Current Events > UK Scientists beg EU to let them get access to $13.6 Billion dollar funding

(+) Yeah! (+)

The EU is being urged to stop punishing scientists and end the year-long delay in letting British universities and laboratories access its flagship 10bn Horizon Europe funding programme.

Scientists across the UK and Europe have launched a campaign to get the UK admitted into the programme amid continuing fears that Brussels is using the fund as leverage in negotiations over the Northern Ireland protocol.

The EU agreed to associate membership for the UK as part of the wider Brexit trade deal struck on Christmas Eve 2020 but it has still not ratified the deal or a similar one with Switzerland, held up by a dispute over a draft treaty binding the country to the bloc.
The Swiss astronomer and Nobel prize winner Didier Queloz described the delays as a tragedy for science in the UK, Switzerland and Europe.

Lord Kinnoull, the chair of the House of Lords European affairs committee, which has recently investigated the impact of the delay, said: This is a mutual self-harm problem. And thats not good for something very precious, which is European scientific research.

Last week we had two British academics and a European academic in front of us and there was a great clarity from all of them about how this was harmful to European science. Collaborative projects are much more than just a cheque if you say you have a half-funded project you are very keen to do, you are not necessarily going to get the thumbs-up.
Queloz, who is backing a Europe-wide campaign by scientists across the bloc to get membership ratified for the UK and Switzerland, said: To be blunt, politicians have decided to use participation in Horizon Europe as a bargaining chip in wider negotiations.

UK scientists attack 'reckless' Tory cuts to international research

He wrote in the Financial Times: If this is the way the game plays out, everybody loses. We risk destroying a fantastic tool that the EU has spent decades developing by excluding two of the biggest players in the global research arena for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with the programme itself.

Scientists say the days of solo science are long gone, with collaboration responsible for success in everything from the development of Covid vaccines to Quelozs discovery of a new extrasolar planet. Queloz urged politicians to pause for a moment and consider the damage they were doing.

As a scientist holding posts at the universities of Cambridge and Geneva, I recognise that I am conflicted. But, approaching 60, this decision wont affect my career very much. I am not batting for myself, Im batting for the future generation of scientists who will be held back by this failure of politics. If the UK and Switzerland walk away, the Horizon budget will be lower; there will be fewer opportunities for young talent to spend time in our great universities, he said.

Ludovic Thilly, the chair of the executive board of the Coimbra group of 41 universities across Europe, said: We cannot accept any longer that scientific cooperation be held hostage to bilateral politics. A decade of cooperation with our British and Swiss partners is at risk of being jeopardised, and this at a period of time when global challenges have never required so much international research cooperation.

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Full Article: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/08/uk-and-european-scientists-urge-eu-to-allow-uk-access-to-10bn-fund-brexit

All this nonsense just for a different color passport that you could just get anyway if you wanted.

I don't think Americans/Asians/Africans historically will ever truly understand how utterly stupid Brexit was. As well as how harmful constantly voting Tories has been and will be for the scientific community. Just firmly keeping the nation in the 20th century.

Why should UK get any funding from the EU?

UnfairRepresent posted...

As well as how harmful constantly voting Tories has been and will be for the scientific community. Just firmly keeping the nation in the 20th century.

the US has Republicans to do this for us

back to wanting all the benefits and none of the costs of being part of a union huh?

AngelicRadiance posted...

Why should UK get any funding from the EU?

Because advancements in science have a net gain advantage on everyone.

Cutting out the smart people from England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Switzerland just creates a net negative for the future of all the people in Europe and the world.

Do you really care whether or not the dudes who handled clinical trials of the Covid vaccine came from Belfast or not?

Remember, it wasn't until the right wing voted Brexit and forced this divide that all these scientists ever considered not working together.

You've got dudes in the same fields in Cork, Paris, York, Cardif and Madrid who have been sharing research and communicating since the 1970s. Now suddenly some of their colleagues and research isn't happening.

UnfairRepresent posted...

All this nonsense just for a different color passport that you could just get anyway if you wanted.

It's not just about different colour passports. We've now also got the freedom to put the crown mark back on pint glasses -- which we were previously allowed to do under EU law but at least now, we can finally stop pretending that we weren't! It's another one of these massively important symbolic issues that affect our liberty, prosperity and security way more profoundly than all that silly economic stuff.

