Brexit tore apart European science — now the research rifts are healing
Skip to main content
Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain<br>the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in<br>Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles<br>and JavaScript.
Advertisement
Bluesky
You have full access to this article via your institution.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer meets European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. The United Kingdom and European Union will resume ‘reset talks’ in July.Credit: Benjamin Cremel/AFP/Getty<br>Ten years after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, there are signs that their relationship in research is healing.<br>One big win came with an agreement in April: starting in 2027, the United Kingdom will rejoin Erasmus+, an EU exchange scheme used by PhD students and university staff. Another is the news that the UK share of funding from the EU’s flagship €95-billion (US$110-billion) Horizon Europe funding scheme has begun to recover after the country rejoined the programme in 2024.<br>UK participation in EU research projects had tanked in the wilderness years between Brexit and the country’s reassociation with Horizon Europe, but has increased since 2024 (see ‘EU funding access’).<br>The political will to further rebuild UK–EU science relations is there, in part. The United Kingdom’s Labour government is slowly following through with its manifesto pledge to build a closer relationship with the EU. As part of ‘reset’ talks that began at a summit in May last year, the EU and United Kingdom hope eventually to reach deals on science-related issues, such as a mobility programme enabling young people to study and work across borders.<br>“The change of government, the [Labour] manifesto pledge to reset the relationship and then particularly the May summit last year really did put us on a new trajectory,” says Uta Staiger, a researcher in European studies at University College London and an adviser on Brexit to the institution’s leadership.<br>But the country’s has not yet resumed its pre-Brexit role as a cornerstone of European research, and further UK–EU reset talks, slated for next month, have stalled. The agenda has not yet been published, but a major sticking point and focus of talks is thought to be the structure of the youth mobility scheme.<br>“Funding is recovering,” says Vassiliki Papatsiba, who studies research and policy at Cardiff University, UK. But it will be harder to re-build the United Kingdom’s credibility and networks of research collaboration, she says. “The progress is promising, but I do not think that the same position will be recovered in the foreseeable future.”<br>Source: Statistics on UK Participation in EU Framework Programmes, 2014–2024<br>Funding uncertainty<br>UK–EU research relations are still recovering from the shock result of the Brexit referendum in June 2016, which had an immediate impact on research collaborations and applications to European funding programmes, even before the United Kingdom officially left the EU on 31 January 2020.<br>Many EU-based researchers were cautious about building funding proposals around UK partners when the country’s eventual relationship with the EU was unclear, says Papatsiba. “And uncertainty is risk.” Although replacement UK ‘guarantee’ government funding meant that researchers in the country could still take part in Horizon Europe calls, they could not lead collaborations.<br>Data published earlier this month by the UK government show that the share of EU funding for UK researchers fell from a peak of 16% in 2015 to 5.8% in 2023 (when including guarantee funding). Collaboration patterns also changed: papers co-authored by EU and UK researchers dropped from a peak of 60% of UK output in 2015 to 52% in 2022, according to an analysis published in November1 led by Yusuf Oldac, who studies research policy at the Education University of Hong Kong. There is some evidence that UK researchers might have adapted by seeking funding elsewhere, he says, with data showing that collaborations with researchers in East Asia grew markedly during the period.<br>The UK’s post-Brexit EU science deal: a graphical guide
But UK participation in EU research funding has begun to rebound since the country rejoined Horizon Europe — the share of EU grants awarded to UK scientists hit 9.3% in 2024. Although this is well below the pre-Brexit peak, data from the EU’s Horizon Dashboard (which is based on when agreements were signed, rather than calls announced) suggest that this upward trend will continue.<br>“Our time out in the desert has affected participation rates,” says Staiger. “It’s quite natural that it might take some time to bed back down.”<br>On the Horizon<br>Key to rebuilding European partnerships will be the United Kingdom’s role in the next...