New Horizons: UK finally set to join Horizon Europe on 1 January 2024

The European Commission confirmed in an announcement this Monday that the final step towards the UK's entry into the EU's framework programme "Horizon Europe" as an associated country has been completed and the UK’s association will take effect from 1 January 2024.

The EU’s “Framework programmes” are a series of research and technology schemes that have run consecutively for almost 40 years. They are intended to facilitate innovation and allow scientists to easily collaborate, and tender for and receive research funding. One key principle that underpins these schemes is open science, whereby publications, models, and data are all shared. There is also a strong focus on sustainable development: in the previous iteration, Horizon 2020, 30% of the grants were directed towards addressing climate change. Horizon Europe is the EU’s 9th framework programme and is the largest scheme of its kind in the world: the total budget is €95.5 billion.

The UK has participated in many previous framework programmes, but until now the UK has been left out of Horizon Europe as a result of Brexit. Fortunately, a country does not have to be part of the EU to join, instead one can become an "associated country"; New Zealand did this earlier in the year, and a number of other states are looking to join, including Canada, South Korea, Japan and Switzerland.

The negotiations between the EU and the UK over the UK’s association have been protracted and fraught with delay. Fortunately, as we reported previously, the UK and the European Commission reached an agreement in principle in September on the terms of the UK’s entry into Horizon Europe.¹ This agreement was, however, subject to the preparation of the legal instruments and their subsequent approval and adoption.

This Monday, the European Commission confirmed that the UK’s formal entry into Horizon Europe will take place on 1 January 2024 as The EU-UK Specialised Committee on Participation in Union Programmes has now adopted the political agreement on the UK’s association. The UK will also be joining Copernicus, which is the Earth observation component of the EU space programme.

The UK will contribute around €2.4 billion per year on average to Horizon Europe, and a further €154 million for Copernicus. This will give access to the remainder of the scheme’s €95.5 billion budget. Historically, the UK has been a huge beneficiary of the framework programmes. In Horizon 2020, for example, the UK received more individual grants than any other country and overall received the second highest aggregate funding amount. 

Association to Horizon Europe is long awaited good news for research in the UK. This should help to bolster scientific talent retention in the UK, and hopefully attract more high-quality scientists to the UK market. The UK Government press release signalled that there will also be a publicity drive in coming months to maximise participation in Horizon and Copernicus from researchers, academics and businesses of all sizes in the UK. The UK Government has also announced that alongside this, additional ‘pump prime’ funding will be made available to selected UK researchers applying for Horizon for the first time (of up to £10,000 available per application). 

In terms of UK science, this is a positive start to 2024 which we hope will provide much needed funding for the UK’s science and tech focussed researchers, academics, and businesses.

[1] Europe Expands Horizon