UK scientists dropped from EU projects because of post-Brexit funding fears • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

wildmusings wrote: post #229

vidarh wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest polls have shown dramatic drops in anti-EU sentiments after the Brexit poll. If those numbers hold up, on the contrary Brexit may lead to a gear-shift towards more rapid integration of the rest of the EU.

The massive fear mongering campaign by pro-EU forces will blow up in their face when the UK continues to do phenomenally well past the New Year. The people don't like being manipulated.

> The massive fear mongering campaign by pro-EU forces will blow up in their face when the UK continues to do phenomenally well past the New Year.

How? Seems to me most of the predicted bad consequences were tied to leaving the EU, which (barring some mutual agreement with the EU on an alternate timetable) happens two years after Article 50 is invoked, which it has not yet been. Why would the UK continuing to do well while it is still in the EU discredit any of the predictions of problems stemming from leaving the EU?

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

#232

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:19 PM UTC

Xylakant wrote: post #198

wildmusings wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only "next steps" for the EU is a frantic attempt to not crumble. The National Front and Alternative for Germany are gaining fast.

The AFD actually lost a few percent in the last polls.

[deleted]

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

#233

Post by monk_e_boy » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #221

monk_e_boy wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this was laid out in the Brexit arguments. We all watched it on TV and read about it. Leave said they would continue to fund science, farms, Wales and Cornwall and match the EU funding. Weather this actually happens will be interesting. I think the Tories will neg on that. I think Labour would keep funding. But in Cornwall, all those millions of EU funding were spent on total crap and none of the local people…

> Leave said they would continue to fund science, farms, Wales and Cornwall and match the EU funding. How can they fund all that stuff when they said they would spend all that money on the NHS? http://imgur.com/indvx6a "Let's give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week" - that's not "some of" or "part of", that's "all of".

The leave campaign was made up of a lot of random people who all had different ideas. You pick one who has an idea that you agree with and vote for that person.

Not everyone in the leave campaign agreed with "Let's give our NHS the £350 million the EU takes every week" .... the people who DID don't want to fund science with that money. I assume that have another idea for where that money will come from.

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

#234

Post by sievebrain » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

teh wrote: post #214

sievebrain wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What specifically do you have in mind? You've said I'm wrong but not given any examples. I tend to not argue from the basis of how the EU is supposed to work, because it tends to put its long-range vision ahead of following specific rules. See how the deficit rules are working out: France is allowed to break the rules "because it's France" (Juncker's words). To predict the behaviour of such an institution it's better…

E.g. "in practice, if the EU doesn't strike a deal with the UK (which it won't) then I think it will suffer more exits." That is quite a bold statement that needs a lot of statements from people who can make these decisions to back it up. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Is it an extraordinary claim?

The people who run the Commission have been saying explicitly they don't even want to start talking about a free trade deal with the UK until after the UK is fully out. There's no reason for this, they could easily run the talks in parallel, but they have no desire to do so.

Now consider the extreme difficulty the EU faces in signing deals even when it wants to (will TTIP pass? won't it? I wouldn't bet on it either way), and adding these two things together makes any kind of TTIP or CETA like deal between EU and UK very unlikely.

Will the EU suffer more exits? Well, anti-EU politicians (or at least very eurosceptic politicians) have been rising throughout Europe for some time now and some countries are quite exposed to mandatory tariffs on UK trade (the Netherlands, France, Germany). Once the UK stabilises and the fact that trade barriers cut in both directions sink in, there will be a lot of people asking why the EU is dragging its feet over a deal.

To say there's no chance of further exits does not seem less extreme than saying there will be.

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

#235

Post by BellsOnSunday » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #174

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK's premier scientists can always get jobs elsewhere - and probably will. After a while, if research funding dries up, there won't be any more premier scientists being produced. Two, if you vote for people who are going to deny you prosperity, you don't get prosperity. If the working classes don't understand that, it's not the fault of the professional classes who - mostly - do. The reality is that some of those…

I still don't hear the voice of the working class in your response. Never the less, both the Tories and Labour fleeced the working class with the promise that they too could enjoy the prosperity the professional class would get to enjoy. The problem with socialists with respect to the working class, is that they treat the working classes all as one. The native working class are subverted for the non native working cl…

> The native working class are subterfuged for the non native working class

Subterfuged isn't the right word there but I'm not sure what is -- "passed over"?

There has been so much snobbery about Leave voters. I find it almost as disturbing as the (media magnified) hate speech from the other side.

