UK businesses benefitting from Horizon 2020 research funding are urged to register their details with the government in order to continue to receive funding in the event that the UK leaves the EU without securing a trade deal.
Horizon 2020 is the EU’s biggest research and innovation programme, financially supporting researchers and businesses in EU member states to take their innovations and discoveries to market.
In September 2018, the government announced that it would guarantee all successful UK funding bids submitted by public and private organisations prior to the country leaving the European Union at the end of March, including the EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme.
An online portal, managed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is the first step towards supporting the continuity of funding for UK organisations which have been awarded grants.
It asks recipients to input basic information in order for UK researchers and businesses to be informed of next steps should the government need to underwrite Horizon 2020 funding.
To date, there have been around 5,500 registrations to the online portal out of a potential 8,200.
The government’s guarantee will reportedly cover all successful Horizon 2020 bids by UK participants before the UK exits the EU, for the full duration of the projects.
Facts and figures:
- The UK is a top five collaboration partner for all other EU countries under Horizon 2020.
- At end of September 2018, the UK had the second highest number of project participations in Horizon 2020 – more than 10,200.
- UK businesses have around 2,700 Horizon 2020 project participations (€982m).
- The UK has secured around €5.1bn funding to date (14.3% of the total, second only to Germany).
- The UK accounts for: 4.1% of the world’s researchers, 10.7% of all citations, 15.2% of the world’s most highly-cited articles, three of the world’s top 10 universities.
- The UK receives around €70m a year direct funding from the Euratom R&T programme.
The government is aiming to increase the amount the UK invests in research and development to 2.4% of GDP by 2027.
For organisations in receipt of multiple grants, a spreadsheet is available to submit them in bulk via [email protected]
The underwrite guarantee also reportedly applies to all ‘competitively bid for’ nuclear research grants from the Euratom Research and Training programme and recipients will be able to use the same UKRI portal to register under the guarantee.
