It seems like only yesterday the UK government was stuck in ever more internecine and opaque debates about the future of association to Horizon.
Freeman’s phoneline
As loath as I am, as we all are, to relive that both extremely harmful and extremely convoluted history of Horizon association it’s necessary to know where the country came from to know where the UK might go.
The very short version is that on their side the European Commission would not countenance the UK’s association to Horizon Europe while the threat of a hard border remained between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The UK, for their part, said they would not associate to Horizon Europe unless it represented value for money. In between the UK mooted their Horizon alternative, Paul Nurse made a contentious select committee appearance, and it did really look like Rishi Sunak would take the UK out of Horizon.
The central problem was partially about Northern Ireland but it was also about the relative chaos of the UK’s science policy. This was the era where moonshots, frameworks, strategies, sitting by the phone policy negotiations, emerged. And with that came little prospect of finding steady ground from which to negotiate membership of the world’s biggest research framework.
It is unsurprising then that in their newly released UK Position Paper on the 10th EU Research and Innovation Framework Programme (or what the UK wants out of the next Horizon framework) DSIT has taken a wholly measured tone. What the new Labour government wants from the next version of Horizon, FP10, is a lot of the same but done better.
Membership promises
Politically, the purpose of this document is to influence the future of Horizon but it speaks to the UK’s wider impotence that it is reduced to producing a pamphlet to ask for membership to a club where it used to be the bouncer. The language within the document of the need to ensure cooperation, third-country participation, and a broad scope for engagement is entirely reasonable as a policy stance but it also speaks to the need for the UK to be a third-country member as early as possible, and as fully possible, in order to get value from the scheme.
It feels like tempting fate so far out but it seems exceptionally unlikely that the UK would not associate to the next version of Horizon. In a position paper on competitiveness and the EU, commissioned by the European Commission, former Prime Minister of Italy Mario Draghi calls for a future Horizon programme which funds fewer priorities in a less bureaucratic way. He does also call for a radical increase in funding in order to compete with the US. The UK’s document sets the language for a soft landing asking for “careful consideration,” of administrative structures, “stable and predictable support” for “proven instruments,” and other milquetoast language.
Other than a nod to ensuring value for money there is almost no serious suggestion that the UK will not do everything in its power to associate.
Amidst the politics there are some entirely sensible suggestions on the future of the scheme. One idea is that programmes, policy, and funding could be more directed through regional rather than national mechanisms. Presumably, this would be to allow more agglomeration benefits to be realised over larger geographies, economies and population.
Big sad and ambitious
DSIT is also clear, to the point of repetition over such a short document, that the focus of Horizon should be exclusively on research and innovation. Clearly, the government is worried about contributing to a scheme where taxpayer’s cash will be used for infrastructure, business, or collaboration projects, which are both only adjacent to research and innovation and in turn do little to support the UK’s science base. The document further frames the future of the scheme in the context of the government’s key missions with horizon providing support for core and experimental research, SME investment, and multinational collaboration.
Overall, the document is light on precisely how the next iteration of Horizon should look but it sets a pathway to association with clearly articulated ambitions for the scheme. It is nonetheless humbling to see ambitions for global Britain become asking for membership of things the UK used to be a member of.
