Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 339 posts

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

#91

Post by teekert »

peteretep wrote: post #58
tosseraccount wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ]

Could you specify some of the "EU regulations" that we should be getting out from under?

Well, for example all the bad stuff TTIP will bring the rest of Europe? Everybody here is pissed about TTIP. Now the Brits vote to get into a position to do something about such undemocratic bs and suddenly they are the bad guys? I see the pro-EU marketing campaign in which all the smart, rich and famous people that you should want to be like, say pro EU things, is working well. Even among the intellectual HN crowd.

All this anti UK sentiment is caused by fear mongering from the pro-EU lobby. The Brits are our friends, but just like the Russians, they don't dance to the tune of the power hungry EU bureaucrats and the propaganda machine is suddenly aimed in their direction.

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

#92

Post by pjc50 »

dajohnson89 wrote: post #85
jcranmer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, £350m/wk is the gross amount, £140m/wk is the net.

So the EU payments were taxed ? By whom?

That's net of money paid to the UK by the EU. Like the aforementioned Welsh CS funding.

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

#93

Post by joeyspn »

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

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

#94

Post by anon1385 »

jerf wrote: post #55
vmateixeira wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...fiscal and banking mismanagement in Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugual are destroying German and British wealth" Source?

Every conversation we've had about the EU for the last five years or so. The entire world has been talking about the relative lack of wisdom of trying to hold the entire EU to one currency for a long time, financial mismanagement, Germany strong-arming Greece into plans not good for them while Greece holds the threat of leaving over the entire EU to get better deals, and all sorts of such financial issues for a long…

The UK isn't in the Eurozone.

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

#95

Post by lottin »

ckinnan wrote: post #21
Fej wrote: post #3

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

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.…

> European growth is non-existent

Not according official GDP figures: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l...

> the Euro is failing

No evidence of that either.

> fiscal and banking mismanagement in Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugual are destroying German and British wealth

The UK government has one of the biggest deficits, as big as Portugal's actually. Only Spain and Greece are doing worse: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&l...

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

#96

Post by verytrivial »

lhnz wrote: post #23

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:…

Knee-jerk or not, the UK should expect retaliation, even when it disadvantages both parties. This referendum (even its existence let alone result) is driving in a wedge that will take decades to reach full effect, let alone remove. Leavers say "Sure, that's expected, but we'll be stronger once all that has died down." Remainers, like myself, do not.

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

#97

Post by alan_cx »

peteretep wrote: post #58
tosseraccount wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. ]

Could you specify some of the "EU regulations" that we should be getting out from under?

Oh, just workers rights, human rights, safety regulations, that sort of thing...

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

#98

Post by sievebrain »

ck425 wrote: post #89
sievebrain wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking about a government that recently made computer programming class a mandatory part of the high school curriculum. Your leap from "UK exits the EU" to "there will no longer be funding for computer science research" is based purely on your own emotions, not rational analysis. Like so much else I hear from pro-EU people these days.

You can't deny there will be less funding, given the amount of funding we receive from the EU. Though hopefully the new PM will prioritise investment in research and hopefully given the strong technology sector in the UK CompSci will get a reasonable share of it. But that's still to be seen and given May's attitude toward technology experts and level of knowledge during the discussions around the Snoopers Charter I'm…

The EU doesn't "fund" anything, the UK funds the EU by paying in more than it gets back out. It's literally the UK's own money being recycled through Brussels, except with extra rules and exchange rate risks thrown in.

Whether or not research funding is cut is an entirely open question right now. Maybe it will be: the EU has effectively been overriding the austerity policies everyone else in the economy has had to deal with, and academias has benefited from that. But as no policies have been announced yet, nobody can know what will happen.

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

#99

Post by djaychela »

misja111 wrote: post #86
codecurve wrote: post #25

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…

The UK is a net payer to the EU. For instance in 2015 alone, UK's net payment to the EU was about 8.5 billion pounds. So after the Brexit there will be more than enough money to continue the research funding. But as you mention already, it is another question if the government will be wanting to pay it. But is this really such a bad thing? The difference will that instead of the EU, the UK itself will decide which of…

"More than enough money" (and certainly the figures I've seen people bandying about) assumes that the cost of accessing the EU market (which I think we will have to pay) would be zero. I think it will be a significant proportion of the amount we were paying (net) to the EU, and in addition there will be other costs which people are just starting to cotton onto as well.

The main thing is that at the moment, we really have no idea at all what the financial costs will be - particularly of accessing the EU market - and until we do then a lot of this must hang in the balance.

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

#100

Post by lhnz »

Blahah wrote: post #87
jcranmer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC, £350m/wk is the gross amount, £140m/wk is the net.

Yup, and only naively accounts for the cash flow. It doesn't consider any of the downstream benefits of the single market, free movement, or coherent continental legislation which together will completely swamp the measly £140m/week net cash contribution we make.

The UK isn't a protectionist state, they'll do what they can to ensure global free trade. Firstly, to keep access to the EU's 'single market', and secondly to attempt agile free trade with other countries around the world.

It'll be interesting to look in 10 years and see who is more protectionist and less open.

Post reply on HN