Post-BREXIT: EU-LIFE urges both sides to reach a deal in Research & Innovation

The EU-LIFE community, which brings together life science institutes from15 European countries and more than 7500 researchers and staff including our UK partner The Babraham Institute, Cambridge, continues to join forces with researchers, innovators, policy makers and all relevant actors across the European continent to enable the best science and ensure the transformation of scientific achievements into improvements in peoples’ lives. We can only do this well with our partners from the United Kingdom.

EU-LIFE and many others signed a statement led by Wellcome Trust with recommendations on how negotiators could secure a strong outcome for research: Reaching an agreement on UK participation in Horizon Europe.

Within the final rounds of negotiations on the UK and EU’s future relationship – and recalling our statement in February 2020 - EU-LIFE urges the leaders of both sides to reach an agreement on the UK participation in the future European Research and Innovation programs including Horizon Europe.

The close collaboration between the EU and UK has been enormously successful while the UK has been part of the EU; it would be a great loss for science and society if our highly effective and productive collaborations on research and innovation were severely discontinued. This collaboration strengthens our ability to tackle shared challenges, such as climate change or outbreaks of new diseases like Covid-19. More than ever close scientific partnerships across Europe are crucial.

To maintain the successful collaboration between the EU and the UK the following is required:

• UK participation to Horizon Europe and future Research and Innovation programs
• Full researchers mobility between the UK and the EU at all levels and career stages;
• Full alignment of regulations regarding science, data, inventions, etc. in order to maintain an open, efficient, and successful research environment in Europe;
• All European countries should work together to make the European Research Area a world leader in science.