In March 2023, Rishi Sunak wrote in The Times, “I want to cement the UK’s place as a science and technology superpower by 2030.”

We didn’t rejoin Horizon – the world’s largest and most successful research collaboration – for another six months. Our extended time outside the research bloc has shattered Rishi’s self-proclaimed goal, doing deep, long-term damage to our science and technology ecosystem.

Rejoining Horizon was an essential and welcome move, but I won’t join the celebration. I want to see a concerted effort from the government to repair the damage that has been done and prevent us from falling even further behind our international partners.

So, what damage has been done?

While many have skipped over this detail, we left Horizon Europe as a full member and have rejoined as an associate member.

The distinction here is that the EU can withdraw funding from associate member projects that it deems to conflict with its strategic priorities, such as security and competitiveness.

This could hold us back in crucial areas such as space, nuclear fusion, and advanced robotics – all of which hold significant potential to boost growth in our flagging economy.

As an associate member, we’re also excluded from the European Innovation Council – a £10 billion fund with the sole goal of supporting the development and commercialisation of high-risk and high-impact technologies.

High-risk projects often struggle to drag in funding, which is precisely why this fund is so important.

There’s also the issue of our reputation in the global scientific and technology ecosystem – whose players have taken note of our ideological and idiotic disregard for it.

Why should our global partners in Europe and further afield trust us to collaborate openly going forward? They will likely be wondering whether we’ll renew our membership after the current funding cycle or shoot ourselves in the foot again.

Research can be a slow process, taking years to yield tangible results, and even longer for advancements to be felt in the real world. In 2030, the year by which we’re supposed to have reached superpower status, according to Sunak, we’ll likely still be catching up from the disaster of the last few years.

We’ve also drained the talent pool available to UK science and technology projects.

The number of EU researchers working in the United Kingdom has plummeted, and some UK scientists have had to move abroad to continue accessing Horizon grants and collaborating with their international partners.

In fact, figures show that 20,000 UK-based researchers have sought opportunities abroad, with funding prospects looking bleak.

To make matters worse, post-Brexit visa restrictions make the UK even less appealing for talented European researchers. If you’re working on a research project and you’re looking for colleagues, you want to pick those with the right expertise and samples, independent of where they’re based.

The barriers we’ve put up have cordoned us off from Europe’s talent pool, and this will be impacting UK innovation for years to come.

So, how do we minimise the damage and move forward?

First and foremost, we need a no-holds-barred independent inquiry to uncover the full extent of the damage to our science and technology ecosystem. Unless we know the extent of the damage, we can’t hope to fix it.

I’d also like to see the announcement of a funding body to temper the loss of our exit from the European Innovation Council. This must earmark funds for innovative, high-risk and high-reward technologies. And it must be proportionate to the funding we would’ve received from the ERC, or our rate of innovation will continue to lag.

This might sound costly, but the inevitable societal and economic costs we’ll see if we continue without this will be far, far greater.

Recommended reading

• UK Back in EU Horizon Research Programme
• UK Gov Unveils Blueprints for Horizon Europe Alternative
• Horizon 2020 Offers Millions in Funding to UK Businesses

To begin mending our reputation and instil trust in our international partners, we need clear commitments from all major UK political parties to renew our membership of Horizon after the current funding cycle, which ends in 2027.

But this will only go so far – we need to address the immediate researcher shortages at our universities and research labs to get back on track.

We need a streamlined visa system targeted at bringing skilled researchers and students to the UK, offering everything from scholarships to financial assistance. And we must once again make the UK a leading location for STEM graduates and entice them to stay long-term and contribute to UK research. This will require the easing of restrictions on work visas.

These are just a few suggestions among many sensible ones, and they would, for the most part, be easy and relatively cheap to implement. But they would go a long way to fixing the damage done by our reckless and sustained withdrawal from Horizon.

If Sunak truly wants to see us become a science and technology superpower, he’ll move to make amends before the next election.

Yes, we’ve rejoined Horizon as an associate. But it’s not enough, and we don’t have time to rest on our laurels.