Slashdot Mirror
Britain's Scientists Are 'Freaking Out' Over Brexit (washingtonpost.com)
"To use a nonscientific term, the scientists in the country are freaking out," reports the Washington Post. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes their report:
The researchers worry that Britain will not replace funding it loses when it leaves the E.U., which has supplied about $1.2 billion a year to support British science, approximately 10 percent of the total spent by government-funded research councils. There is a whiff of panic in the labs.
Worse than a possible dip in funding is the research community's fear that collaborators abroad will slink away and the country's universities will find themselves isolated. British research today is networked, expensive, competitive and global. Being part of a pan-European consortium has helped put Britain in the top handful of countries, based on the frequency of citations of its scientific papers... Anecdotal evidence suggests that headhunters may already be circling.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that Britain's vote to leave the EU "has depressed the value of the British pound," prompting many Britons to vacation at home rather than abroad -- while "Americans will find their dollars go further in Britain these days." And an anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNBC that Ford "is considering closing plants in the UK and across Europe in response to Britain's vote to leave the EU, as it forecast a $1 billion hit to its business over the next two years."
Worse than a possible dip in funding is the research community's fear that collaborators abroad will slink away and the country's universities will find themselves isolated. British research today is networked, expensive, competitive and global. Being part of a pan-European consortium has helped put Britain in the top handful of countries, based on the frequency of citations of its scientific papers... Anecdotal evidence suggests that headhunters may already be circling.
Meanwhile, NPR reports that Britain's vote to leave the EU "has depressed the value of the British pound," prompting many Britons to vacation at home rather than abroad -- while "Americans will find their dollars go further in Britain these days." And an anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from CNBC that Ford "is considering closing plants in the UK and across Europe in response to Britain's vote to leave the EU, as it forecast a $1 billion hit to its business over the next two years."
Ford had already identified those plants for closure BEFORE the date of the referendum was set.
This is all spin trying to attribute these closures to BREXIT when its due to a general downturn...
Unfortunately, the EU really likes using such programs to put pressure to non-member states for completely unrelated negotiations, and as a result has recently excluded Switzerland from Horizon 2020. I wouldn't be surprised if they used the same tactics also against the UK in the future.
It was Switzerland's choice. They voted to restrict immigration and what you outline was the result. Maybe one shouldn't be tied to the other, but they knew what they were getting themselves into when they voted. Don't forget it barely got through. As is often the case with these motions pushed by Switzerland's right-wing party, it's the more rural cantons that vote for them and the urban areas that vote against them. i.e. it's the people who actually interact with foreigners that want them in Switzerland.
soylentnews.org
The paperwork is really not that bad.
As a former Framework Warrior, the hell it ain't!
Other research project would generate a similar amount of paper trail.
No they don't. Compare, for example the reporting requirements of RCUK to the EU framework projects.
These reporting requirements relative to the amount of actual work of these projects are legedary. It's what grizzled old postdocs talk about in the pub.
Nonetheless, the money is still good, and you get to keep the equipment after and keep researching with it. Not to mention the inevitable side projects that the postdocs and students work on. I think the indirect impact of the work is actually more than the direct impact sometimes. I did my best work while moonlighting on an FP7 project.
SJW n. One who posts facts.