Government must step in if Brexit leads to science funding shortfall

Dear Chancellor,

Following last Thursday's EU referendum result, I am writing to highlight the continuing importance of protecting our science and research, and to advise you that the committee intends to move quickly to hold an inquiry into how that might best be done in the run up to leaving the EU.

We propose to take evidence from ministers, including from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, as part of this inquiry. I would be grateful for your response on the points below in order to inform the committee's work, and to give some assurances to the science community that the government will not lose sight of the issues for science and research in exit negotiations.

Life sciences

The committee's report earlier this month on EU regulation of the life sciences identified areas where, were we destined to remain in the EU, the government should seek improvements in EU life-science regulatory processes.

While we are now unlikely to have any meaningful role in that endeavour, our report highlighted significant benefits from our membership that should be preserved – an EU-wide regulatory system that drives research collaboration and allows access for UK science to the whole EU market.

It is vital that the UK retains these collaboration and single market access benefits in whatever post-EU relationship we pursue, and I would be grateful for your thoughts on how this could be achieved.

Replacing Horizon 2020

The UK has been a net receiver of EU research funding, and it is important that we maintain our access to EU research grants.

As the Lords Science and Technology Committee noted in its report on EU Membership and UK Science, the UK has been able to win a share of the EU's Horizon 2020 funding which greatly exceeds what we have put into that pot. 

The UK has secured 15 per cent of Horizon 2020 funding to date, second only to Germany. Some associated countries have been able to maintain access to Horizon 2020 funding, but the government will need to learn from the cautionary tale of Switzerland, whose access to Horizon 2020 was much restricted after it curtailed free movement of people, undermining the country's science sector.

The government's views on the scope for maintaining access to Horizon funding will form a useful part of our inquiry.

As you noted in your Fixing the Foundations report last July, "There is a clear and robust evidence of a link between R&D spending and national productivity".

Whatever the uncertainties that lie ahead, a strong government commitment to the science budget is needed along with a roadmap for increasing UK expenditure on R&D as a share of GDP towards the rates of our competitors.

In our science budget report last year, we called for spending of three per cent of GDP to be the goal. This greater investment would need to come from the private sector as well as from government. Now, more than ever, the government will need to demonstrate how science and research is a fundamental building block of our future prosperity, to encourage that continuing private sector investment.

If that private sector investment falls because of any transitional uncertainty, however, the government should be ready to reassess its science budget funding to at least maintain current investment levels overall.

The committee, and the science community, will appreciate a clear view from the Treasury on how funding can be safeguarded in the context of Brexit, and grown in the longer term.

Keeping UK magnet strong

The UK has also benefitted enormously from scientists, researchers and students coming to work in the UK from other parts of the EU and from further afield. Whatever migration policies are now put in place, we must remain an attractive place to do research.

I would be grateful if you could set out your thoughts on how the government can make it absolutely clear that the UK remains open and welcoming to such fundamentally important contributors to our research base, our economy, and our country.