If the UK leaves the EU without a deal, it will impact on scientific research immediately and could take years to rebuild:
- 1 in 6 academic staff in UK Higher Education Institutions are from elsewhere in the EU. They can easily choose to build their careers elsewhere.
- The UK could lose access to over £1 billion a year in EU research funding. Even with the UK government’s guarantees, UK-based researchers and SMEs will lose access to around half a billion a year in research funding, having an immediate impact on research underway in the UK. It could take years to develop alternatives, meaning that valuable research could be stopped in its tracks.
- We lose access to new medicines and technologies and limit our ability to tackle global problems as regulatory and governance arrangements fall apart.
This factsheet (PDF) explains why leaving the EU with "no-deal" is a bad deal for science.
Find out more about the Royal Society's work on Brexit and UK science.