The Government is running a “Relationship between EU membership and UK science” inquiry. A group called Scientists for Britain has submitted written evidence:
The title of the inquiry is ‘Relationship between EU membership and UK science inquiry’, so we are deeply concerned that all of the questions and preamble of the inquiry are on matters that are not contingent upon the UK’s membership of the EU.
Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, Iceland and Israel are all non-EU nations that participate in and contribute towards the science networks operated via the EU.
Norway, Switzerland and Turkey have all been represented on the governing bodies of the ERA, either in the Scientific Council which currently governs the work of the ERA or its forerunner the European Research Area Board (ERAB). European scientists within the ERA rightly see the benefit of ensuring that scientific cooperation is done openly and is not exclusive to political membership. It is within this environment that the UK’s participation in EU science networks would continue if the UK were to leave the EU.
Therefore, it is essential for us to say with regret that the House of Lords inquiry appears to be premised on a fallacy in this respect. The nature of the inquiry’s title points to EU membership while the preamble and questions (about the funding, collaboration, regulation and advice) point to a discovery of the merits of science cooperation which is not contingent on membership.
It is clear that the inquiry is written and designed in such a way that an assessment of the UK’s science relationship with the EU is intended to inform the currently live debate about whether the UK remains a member of the EU. It would be a serious mistake for anyone to connect the two.
In a tweet, Scientists for Britain, @sciencebritain pointed out:
Recent oral testimony includes some from Dame Julia Slingo of the Marshes who says:
“I am the Chief Scientist at the Met Office and also a member of the High Level Group for the new European Commission Scientific Advice Mechanism. The Met Office, as I am sure you know, is one of the world’s leading weather and climate services, but also embodies a very significant research activity in weather and climate science, numbering some 550 scientists under my direction. We benefit enormously from our international collaborations, both in services and science, and particularly important European networks which sustain our services and contribute quite significantly to our research base. We have a long history of international co-operation and I would say that EU funding, particularly over the last decade, has been incredibly beneficial to the advancement of our science so we can provide improved services not just in the UK but across the world.”
This article originally appeared on Tallbloke’s Talkshop
The fact remains that although funding of the Met office via the EU “has been incredibly beneficial to the advancement of our science so we can provide improved services not just in the UK but across the world” every euro of EU funding has cost the UK taxpayer two euros. It is also open to question whether EU funding supports activities of the Met Office that reflect the priorities of Britain’s interests or is the Met Office merely a UK subsidised agency chasing whatever activity pays well from whatever source and regardless of British interests.
Living, as I am lucky enough to do, in the land of Newton, Lord Kelvin, Steven Hawking and many, many more I am frankly amazed to read that there would be given even the slightest consideration to the notion that British science would somehow, suddenly cease to be at or near the forefront of scientific endeavour because our politicians, silly though some of them undoubtedly are, would be silly enough not to make good any EU funding UK science might lose out of the money we would save by no longer having to support financially the never-ending, ever-failing EU ‘project’ or that we as a country would not be able to continue collaboration with scientists in European countries as we do with scientists throughout the world.
It should be remembered that with funding comes control and the control comes from the source of the funding, in this case the EU. In other words, although the money originates in the UK the control comes from the EU.
Ultimately it is British taxpayers that fund the Met Office and should therefore be able, through the ballot-box, to have a say in the way they are run.
And some Met Office scientists might in fact welcome the possibility of being able to take a more independent view and connect the climate dots, or dare I say it, the Sun’s spots.
This is no time for pusillanimity. Our country needs us.
Vote leave. In the short term there will be some winners and may well be some losers to be sure. However, the alterative presents the probability that in the long-term we will all be losers.
Vote leave.
Not sure if I have got this right.
Am I to understand from this article that if the UK achieved BRexit from the EU, then British science would lose the funding that I assume is reimbursed out of our membership contributions.
Surely then if the legacy British government considered such funding taken from membership fee saving should continue then international science would be served.
More scaremongering?