Can UK Science Survive Outside the EU?
Please watch the following video made by the organization Scientists for EU. You could also read the document referred to in the video (“International Comparative Performance of the UK Research Base – 2013”) which can be found here.
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In the Dark 
September 23, 2015 at 12:33 pm
Reblogged this on Disturbing the Universe and commented:
Leaving the EU would be a disaster for UK science
September 23, 2015 at 2:20 pm
In principle UK science could thrive outside the EU – if our government was willing to invest at the appropriate level. But the omens aren’t good. As we know, domestic spend on astronomy research has roughly halved over the last decade. Other subjects haven’t perhaps done this badly, but pretty well all areas seem to have experience substantial real-terms cuts.
What’s plugging the factor-2 gap is very simple: the ERC. In Edinburgh astronomy, we have more research money coming in from ERC grants than from UK-based grants; I know of quite a few other groups in the same situation. If we were to leave the EU, then our numbers of postdocs could halve. We don’t need to argue over whether the term “disaster” is appropriate to see such a change would be very bad for the UK as a force in world research.
You can argue that the ERC just redistributes money given by national governments, and that a non-EU UK would no longer pay to the ERC. There are two answers to this. One is that the UK regularly does much better than pro rata in terms of successfully bidding for ERC funding. The other is to question whether the UK would even be guaranteed to redirect all its current ERC contribution to domestic research. We’re already notorious for having one of the lowest shares of GDP going into research:
http://www.theguardian.com/science/occams-corner/2015/mar/13/science-vital-uk-spending-research-gdp
So would you trust the government not to continue shrinking this figure?
September 23, 2015 at 3:37 pm
We’re in a similar situation here, with good ERC income compensating falling support from STFC in Astronomy and Particle Physics.
Of course, if the UK does vote to withdraw from the EU that will probably trigger another referendum on Scottish independence, which would be very likely to succeed this time…
September 24, 2015 at 9:22 am
The UK needs to be in the EU to be part of multi-national collaborations? Is this an example of what may delicately be called extracting the Michael?
CERN, the single most successful example of European scientific co-operation, is not in any way an EU body. It is based on treaties to which individual countries sign up; some EU members (Ireland) are not CERN member states, and some CERN member states (Israel, Switzerland – the host country!) are not EU members.
The same is true of ESA – another highly successful example of European scientific co-operation.
Certainly the ERC is a highly successful and well-run research council (and if UK withdraws from EU it should seek to remain with the ERC, as eg Norway and Israel do).
However some of the other EU funding schemes are notoriously bureaucratic and with stupid salaries, for example paying students as senior postdocs and postdocs (`Experienced Researchers’) as full professors.
September 24, 2015 at 3:32 pm
I remember when I was involved in an EU grant in the old days, the salaries for PDRAs were indeed set at ridiculously high levels. I asked the EU bureaucrat why they had set them so high, and he replied that they had picked a salary at the same level as the lowest grade clerical assistant in their organization….
EU programmes have since reduced the PDRA salaries to something more realistic, but whether they ahve reduced the bureacrats’ salaries is more doubtful.
September 24, 2015 at 4:24 pm
I’m not sure of current current figures (although they’re probably not hard to find) but as this 2012 page helpfully explains, Marie Curie salaries “range from £35,000 per annum for PhD students to over £90,000 per annum for experienced researchers.”
(link is http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/humanities/news/2012/mariecuriefellowships.aspx )
In contrast ERC salaries are on the ordinary institutional postdoctoral salary scale.
September 24, 2015 at 5:05 pm
With any normal UK job though, you are expected to cover health, unemployment and pension contributions from your salary (in practice via income tax/national insurance deductions which the government then reallocates to the NHS etc).
September 24, 2015 at 5:12 pm
There are also employers’ national insurance contributions and a (large) employer contribution to the pension scheme, which means that the “on-cost” for a PDRA is substantially higher than the salary.
September 24, 2015 at 5:45 pm
How much do they earn, or how much do they get paid? 😉
September 27, 2015 at 10:44 pm
When I worked in the UK I had a couple of Marie Curie PhD students from 2009-2012 and they earned the same as a postdoc (with a few years experience). Our Marie Curie postdoc fellows at the same time earned the same as a Reader, but not quite as much as a Prof. The problem is that the European Commission mandates payment of a fixed amount plus a country-specific cost-of-living correction (which adds nearly 10% for the UK) which is used to pay all costs associated with the position (employers costs as well as salary), but this doesn’t account for the fact that different countries have more or less tax burden on employers. In the Netherlands the result is that Marie Curie postdocs don’t get that much more than a regular postdoc, while their counterparts in the UK (with low employers tax contribution – just employers National Insurance) earn a princely sum… The simple solution would be to ensure that MC fellows earn the standard local postdoc rate, plus the extra mobility allowance or some top-up to make it attractive.