Member-only story
There have been a couple of stories in the press over the last few weeks, reporting that negotiations for the UK to rejoin Horizon Europe, the EU’s R&D programme were close to agreement, although it looks like Sunak is having second thoughts (FT). This is despite the fact that we learn that New Zealand have signed up to the agreement. The EU has already agreed at the UK need not contribute for the last two years when British institutions and companies we’re locked out of Horizon but it seems that Sunak’s government wants “more taxpayer value”.
Another Europe’s Brexit Spotlight covers the issues including the fact that the scheme ‘s rules state that an associate member may not be net beneficiaries of the horizon scheme, and showing that the UK government is seeking to ensure that it is.
This is an attitude that undervalues the Horizon scheme. Horizon Europe funds multi-country/multi-entity projects proposed by consortia/syndicates. These projects bids are partially funded by their proposers and that funding is matched by the EU. i.e. it funds winning projects by matching the total of the project members’ stakes. The big benefit to the project members is that each member of a consortium/syndicate gets 100% of the output and so depending on the size of the project team there is massive leverage of each of the project members’ stake.
