Britain wants special Brexit discount to rejoin EU science projects

26 comments
  1. Talks finally restarted last month after London and Brussels struck the Windsor Framework deal, with expectations high of a swift resolution. The European Commission confirmed it would not require the U.K. to pay backdated participation fees for the two years it had missed of the current seven-year Horizon Europe funding initiative.

    But the U.K. government wants a bigger discount. London argues the two-year hiatus has left British-based researchers and businesses in a weakened position compared with their peers across Europe.

  2. Ugh, politico 🙄

    “We are not going to treat them in a different way to the other third countries. The conditions for association are set out in the [EU-U.K. Trade and Cooperation Agreement] TCA. We are willing not to ask them to pay for the two first years of the program, but nothing else.”

    Good.

  3. So, little has changed? While in the EU they always wanted discounts and special treatment, while out of the EU they still want discounts..

  4. Classic, they don’t want to follow EU rules but want to reap it’s benefits.

    Say them a clear no.

  5. I was in London meeting with people from UCL, Oxford and other UK universities when Brexit was voted through in 2016. All of them had a crisis over funding drying out in the next years.

    Already the day after they were struggling to become partners for new EU applications, since other universities weren’t sure how UK institutions were going to be treated for future funding. And that was years before they actually left the EU.

    Brexit stirred up a lot of storms, but it really hurt the research institutions from day 1. Without any plans or ideas on the table for whether they could still be treated as equal partners on applications, top UK universities went from the most desirable partners to some of the most risky.

  6. I honestly think the money would be better spent reinvesting in EU universities and research centres instead of investing in the UK, and for former projects to help them relocate to a EU university or research institution.

  7. >As negotiations continue, U.K. ministers are even threatening to abandon association with Horizon altogether

    ​

    Yes! That’s how we know the UK. And remember: the UK holds all the cards!

    /s

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