This week the Science Minister George Freeman set out the UK’s Global Science Strategy beyond Horizon Europe. His speech was sensible and necessary, but highlighted the challenge the UK has in crafting science policy in an uncertain environment.
Freeman was optimistic, but pragmatic. Pinching Boris Johnson’s phrase, he said; “I think we can have our cake and eat it: I think we can be a domestic powerhouse, a European player and more of a global player.”
He isn’t closing the door to our involvement with Horizon Europe just yet though – quite the opposite. He is “continuing to push actively for association.” But the speech also says we need a good ‘Plan B’, which would make it “more likely that the EU will pick up the phone and ask us back in.” Last June he gave the EU an ultimatum for last Autumn, which has come and gone. So we’re getting to a point where there really is no alternative.
There are risks in going it alone. Only this week the UK’s attempt to become the first European nation to launch satellites into orbit ended in failure. The final frontier is prone to setbacks no matter the nation or group – with recent delays to the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Ariane-6 project and the grounding of Italy’s Vega rockets. But there are risks that eclipse one failed launch, with space funding being illustrative of more general post-Brexit institutional challenges.
The UK remains a leading contributor to the ESA, which as I wrote in a paper for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship is to be welcomed. However, with space becoming an ever-increasing geopolitical concern, power and funding is moving away from ESA and into core EU institutions which, of course, we are no longer part of. So even being part of ESA and other pan-European agencies is no bulwark against the UK and its entrepreneurs being sidelined.
In space, we are diversifying our relationships, with agreements like the UK-Australia ‘Space Bridge’ – in which the UK’s and Australia’s Space Agencies are cooperating to improve space related trade, investment, research and business collaborations. However, as Freeman acknowledged, we can’t match the US, China or EU science budgets. Instead, we “will need to carve out a realistic role which draws on our historic strengths”, focusing on specific research challenges where we can lead multinational consortia. He mentioned things like polar research, space, biosecurity, synthetic biology, agritech and gene editing of crops, and research into the growing sector of functional food. He calls on the UK to become “a global testbed”, echoing ours for the UK to become a “Testbed Nation”.
On the Northern Ireland Protocol, relations are thawing, with the UK this week agreeing to allow the EU access to its trade IT systems. The dispute over post-Brexit trade rules clearly needs resolving before the Commission will let the UK rejoin Horizon Europe.
Rather than having our cake and eating it, you might think we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or you may be optimistic about Freeman’s vision of becoming a testbed nation. Either way, what's the alternative?
Clouds on Horizon