What effect will Brexit have on Science?

CHELMSFORD, U.K. - July 20, 2016 - PRLog -- Now that a majority of the UK has voted for Brexit how is this going to affect science? Well, that's a difficult question to answer for anyone offhand. In the current scenario there's nothing that's changed in the UK as it is still very much part of the European Union. As per the Lisbon Treaty, under the article 50, which says that any member state can take a decision to withdraw from the union based on its own constitutional requirements.

The only stipulation is that whichever state decides to withdraw needs to keep the European Council informed about the decision. And as per the guidelines provided by the European Council the Union will have to settle on an agreement with the particular State, detailing the arrangements made for the formal withdrawal. The agreement shall also be negotiated as per Article 2018(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. This means, in other words the UK government will get a 2-year moratorium to negotiate the deal in order to exit from the European Union.

There are several areas in science that can be affected which include, funding (for research and other purposes), pursuing further studies in the UK, research related employment, collaborations at a global level, and regulation. Many experts are giving warnings that the broad effect on UK's science is going to be dismal, with most of the science organizations being disconsolate. Paul Nurse, former president of the Royal Society is quite pessimistic about the outcome of Brexit saying that it is bad for the country.

To compound this no one is sure how the new government under the new Prime Minister Theresa May and her new cabinet colleagues is going to proceed. She may want to adopt an altogether different economic strategy compared to what the previous government under David Cameroon was doing. This could have an adverse effect on the funding for scientific studies as well as the policies of the UK government, though nothing can be predicted at this stage.

How will the research scientists be affected?

There again, the scientific community, as usual is waking up rather slowly to reality. However, they are not quite happy with the developments, and the general uncertainty is only making matters worse. They are worried about fresh funding and any curbs in the free movement of scientists. There is enough evidence garnered from anecdotes that this sort of ambiguity is already affecting research. Several scientists at UK institutions have been excluded from the several consortia who have been applying for EU grants citing the reason that they are too risky to tag along. This has left several researchers livid and quite desolate.

There are very few scientists who see a bright future for themselves. Although legally UK is still a part of the European Union, with the science and universities minister Jo Johnson reassuring scientists that they will still be able to participate in EU programmes like Horizon 2020 and seek research grants. Johnson has also requested scientists and researchers to keep him informed of any discrimination shown against UK scientists participating in the EU programmes.

Moreover, free movement is an issue that will depend entirely on what sort of understanding the UK government manages to have with the EU. However, policy matters may not have any major changes for the next few years as things will move rather slowly at first. The powers that be have assured that there will be a status quo as far the EU staff working in the UK and British staff working in the EU for the present at least. However, this is not going to be permanent and is subject to change, and immigration policies in the future can make things rather difficult for UK institutions to get researchers from outside of the UK.

The poll results clearly indicate that the major issue seemed to be immigration; however, if the UK is going to put restrictions on free movement of EU nationals, it can expect to be left out of EU funding programmes.  Switzerland had to suffer the same fate when it was excluded from the Horizon 2020 programme temporarily only because of immigration issues. The row continues to this day and is unlikely to be resolved unless Switzerland allows free movement of EU nationals.

Brexit is having adverse effects on immigration, though not in the way it was expected. Immigration will not slow down; it may speed up further, thanks to Brexit. Read more about The topsy-turvy effect of Brexit on Immigration: https://www.ukimmigrationcentre.co.uk/blog/topsy-turvy-ef...

In the event of EU funds becoming inaccessible to UK scientists and researchers the UK is going to lose heavily. All along the UK used to put up some funds for research and get almost double from EU funding programmes. Now, this is going to be a thing of the past unless free movement of EU nationals is going to be permitted by the UK government. If the Brexit supporters are going to object, the loss is for the nation and its scientific research programmes.

What happens to the students?

Students, especially international students are going to find the new restrictions very hard to manage. Students from the EU and other regions desiring to pursue higher studies will be discouraged and disappointed because of the uncertainty. Moreover, if EU funding were to be stopped, the universities would find it very difficult to manage with their own resources. As it is all the universities in the UK were receiving over 10% of their funding from EU sources. One shudders to think of the long term ill effects that Brexit is going to bring on the UK and the rest of the European Union.