The UK could lose strategic influence on EU science policy in the event of a Brexit.
This is one of the conclusions from a report published by the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee, which also found Britain’s science and engineering community placing notable value on continued membership of the European Union.
The Committee concluded that the UK plays a leading role in the development of EU policies and decision-making processes that relate to science and research, but expressed concern over the poor level of engagement by large businesses in securing EU funding.
In its key findings, the committee reports that the status of the funding relationship between the UK and the EU is a complex one but gives significant value to UK science from the European Union with 18.3 per cent of all the UK’s incoming EU funding going on scientific research and development.
The Committee add that the EU’s main funding system for science rewards excellence and the inquiry heard that the UK is one of the EU’s top performers in terms of securing these competitive funding streams.
However, the report also acknowledges that even those who are most in favour of continued EU membership criticised aspects of the UK’s relationship to it. In the event that the UK chooses to remain part of the EU, there would be scope for government to advance reforms to enhance the relationship between the EU and UK science and research.
The report follows a survey conducted by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) that found three quarters of participants in favour of Britain remaining in the EU.
The IChemE UK Research Committee, and other witnesses, put to the Committee that one of the most significant aspects of the UK’s EU membership is the provision of opportunities to collaborate.
The report concludes that the EU has three main influences on science and engineering: the provision of collaborative funding schemes and programmes; ensuring researcher mobility; and facilitating and fostering participation in shared pan-European research infrastructures.
The full House of Lords report can be found here.
In a separate development, members of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering’s trustee board and judging panel have written to The Times calling on global governments to preserve education and research and development spending. The call comes as the QEPrize opens for 2017 nominations.
The letter – signed by the QEPrize judges and trustees, comprising academics, business leaders and heads of engineering associations from the UK, Germany, America, Japan, India, Switzerland and Singapore – cites engineering as a driver of productivity and emphasises technology’s increasing impact on human life as a reason for safeguarding education and R&D funds.
In a statement, Lord Browne of Madingley, chairman of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering Foundation, said: “In order for governments to reap the benefits from engineers they need to protect their research and development budgets.”
“Through protecting this investment, engineers will be empowered and able to continue solving the world’s greatest challenges.
“Some of these engineers may go on to be the next QEPrize winner, but if not, they will at the very least provide their governments with more vital skills, goods and services which can be exported or traded to benefit their country.”
As the House of Lords is one of the institutions that would benefit from maintaining the status quo, I’m reluctant to take this report at face value. Perhaps the ‘science and engineering community’ are in favour of their current arrangements because they are represented by the vocal establishment who also want to maintain the status quo and don’t have the confidence to enter into projects on a purely national scale? If another country is involved and something goes wrong, blame can be apportioned to them as well. But the UK apparently secures funding for ‘excellence’ and therefore the projects must have some merit – so the EU part of the equation is entirely superfluous. The UK pays into the EU twice as much as it gets back, so if we do leave a lot of potential funding could be made available for R&D. As we all know, staying in the EU doesn’t mean reform of any sort. The Prime Minister recently came back, arms full of so-called reforms, but they amount to nothing.
We don’t need the EU for science, engineering or anything else – we are more than capable of innovation by ourselves, as they last 200 years show. We won’t have a ‘brain drain’, our economy won’t collapse, and the country will not implode. I hope that the minds of engineers and other such professionals are sharp enough to cut through the defeatist propaganda spewed by government and large organisations to see that there is a world of possibility beyond the shackles of the self-serving, neo-imperialistic EU
You don’t have to be an academic to realise that the EU does not earn any money — they simply take our taxes!
The EU grants so generously gifted for UK research are no more than a partial refund, a refund we must first apply for and are then told how and where to spend it..
I’m baffled if you think that makes any sense but then I’m an engineer, not an academic.
david james
And we have to match that ‘refund’ with an equal amount of our money. Considering ‘refunds’ only amount to 49p in every pound. Out of the EU we could afford to spend more with out increasing taxes as we never see the benefit of the 51p that the EU wastes elsewhere, places like Turkey.
The report is wholly inaccurate. The UK’s science base would simply be centrally funded 100% by the UK taxpayer direct rather than via a circuitous route of Brussels. UK Universities would no longer have to partner with dodgy institutions in Portugal, or worse, Greece, in order to get funding. Besides – the real threat to UK science is the tidal wave of third rate science coming out of many UK universities – graphene that goes nowhere, billions spent on energy and environmental research that has failed to produce one single breakthrough, the chaos at the climate ‘research’ institutions, or the mass of worthless ‘business research’ that no one ever reads or wants.. The loss of Tim Hunt, our greatest living scientist, is symptomatic of the low quality trend. The Crick Institute in London is already in financial difficulties – not that London needed any more expensive biotech research institutes – it has too many already..
BREXIT means we would not have to send money to the EU then get a small percentage back to fund these research people, UK will them have the power to increase or decrease the amounts accordingly.
They are “robbing Peter to pay Paul” . HELLO ! ! !
Looks like the faults in the article have been well clarified by Phil, David, Marcus and Robert above. As a personal observation, as a recently resigned ex-member of the I.Chem.E. I would state that I.Chem.E. has become totally dominated by a small cabal who decide its policies without any reference to the interests of members and by refusing any open debate of issues that the cabal has decided are now policy. Consequently, I would not commend their recommendations to anyone now.
In its key findings, we are told that the committee reports that the status of the funding relationship between the UK and the EU is a complex one but gives significant value to UK science from the European Union with 18.3 per cent of all the UK’s incoming EU funding going on scientific research and development. The facts of the matter is, the EU only funds a tiny fraction of the UK’s research and development activity. Indeed a recent Royal Society report revealed that from 2007-2013, the EU funded just 3% of UK R&D through it’s Framework Programme 7 (FP7) funding network.
royalsociety.org/~/media/policy/projects/eu-uk-funding/uk-membership-of-eu.pdf
3% is such a tiny sum that I can agree with Marcus above that the UK’s science base would simply be centrally funded 100% by the UK taxpayer direct rather than via a circuitous route of Brussels. UK Universities would no longer have to partner with dodgy institutions in Portugal, or worse, Greece, in order to get funding.
As I understand the EU administration costs take about 6% of the contributions: so it would seem that without that cost we could spend 6% more, but hen I’m an engineer not an administrator.
All interesting material: apart from the one I studied at, I had almost nothing to do with any university until I was 50. Then, both in reviewing the teaching (of staff who had never done anything else) and research offered, I regularly shook my head in disbelief that such incompetence, laziness, un- and non-professionalism could first be tolerated and second, actually paid for! Frankly, based upon what I saw over 10 years, and the ‘results’ (or lack thereof as other bloggers point out) I would not give universities any money whatsoever for anything. That is unless it was directed (and even then only via a commercial entity) to solving a specific and defined issue. If an individual researcher has anything about them, they will develop their efforts in spite of their ‘management’ not because of it. I have commented before on this aspect to administrative waste. It has reached, at least in my experience and several experiences, epidemic proportions.
A nice article in Belfast telegraph to illustrate today’s science education in UK:
A poll of more than 3,500 people, 513 of them from Northern Ireland, by Prostate Cancer UK exposes widespread ignorance.
It reveals that 53% of men here don’t know where it is in their body, only 9% know what it does, and 15% are unaware that they even have a prostate.