Britain is to rejoin the EU’s flagship £85bn science research programme, Horizon Europe, in a long-anticipated deal welcomed by scientists.
Britain’s membership of Horizon, which funds research projects tackling crucial issues from the climate crisis to terminal diseases and improving food and energy security, was agreed as part of the post-Brexit trade deal in 2020. But it was never ratified in a tit-for-tat row between the EU and the UK over Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements.
A senior EU source said the return to the programme, three years into a seven-year funding cycle, was discussed by the EU’s College of Commissioners this week. The Guardian understands a deal has been reached and is expected to be announced on Thursday.
Prof Carsten Welsch, a physicist at the University of Liverpool who lost leadership of a £2.6m research project on a novel plasma generator that could be used in cancer treatment when the UK was excluded from Horizon, said: “I am absolutely thrilled about this news as we have been in a limbo situation for far too long. Horizon Europe is stronger with the UK and UK research is stronger in Horizon.”
Mike Galsworthy, the chair of European Movement UK, attacked the government for disadvantaging science by delaying associate membership of Horizon for so long. “The UK used not just to participate in Horizon, but to lead. Any agreed deal will be carefully combed over by UK scientists, who are desperate to rejoin the Horizon programme. UK science has been losing opportunities and funds hand-over-fist for every week that this inexplicable paralysis has lasted.”
It is understood the standoff over how much the UK should pay into the programme every year has ended with an agreement discussed at the highest level at the European Commission this week. The announcement could be as soon as 7am on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has spent the last five months holding out for the “underperformance clause”, which was agreed in 2020, to be readjusted to guarantee a greater rebate if Britain failed to achieve previous levels of grants from the programme.
The UK is expected to pay in about £2bn a year, with effective rebates if the grants from the programme fail to match the country’s contributions.
Diplomats in the EU cautioned that any deal would have to be agreed by member states so official membership may drag on for some time yet. The source said EU members would want to be assured that the new financial deal was within the terms of the trade deal with no special favours to the UK and the new calculations were “reasonable” for both sides.
The path for the UK’s return to Horizon was cleared as far back as March after London and Brussels resolved their dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol, with the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, promising a “swift” decision. But stop-start talks over the following months were marred by demands by the UK for extra discounts to take account of the absent years, much to the fury of the science community, many of whom opposed Sunak’s plan B to go it alone.
Earlier on Wednesday Sunak gave his strongest hint yet that a deal had been sealed, saying he had given the go-ahead for his officials to finalise an agreement.
Questioned about the continued delays to rejoining the programme, he told a Labour MP during prime minister’s questions that the UK had been “extensively involved” in negotiating a return to Horizon. “I hope to be able to conclude those successfully and when we do I hope you’ll be the first to stand up and congratulate the government,” he said.
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Before Brexit, the UK was one of the top beneficiaries of the Horizon programme and scientists are still eligible to apply for funding, which is underwritten by the UK government. However, the uncertainty over the UK’s membership and its inability to lead pan-EU research while outside the programme has dealt a blow.
Data from the European Commission shows a huge drop in awards to British science programmes since 2019. In that year, €959m (£829m) went to the UK in 1,364 grants, compared with €22m in 192 grants in 2023 to date.
According to sources in the science community, the UK wanted the discount and to exit the parallel Euratom programme, which the EU rejected.
The 2020 trade and cooperation deal contained a “correction mechanism” to allow for adjustments if the UK put more into the programme a year than it received in grants. Sunak was concerned that the loss of three years meant the UK had fallen so far behind in the programme that the mechanism needed to be adjusted to the UK’s greater benefit.
Before Brexit the UK received about £2bn in research funding, about £500m more than it put in. Under the 2020 deal it agreed to put in about £2bn a year.
The government declined to comment.
