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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent steps his Department has taken to prepare for the UK potentially not associating to Horizon Europe after the transition period.

In tandem with our negotiations to associate to EU programmes we, as a responsible government, are developing alternative schemes to support international research and innovation collaboration. If we do not formally associate to Horizon Europe, we will implement ambitious alternatives as quickly as possible from January 2021 and address the funding gap. We will launch an ambitious new Discovery Fund offering sizeable grants over long periods of time to early, mid and late-career researchers, whether already in the UK or coming here from anywhere in the world, to pursue ground-breaking research. We will scale up and enhance prestigious domestic schemes, providing funding to allow UK researchers and innovators to seize opportunities and to allow our institutions to attract and retain international talent and we will make funding available to allow UK partners to participate in European schemes open to third countries.