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U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

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Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#11

Post by misnome »

O_nlogn wrote: post #8
tetris11 wrote: post #2

This is great news. I remember when Brexit was announced in my last lab, and at first everything seemed okay, but as the months went on I saw more professor bashing heads or colluding to get those rare precious grants as it became clear that the well was drying up.

Disclaimer: I voted to remain, but this is a great example of misleading/fear mongering by the remain campaign. They very vocally claimed that all the "good bits" of the EU cooperation would be permanently ended by leaving the Union. As evidenced by this news and others, that is untrue. There is clearly room for close cooperation in many areas without surrendering sovereign control over your nation.

I didn't hear that. I heard vocal claims that _getting rid of all of the things_ would cause problems, and that we'd either have to expensively replicate or just sign up for it separately anyway.

That is exactly what has happened here.

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#12

Post by mytailorisrich »

etiennebausson wrote: post #6
mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

> And it will be able to recoup funding if U.K. scientists receive “significantly less money” than the U.K.’s annual contribution, according to the government’s announcement Has the UK managed to negotiate another special treatment (like when it had its 'discount' when an EU member) to ensure that it can only benefit from the scheme? If so, that sounds like a good deal.

That doesn't mean they can only benefit from it, it mean they can't be completely shafted. If they get 2.4~2.5 Billions every year, or a year at 2.8 followed by a 2.1, it would be less, but not significantly less (the law of average make this last option a lot less likely). The idea of the program is not to get all the money attributed to your country, I imagine the interest is also to pool specialist to evaluate the…

'significantly' is obviously a weasel word that is opened to further arguments, and I suspect it was added on purpose so that both parties can claim 'victory'.

Your comment is your personal interpretation, for instance.

I could also say that if I paid 2.5 billions in and only got 2.1 billions out over a single year that is significantly less (16%) so I demand a refund or guaranteed extra funding to make it up the following year.

> The idea of the program is not to get all the money attributed to your country

Whatever the idea of the program is, the aim of the UK seems not to be a constant net contributor, i.e. to ensure that on average it receives at least as much as it contributes, which was also the aim of various 'discounts' it got within the EU.

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#14

Post by phh »

FWIW, I don't have numbers, but Horizon Europe is both a research funding scheme and an industry innovation funding scheme. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding... says "This is 70% of the budget earmarked for SMEs."

It has both direct research grants (ERC grants), and funds for big consortium projects, where most of the money goes to big companies, with some money also going to SMEs and researchers (It probably has intermediate funding like direct SME fund, I don't really know the full extent).

I wouldn't be surprised that UK joined Horizon Europe because of industry lobbying rather than research.

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#15

Post by bojan »

O_nlogn wrote: post #8
tetris11 wrote: post #2

This is great news. I remember when Brexit was announced in my last lab, and at first everything seemed okay, but as the months went on I saw more professor bashing heads or colluding to get those rare precious grants as it became clear that the well was drying up.

Disclaimer: I voted to remain, but this is a great example of misleading/fear mongering by the remain campaign. They very vocally claimed that all the "good bits" of the EU cooperation would be permanently ended by leaving the Union. As evidenced by this news and others, that is untrue. There is clearly room for close cooperation in many areas without surrendering sovereign control over your nation.

I don't see how it was misleading. The scientific co-operation was stopped, just as they said it will be, and it took three years to re-negotiate, without it ever being certain that the negotiation will be a success.

And the UK remains an "associated country", allowed to participate but probably excluded from decision-making (a guess, it doesn't explicitly say in the article, but the UK now has the same status as countries like New Zealand, Ukraine, Kosovo or Israel).

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#16

Post by gumballindie »

lwhi wrote: post #13

Sounds like we're going backwards! Soon we'll be collaborating with other nations about other things too!! /s

Maybe we'll make a trade deal with countries in our geographical proximity, so we can trade without barriers. Perhaps even allow people to go there and work, and people from there to come here. Who knows what the future brings.

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#17

Post by dukeyukey »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

> And it will be able to recoup funding if U.K. scientists receive “significantly less money” than the U.K.’s annual contribution, according to the government’s announcement Has the UK managed to negotiate another special treatment (like when it had its 'discount' when an EU member) to ensure that it can only benefit from the scheme? If so, that sounds like a good deal.

As much as Brits like to denigrate the country, the UK outperforms most of it's neighbours in science and technology. Rejoining Horizon is a boon for European science even if the UK is a net benefactor.

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#18

Post by ovi256 »

O_nlogn wrote: post #8
tetris11 wrote: post #2

This is great news. I remember when Brexit was announced in my last lab, and at first everything seemed okay, but as the months went on I saw more professor bashing heads or colluding to get those rare precious grants as it became clear that the well was drying up.

Disclaimer: I voted to remain, but this is a great example of misleading/fear mongering by the remain campaign. They very vocally claimed that all the "good bits" of the EU cooperation would be permanently ended by leaving the Union. As evidenced by this news and others, that is untrue. There is clearly room for close cooperation in many areas without surrendering sovereign control over your nation.

> permanently ended

A 7 year funding hiatus is pretty bad

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#19

Post by stephen_g »

hkt wrote: post #5

Ah, I see we've discovered that yet another element of our EU membership has needed reconstituting after we've found life lacks a certain something after leaving. Ho hum.

I mean, plenty of countries that aren’t in the EU do have good relations and trade partnerships with the EU, as well as participation in certain EU programs (including several countries that are part of this Horizons program). The problem was probably more the utter incompetence of the people negotiations over leaving more than the idea of not being part of the EU itself (which wouldn’t have mattered that much if a competent framework had been put in place).

Re: U.K. rejoins Horizon Europe research funding scheme

#20

Post by makomk »

dan-robertson wrote: post #10
hkt wrote: post #5

Ah, I see we've discovered that yet another element of our EU membership has needed reconstituting after we've found life lacks a certain something after leaving. Ho hum.

I think remaining a member was always something the uk wanted but it seemed to get caught up in the negotiations. The screw up here is not that this is some U-turn but that rejoining/not-leaving didn’t happen much earlier.

It was - and in fact, associate membership of Horizon Europe was part of the original withdrawal agreement, it was just held up by the EU for years over issues with Northern Ireland. Similarly, the parts of the Brexit deal that are currently causing problems for car manufacturers were opposed by the British side but insisted on by the EU, though that didn't stop the British media spinning them as somehow being the UK's responsibility.
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