Leaving the EU would be an unmitigated catastrophe for British science. The UK government spends less than 0.5% of its GDP on science - ensuring that the UK scrapes the bottom of the G8 science funding barrel by some margin. Now, some folks in the government appear to want to further debilitate UK science by allowing voters to decide whether we quit the EU. Perhaps science isn’t one of the first things the government thinks of when it’s making noises about a European referendum, but it absolutely should be.
First and foremost – it’s the economy, stupid. UK science is one of the fundaments of the modern British economy. Oxford Economics’ conservative estimation is that the innovation, research and technology sectors contributed around £7.6 billion in gross value added to the UK economy in 2012/13, and that for every £1 spent on science-related fields, the overall return to the wider UK economy is around £4–£7. For a government running a deficit, you would think that using science to help build the economy should be more of a priority.
The government gets away with such a low domestic spend on science precisely because it is a part of the EU. Currently, UK science benefits to the tune of around €1.6 billion each year from European Research Council (ERC) funding alone, winning an impressive 20% of ERC grants in health research, while making up only 12% of the EU population. This is not just about money to dabble around with; EU funding, whilst firmly driven by scientific excellence, often has the aim of bridging to industry and benefiting society.
Take for instance the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies scheme, which promises to deliver interdisciplinary, collaborative research on an unprecedented scale. One of its first projects is the Graphene Flagship project, with a budget of €1 billion, whose aim is to bring together a large consortium of EU scientists and engineers from academia and industry to take graphene from the laboratory into society, generating new jobs, opportunities and economic growth. UK scientists are heavily involved in this – after all it was Manchester-based scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov who discovered graphene, earning a Nobel Prize for their efforts in 2010.
The Graphene Flagship project is exactly the kind of investment that will be jeopardised if the UK withdraws from the EU. The UK benefits enormously from EU science funding largely because Britain is at the vanguard of shaping policy and direction and is not some peripheral partner hoping for a knock-on benefit. If a comparison is needed for what it could be like, just look at Switzerland. The European Commission responded to their referendum on immigration by freezing them out of several important Horizon 2020 funding streams; the UK could well suffer the same fate. It is a pretty simple equation really: if you have no seat at the table, you have no influence over policy.
Because the government is so reluctant to spend money on science, there is increasing pressure for academics to broker collaborations with industry to offset the government’s contribution. A UK withdrawal from the EU would seriously undermine this endeavour. Most companies are multinational and their wealth comes from international trade. In that event, these putative industrial collaborators would have less money to spend on collaborative R&D, so leaving the EU ‘would be a disaster’ for economic trade. Just as bad, an exit from the EU would also necessarily hamper collaboration between UK academics and European industry. The vision of increasing crucial links between academia and industry will probably fail without EU support.
It’s not only about the money either. What the numbers don’t encompass are the massive benefits of science to society in terms of health, safety, energy, food, environment and quality of life. Hardly a luxury item. Twenty-first century science requires collaboration, and it is this international sharing of ideas, knowledge and expertise that catalyses the emergence of new paradigms and innovative technologies. For example, EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellowships fund scientists from any EU country to work in any other, and the UK is by far the most popular destination for this high-end talent (attracting over €1 billion since 2007). The ERASMUS programme , likewise, allows unimpeded flow of students and teaching staff across the EU. Exit from the EU would impose artificial borders on science, which could have devastating consequences for UK competitiveness.
Abandoning the EU and its innovative vision for science would leave UK science insular and inward looking, lacking the international perspective and economic firepower essential to its vitality. Even the impending referendum, regardless of its outcome, could destabilise the UK’s position in the international scientific community, making it a less attractive prospect for partnership from other EU countries. But outright Brexit would consign Britain to the backwaters of international science.
Alison Woollard and Sylvia McLain are both academics in the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University. You can follow them on Twitter @alisonwoollard and @girlinterruptin. If you too care about UK science, you can find out more information about these issues from the grassroots campaign Scientists for EU and follow them on twitter @Scientists4EU.
Correction: The original version of this article mistakingly said the UK won 27% of ERC health research grants