Criminalt posted...

It's not just about different colour passports. We've now also got the freedom to put the crown mark back on pint glasses -- which we were previously allowed to do under EU law but at least now, we can finally stop pretending that we weren't!

The one that gets me is the repeated Tory claim that the only reason the UK has a vaccine rollout is because of Brexit

Despite the fact

1. The UK was still in the EU that entire time.
2. The UK and Germany worked very closely together on developing and trialing vaccines and the logitical means to supply them. AT THE TIME Germany even got pissed that the UK news was cutting out their invovlement.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/pfizer-vaccine-uk-success-alok-sharma-german-ambassador-b139721.html

The conservatives just lie and the UK population just blindly believes them while their own arms fall off from decay.

IT's mind boggling.

It's at least 17 times stupider than the Trump "Build The Wall" nonsense. To put it in perspective for Americans who think of Europe as just the place Harry Potter and World Wars come from.

EU making itself look bad to dunk on anti-EU people

The UK decided to stop paying in, so they closed the access of funding coming back as a result. This isnt the EU being mean, this is the UK still not getting their new reality of their electorates own choice.

Go beg Boris for money, not the EU.

K181 posted...

The UK decided to stop paying in, so they closed the access of funding coming back as a result. This isnt the EU being mean, this is the UK still not getting their new reality of their electorates own choice).

Go beg Boris for money, or the EU.

It's a little more complicated than that

They actually DID agree to fund UK scientists for the good of all.

But never ratified it and now are using it as one of many bargining chips to get the UK to bend over because they are aware that the UK has nothing.

And Scottish people will look on at this and still think independence is a good idea. Because apparently leverage is something that only exists in Tom and Jerry cartoons when you're pushing a minecart ontop of someone

K181 posted...

Go beg Boris for money

I'm not sure you quite understand how this works. You need to be a personal friend, former classmate at Eton, or a Tory MP if you want Boris to stuff your pockets with lovely loads of taxpayers' money.

UnfairRepresent posted...

It's a little more complicated than that

They actually DID agree to fund UK scientists for the good of all.

But never ratified it and now are using it as one of many bargining chips to get the UK to bend over because they are aware that the UK has nothing.

So then they never agreed to it.

And smart negotiating on the EUs part. The UK wasted years due to their own ineptitude, multiple elections rewarded that ineptitude, and the EU is just lolnoping to doing the UK any favors when the Brits cant budge an issue on any of their contradictory demands and expectations despite holding none of the cards.

Criminalt posted...

I'm not sure you quite understand how this works. You need to be a personal friend, former classmate at Eton, or a Tory MP if you want Boris to stuff your pockets with lovely loads of taxpayers' money.

Sounds like the Brits should stop voting for the sheisters that repeatedly put them in that situation. Whoops, they keep voting for them. Oh well, onus is on an entire continent to change as a result.

K181 posted...

So then they never agreed to it.

Well they did, but ok

And smart negotiating on the EUs part. The UK wasted years due to their own ineptitude, multiple elections rewarded that ineptitude, and the EU is just lolnoping to doing the UK any favors when the Brits cant budge an issue on any of their contradictory demands and expectations despite holding none of the cards.

And the insane part is literally everyone saw this coming (who had a brain) and pointed it out loudly.

Then were told to shut up

Now are being told "We can't live in the past Captain Hindsight, we need time to heal, show my views some respect."

Then the same people go vote Tory on mass again

ugggggggghh

K181 posted...

Sounds like the Brits should stop voting for the sheisters that repeatedly put them in that situation. Whoops, they keep voting for them.

But Boris can throw out fine phrases that make us burst with patriotic pride, like "the roaring British lion". It sounds vaguely Churchillian and we are suckers for that sort of dumb, bullshit bluster, as if it actually meant something real.

UnfairRepresent posted...

Then the same people go vote Tory on mass again

Mitchell and Webb on why everything is now fine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caXeAMseve0

Criminalt posted...

Mitchell and Webb on why everything is now fine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caXeAMseve0

There wasn't a long pause when they cut to the reporter on the scene

0/10

K181 posted...

Sounds like the Brits should stop voting for the sheisters that repeatedly put them in that situation. Whoops, they keep voting for them.

it's honestly mind boggling