The UK and Switzerland — two scientific powerhouses excluded from the EU’s €96bn Horizon Europe funding programme for political causes — will signal an settlement on Thursday to strengthen bilateral co-operation in analysis and innovation.
The memorandum of understanding is ready to increase UK-Swiss partnerships over a variety of topics from quantum expertise to life sciences, house and nuclear fusion.
“It is a clear political signal by our governments to the scientific community and funding agencies that we want to invest in more joint projects,” mentioned Markus Leitner, Swiss ambassador in London. “We are pushing international collaboration wherever we can get it.”
The two governments keep that the EU has blocked their membership of Horizon Europe due to political disputes with Brussels — the post-Brexit dispute targeted on the standing of Northern Ireland within the UK’s case and Switzerland’s disagreement with the bloc over nearer ties.
Both nations, which have performed distinguished roles in earlier EU science programmes, stay eager to hitch Horizon as affiliate members. George Freeman, UK science minister, who will signal the settlement together with his Swiss counterpart Guy Parmelin, mentioned if Brussels continued to dam entry the UK would “take the opportunity to do more globally — within Europe and beyond.”
Exclusion from affiliate membership of Horizon is harming science in each nations. “We have seen some 15 per cent of top European professors leaving the UK,” mentioned Freeman.
Swiss public spending on R&D in 2021 was 16 per cent decrease than in 2019, the Federal Statistical Office mentioned. The fall was due primarily to the nation’s compelled departure from Horizon.
The lack of British and Swiss collaboration can be damaging European science as complete. Researchers throughout the continent have arrange the Stick to Science marketing campaign in an effort to alter the EU’s thoughts.
“Nine of the ten best universities in Europe are in the UK or Switzerland,” mentioned Leitner, citing the QS World college rankings.
Under the settlement the 2 nations’ primary public funding companies, UK Research and Innovation and the Swiss National Science Foundation, will spend money on joint initiatives in fields that embrace bioscience and medication, computing and synthetic intelligence, and house.
Next 12 months Switzerland will launch a quantum analysis initiative and it sees the UK as a pure associate. Freeman mentioned that one other shared initiative the 2 nations might discover could be in financing and insuring the worldwide house financial system, with hubs in London and Zurich.
The memorandum of understanding will construct on an in depth base of current collaboration. The UK is already Switzerland’s third most essential analysis associate; the SNSF has funded 1,100 initiatives with British individuals over the previous 5 years.
Freeman prompt the British authorities’s endurance with Brussels would quickly run out. “With a new prime minister and government, there is a moment when we should see whether the EU will remove its block but unless there is rapid movement we need to move quickly to repair the damage and set up an international Plan B.”
But there was unlikely to be a single overarching alternative programme ought to the UK fail to overturn the block on Horizon membership, Freeman mentioned. The cash put aside for Horizon — £15bn over seven years — might as an alternative help a spread of worldwide actions: bilateral agreements; schemes to draw extra worldwide analysis expertise to the UK; and multinational partnerships in particular areas.
One instance is likely to be a world partnership in polar analysis, involving the British Antarctic Survey and counterparts in nations reminiscent of Norway, Chile and New Zealand, Freeman added. Another would possibly give attention to agricultural expertise with individuals from nations within the creating world.
Source: www.ft.com
