Dick Ahlstrom: Research community alarmed by Brexit implications

The issue of Brexit has fallen out of the news over the past few weeks, pushed aside by the horrors of Nice, political upheaval in Turkey and multiple shootings in the US.

But Brexit as a news item once the votes were cast was always going to be a slow-burner and one that would have to stew for a while before we could understand how such a monumental change was going to impact people.

Some groups already know, however, that Britain has been sold a pup by the “Leave the EU” camp and are already taking action to try and minimise the damage.

This is no small time, self-serving interest group – it involves no less than the seven national scholarly academies based in these islands.

The Royal Irish Academy, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Learned Society of Wales decided to join together to issue a joint statement urging the UK government to do all it can to protect against a decline in world leading research and innovation as a result of the EU referendum.

The statement expresses concerns about the UK situation so one might wonder why the Royal Irish Academy became involved. It recognises the hazards apparent in the Brexit vote and as a learned academy it represents the whole of the island including Northern Ireland, a place where a majority of people voted to remain within the EU.

So the statement was agreed two weeks ago after a meeting involving all seven academies, including our own.

The scientific aspirations of the UK and Ireland could hardly be more closely aligned in any case and so concerns expressed by British scientists would be mirrored by their Irish counterparts.

Corrosive effect

Involvement in research and development was central to the economic, social and cultural wellbeing of these islands, but the uncertainty created by Brexit is having a corrosive effect, the statement suggests.

It goes on to describe this across a number of areas including people, collaboration, resources etc and the statistics it presents to prove its point are revealing, even if only to understand how integrated are the research connections linking the UK to the wider EU research community.

Some 15 per cent of all academic staff at UK universities are from other EU countries, it says. No less than 60 per cent of the UK’s internationally co-authored research papers are with EU partners.

And despite the claims from the Leave camp about the outflow of sterling into the EU’s coffers, Britain was a net beneficiary from EU research programmes. The UK received €6.9 billion from the previous EU science budget – Framework Programme 7 – that ran over the seven years to 2013.

Ireland’s interests

Do any of these concerns bother us here in the EU? You bet they do.

A large fraction of the non-UK academics are Irish and we regularly lead and take part in EU-funded research when partnered with UK scientists. It would definitely not be in Ireland’s interests to see a situation where the EU decided to cut off Britain and cease supporting research or see a curtailment of student placements via the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions.

So much would be lost and Britain is no lightweight in terms of research so the EU would also lose.

The statement also references the many EU research programmes that draw companies into partnership with academics. Forging industrial/academic links is a key theme running through the current EU research budget, Horizon 2020 and also our own science policy document, Innovation 2020. Irish collaboration with UK companies and academics has always been made easier given a shared language and similar cultures. It would not serve Ireland to be disconnected from what is a geographical local market.

So Brexit could spell no end of trouble and nuisance to the research community here, hence the Royal Irish Academy's concerns as shared by its fellow academies in England, Scotland and Wales. The academies call for a number of things including assurances that talented non-UK EU nationals can continue to work in Britain and likewise UK scientists and students placed in other EU countries have certainty about their futures. The academies want the "closest achievable association" with the EU research programmes.

This is where the Government must do its job. It should already be making a nuisance of itself lobbying for what is in our best interests. We do this successfully in agriculture, on environmental issues such as carbon release and in other spheres so this should be no different. It is early days since the vote but we should already be looking to protect the relationship we have with academic and industrial research partners in the UK and the EU money that supports these connections.