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

#236

Post by monk_e_boy » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #226

monk_e_boy wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically yes. But I imagine that if they did everyone would be incensed and vote leave - to send a message. Whoever was in power at the time would be hoisted out in short order.

> But I imagine that if they did everyone would be incensed and vote leave - to send a message. I suspect not; for one, I think many of the 4+ million who signed the petition for a new referendum would probably vote "Remain".

How would you know if your vote would count for anything? If the people voted OUT and the government ignored it who's to say what other votes they will ignore.

This has been debated to death, 99% of politicians agree that the vote is cast, let's move on.

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

#237

Post by vidarh » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:23 PM UTC

monk_e_boy wrote: post #201

bpyne wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know little of Britain's political system. If Article 50 isn't being invoked until the end of the year, can Britain have another national vote on Brexit before then?

Technically yes. But I imagine that if they did everyone would be incensed and vote leave - to send a message. Whoever was in power at the time would be hoisted out in short order.

What makes you think that? The vote was met with such shock that it has re-raised the prospect of Scottish independence, and caused calls for referendums on Ireland, and has triggered the start of a small movement for independence for London (yes, most of the people who signed the change.org petition probably did it as a joke/out of anger, but there are groups organising more serious endeavours), and the signals all over the place is drastic increased devolution for London to placate anger here.

More than 4 million people signed a petition for a new referendum

On top of that we now know that most of the promises from the leave camp were flat out lies, and they've basically been shown to not have the faintest idea what they want to achieve.

I'm sure some would switch and vote leave out of spite, but frankly I don't think the vote was fair or democratic to begin with - it presented a false choice, in that "leave" could campaign on anything under the sun, with contradicting ideas about what leaving actually meant, and we see now the problems that causes: Did the 52% want EEA membership? Did they want full on isolationism? Something in between? We don't know. And we don't know how the results would be if they had to pick a specific option, but it is highly unlikely that they'd be unchanged.

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

#238

Post by monk_e_boy » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:25 PM UTC

genericpseudo wrote: post #211

monk_e_boy wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically yes. But I imagine that if they did everyone would be incensed and vote leave - to send a message. Whoever was in power at the time would be hoisted out in short order.

There isn't going to be a Britain to have that vote. Scotland is leaving and the Brexit vote has reraised the spectre of terrorism in Northern Ireland.

Maybe it's for the best. Why not let Scotland leave and make their own choices?

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

#239

Post by vidarh » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

monk_e_boy wrote: post #236

dragonwriter wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I imagine that if they did everyone would be incensed and vote leave - to send a message. I suspect not; for one, I think many of the 4+ million who signed the petition for a new referendum would probably vote "Remain".

How would you know if your vote would count for anything? If the people voted OUT and the government ignored it who's to say what other votes they will ignore. This has been debated to death, 99% of politicians agree that the vote is cast, let's move on.

By this argument we'd only hold elections once, and move on.

A central aspect of a democracy is that people are allowed to change their mind, and that people are allowed to continue to campaign for a decision to be overturned.

So no, we won't move on. Even after a Brexit we won't move on - some of us will fight to rejoin, some of us will work for independence (for my part, I've offered to help one of the groups starting to work for independence for London).

But this is not over, even it if takes breaking the UK apart to finish it.

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

#240

Post by _delirium » Tue, Jul 12, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #15

jarito wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It discusses this in the article. The challenge here is related to funding that is primary delivered by the EU structures. Now that the UK is leaving the EU, there is some concern that projects that contain UK representation, or are lead by UK researchers, will not be funded on time. This is due to the confusion around what Brexit will mean, how long it will take, how far it will go and what agreements the EU and UK…

Right, but while there is confusion and lack of clarity, it's not clear that immediately removing UK investigators is appropriate. Some amount of this is just petulance or telegraphing unhappiness, rather than rational decision making.

As far as I understand it, nobody is immediately removing UK investigators from existing, already awarded projects. Those are going on as planned (I'm part of one myself). I'm not sure it would even be possible to do so under the research programme's rules. What's happening is that people who are just now putting together new groups of investigators in order to send an application into the next funding call are thinking twice about including UK partners in their applications, because it seems like a potential risk to the project.

In general a partner dropping out of a project partway through is very disruptive, so you like to avoid it. You want partners who will still be there for at least 4 years from now: 1 year for the application preparation/review, plus 3 years for the project if the application is successful. Many people are not sure if that will be true of UK partners; can you say, today, that the UK will still be part of the EU funding mechanisms through 2020? I think there's a good chance they will be, even if they leave the EU (they will probably end up joining the research framework a la carte, like Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have). But I could forgive people for considering it a risk they'd rather avoid.