Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he plans to take to protect UK science from the effect of uncertainty about access to European Research Council grants.

The UK’s decision to leave the EU has no immediate effect on the right of researchers to apply or to participate in Horizon 2020 as the UK is still an EU member state. UK participants can continue to apply to the programme in the usual way. The Commission has made a public statement on its website to this effect. The future of UK access to European research and innovation funding will be determined as part of wider discussions with the EU.