Britain is still missing out on millions by not joining Horizon – and New Zealand has stolen a march on us

Baker said: “It would be a missed opportunity to join the programme only to find our British colleagues aren’t there. I know they want to be. So I dearly hope that Rishi Sunak can find a way to let them join us on this world-beating platform of science and innovation.”

The UK has been left out of Horizon Europe for two and a half years, hugely damaging to its scientific and research community. As well as missing out on billions in funding, the UK science leadership, networks and reputation have suffered an incalculable long-term blow.

And now while Sunal fails to reach an agreement on rejoining, the new EU-NZ trade deal – which aims to boost trade between the two signatories by 30% within ten years – includes an agreement giving scientists full access to the European research and innovation programme. 

Dr Mike Galsworthy, chair of the European Movement UK and founder of Scientists for EU said: “It’s an embarrassment to Rishi Sunak that New Zealand has joined the science framework we helped build before we could rejoin it ourselves. This deal makes it clear that Horizon is now the global multinational science programme – and one we are still not a part of.”

Galsworthy added: “As the Commission themselves say in their press release: ‘This marks the first association with a close partner that is not geographically close to Europe. It marks a completely new approach whereby the EU is strengthening even more its ties with trusted partners that have a solid scientific base’. 

“Failure of the UK to join Horizon Europe now would have a costly impact on the UK’s attractiveness for global science talent. Pioneer is simply no alternative to Horizon Europe and would fail in the same way that the Turing scheme is now widely disliked and pales as a replacement for the well-established and widely-loved Erasmus+.”

Galsworthy now urges Sunak to strike a deal for the UK. “You would have thought that on finally announcing the Windsor Framework after over two years, the government would have had an idea about what to do next on Horizon. Yet Rishi Sunak has been standing like a startled schoolboy in front of a well-lit open goal for nineteen weeks and counting,” he said. 

Other scientists agree. Martin McKee, professor of European public health & medical director at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Scientists are baffled by the length of time it is taking Rishi Sunak to sign up to Horizon Europe. The benefits are obvious, at least to the global scientific community. 

“We have just seen New Zealand enthusiastically seize the opportunity to join. Yet this indecision is sending out a clear message that he just doesn’t see British science as a priority.”

And professor Dame Anne Glover, president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh offered a warning: “Any further uncertainty undermines our scientific community and we are in danger of fiddling whilst Rome burns.”

Sunak insists that talks for the UK to re-enter the EU’s Horizon Europe science scheme are ongoing and that any such deal must work for taxpayers.