The Guild believes that securing the UK's place in EU programmes for research and innovation is critical for securing Europe’s and the UK’s role in delivering world-leading research, sustainable growth, and high-level skills. As UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak emphasised, the UK and the EU face key challenges together such as energy and climate change. Research collaboration will be essential in the UK’s and the EU’s bid to confront these challenges and overcome them.
The signatories of the joint statement now emphatically call on the political will and commitment to finalise UK association to EU R&I programmes, and to do so without delay.
Jan Palmowski, Secretary-General of The Guild, said: ‘Now is the time for researchers to overcome any hesitations they might have had to develop Horizon-funded applications. And if UK colleagues had given up hope to apply for funding from the ERC and MSCA – now is the time to re-engage. We must now all act, with immediate effect, to ensure we make a success of UK Association so that the added value of UK-EU science collaboration can never be undermined again. And politicians must do their bit to bring UK association over the line, and ensure we can collaborate right across the programme.’
2 March 2023