The findings of the Research Excellence Framework demonstrate that the United Kingdom’s chemical research is outstandingly high quality – 45% of the UK’s academic contributions are rated ‘internationally excellent’ while 49% of them can be considered ‘world-leading’ – based on evaluations of research output impact and research environment. The area of chemistry performed slightly better than the overall average where ‘internationally excellent’ and ‘world leading’ research was 43% and 41% respectively. Tom Welton, president of the Royal society of Chemistry welcomed these results.

The bright results of the research, carried out by academics and research users, however, were overshadowed by a new UK graduate visa scheme that does not bode well for academic cooperation between the UK and the European Union. The controversial scheme allows ‘high potential individuals’ – graduates from top ranked global universities – to move to the UK even if they lack a job offer. However, it relies on metrics that “offer no meaningful measures of teaching quality” – according to Declaration on Research Assessment chair Stephen Curry. As a consequence of this, there is an overrepresentation of United States universities in the scheme, while there are only three European universities present – LMU Munich, Paris Sciences et Lettres University, and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. In addition to minimising research traffic between Europe and UK, the new visa scheme is said to exclude the global south as well.

Scientific cooperation between European countries and Great Britain is patchy since the latter’s departure from the European Union. Amongst other issues such as the one above, one of the key challenges is dealing with the difficulties regarding the UK’s ascension into Horizon Europe – ‘Stick to Science’, an initiative that calls EU institutions to accelerate this process garnered traction in earlier this year.

Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council, participated in a discussion about maintaining global scientific collaboration at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, where she made comments highlighting that international scientific cooperation must remain reciprocal.

In her comments, she indicated that countries which undermine this reciprocity and trust by sending large amounts of graduate students to other countries, while not give research and knowledge by similar means in return risk being cut off from global scientific cooperation.

The role of science as a geopolitical soft power tool became increasingly evident in the last few months, after numerous countries and institutions cut ties with Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. ERC president Leptin’s words echo the importance of science in global politics.

However, despite the strong comments, the ERC remains committed to international research cooperation, as Leptin’s participation in and contributions at last month’s “From a European to a Global Green Deal” conference, co-organised by the STOA panel and the STS forum, show. During this international conference, she encouraged colleagues around the globe to cooperate with the ERC while emphasizing the importance of fundamental research.

The European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) held a structured dialogue with the Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel at its 13 June meeting. The meeting covered Horizon Europe’s history and achievements since its launch in 2021, with emphasis on the role of the Horizon programme as a tool to support Ukrainian scientists.

Commissioner Gabriel began her presentation by announcing Ukraine’s ratification as a member of the Horizon Europe programme, as well as Euratom, and explained other research-related support opportunities granted by the EU, such as ERA4Ukraine.

She continued by talking about the future of Horizon Europe. She confirmed an increased budget for the programme this year, mentioning that the additional funding will also support the efforts towards helping researchers in Ukraine. New programmes, such as one supporting women in technology start-ups, were also announced. She reported that expanding international partnerships beyond the borders of the EU is also amongst the future plans of the Horizon programme.

Lastly, she acknowledged the importance of academic freedom in the European Union and outlined setting up a European programme to evaluate academic freedom in the European Research Area. Following this presentation, she listened to the comments, and responded to the questions of the ITRE committee members.

The recording of the meeting can be viewed here.