Exiting the EU: Science and Research

Debate between Lord Johnson of Marylebone and Chris White

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. It certainly boosts not only the confidence of our research communities, but that of the business community, which sees that we are putting innovation at the very heart of our industrial strategy. For every pound of public investment in research, we get back more than £7 of net economic benefit, both at local and national level. When we invest in research, we invest in our wider prosperity.

[Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)]

Although the Chancellor’s announcement that the Government will continue to fund EU projects such as Horizon 2020 was welcome, it is still important to make sure that our universities continue to collaborate. What further measures will the Minister take to ensure that that happens?

[Joseph Johnson]

Our universities are successful in winning European funding bids. In fact, we have the top four slots of all European institutions, in Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and University College London—[Interruption.]—in terms of the share of participations. That underscores the strengths of our university system and we want them to continue to be able to bid successfully for as long as we are members of the European Union.

We want that level of economic benefit to continue long after we leave the EU, which is why we are setting up the industrial strategy challenge fund. It will back priority technologies such as robotics and biotechnology where, just as in the space sector, the UK has the potential to turn research strengths into a global, industrial and commercial lead. Although our research and innovation system is world leading, we are working to ensure that it stays that way by being even more effective. That is why we are implementing Sir Paul Nurse’s recommendation that we should establish a single strategic research and innovation funding body—UK Research and Innovation —which will be a strong and unified voice, championing UK research and innovation nationally and internationally.

The EU is, of course, important for the UK’s research base, but it is not the only game in town. The UK was a place of learning before many of the EU’s member states even existed. Some of our universities have been centres of research excellence for nearly a millennium. The UK will, of course, continue to play a leading role in major, non-EU research collaborations that take place here—from CERN in Switzerland, to the European Space Agency. We are a major partner in the new Square Kilometre Array, the world’s largest radio telescope, whose global headquarters will be based at Jodrell Bank. In the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, it was UK researchers, working with their counterparts, who made the dramatic gravitational waves discovery possible.

All that said, it will, of course, not be lost on many hon. Members that there are many valuable interactions between UK and EU scientific institutions. We work closely with our European neighbours on issues that affect our planet as well as everyone on it.