UK an essential research partner and its science is stronger because of EU membership, says Moedas

The UK is an “essential and valued partner” in EU research and UK science is “strengthened by its relationships with the EU”, said research commissioner, Carlos Moedas, in a speech at Cambridge University.

Addressing an audience that included the UK science and universities minister Jo Johnson, Moedas said the UK’s contribution to European research rests on its openness. Science is no longer a matter of national prestige or national security, but a global endeavour that needs a global outlook to succeed, he said.

The UK is one of the main recipients of EU research grants, Moedas noted. “Since 2014, over 300 European Research Council grants have gone to researchers in the UK. Over 100 of these have gone to Cambridge University alone.” This is more than any other university and more than many entire countries.

Jo Johnson is the brother of London Mayor Boris Johnson, the most high-profile member of parliament in favour of a British exit, or Brexit, who has become the de facto leader of the campaign for a vote to leave the EU.

However, Jo Johnson has firmly planted himself in the pro-Europe camp.  The life sciences minister, George Freeman, has also said it will be better for UK science and the life sciences sector to remain an EU member.

Speaking alongside Moedas, Jo Johnson told the Cambridge audience a vote to leave would be, “a leap into the dark” that would put the UK’s status as a science superpower at risk.

“Those who want Britain to leave the EU must explain how they will sustain the same levels of investment and the same depth of partnership under different circumstances,” Johnson said.

He added, “Research is rarely a solitary undertaking or even a narrowly national one. Around half of UK research publications now involve cross-border collaborations. And EU countries are among our most crucial partners, representing nearly half of our overseas collaborations.”

For Jo Johnson, European research funding offers a good example of how the EU can get things right and of how the UK benefits from a seat at the table when the rules are being drawn up in Brussels. “We have successfully argued for EU research money only to flow to where the best science is done, regardless of geography or pork barrel pressures,” Johnson said.  And because of the excellence of its research base, the UK wins an outsized slice of EU research programmes.

The audience needed little convincing: with the in/out referendum due on 23 June, the great and the good of British science are intensifying their lobbying in favour of a vote to remain in the EU. Cambridge University’s vice-chancellor Leszek Borysiewicz has thrown his weight behind the campaign to stay in Europe, as have his counterparts across the UK.

Universities UK, the body representing vice chancellors, is playing a proactive role in promoting UK membership, with its ‘Universities for Europe’ campaign, which is hosting meetings on campuses across the country.

It is hard to find anyone in the research community in favour of Brexit. Just two groups, Vote Leave and Scientists for Britain have spoken in favour, saying UK science would continue to prosper, with the UK participating in EU research on the same terms as other non-EU members such as Norway and Switzerland.