistsforeu

gaius 10y ago

The UK is still in the EU for at least 2 more years, and discrimination against another EU citizen is illegal.

djlastword 10y ago

There is nothing discriminatory about this. They broke up with us and are on their way out, of course we're not going to keep paying their bills. I think there is a lot of truth in this "British organisations will have to bring more to the table to justify the risk of them being included in a consortium", not only related to science but business in general. If EU businesses are supposed to trade with non EU members, of course they need to offer more.

deleted 10y ago

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