Boris Johnson wants to create ¡°a new fast-track visa system to attract leading scientists to work in the UK¡±. Beneath the bravado, there were a few other noteworthy features to his announcement: a failure to acknowledge the role of the European Union in supporting British scientific discovery, a failure to address what a no-deal Brexit would mean for UK science, and a reminder of the Vote Leave campaign¡¯s claims about science.

The prime minister said in his speech: ¡°We were home to the world¡¯s first national DNA database, we discovered graphene, and our cutting-edge scientists should be proud to follow in the footsteps of titans like Ada Lovelace and Nobel Laureates Francis Crick and Peter Higgs.¡±

¡°We¡±, the UK, discovered graphene in the sense that two Russian-born scientists, benefiting from about??10 million of EU funding via European Research Council grants for outstanding researchers, discovered the super-strong, super-thin material while working at the University of Manchester.

Under a no-deal Brexit, it is unlikely the UK would be able to associate to the EU¡¯s next research programme and would thus lose access to the ERC.

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The former president of ETH Zurich described ERC grants to me as like ¡°mini Nobel prizes¡± ¨C and if leading researchers cannot access these grants if they work full-time in the UK, no-deal Brexit brings an obvious and major deterrent against some of the world¡¯s leading scientists coming to work here. In which case, Johnson¡¯s talk about making the UK the best place in the world to do science would be no more than hot air.

Johnson¡¯s announcement included a commitment that the UK government would evaluate funding applications to the EU¡¯s Horizon 2020 programme, including to the ERC, submitted before any no-deal Brexit and fund the successful ones. That¡¯s an improvement on the previous picture, but offers no clarity on future access to the EU¡¯s research programme, including the ERC.

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Johnson : ¡°We are not only going to participate in the Horizon schemes, we in the new UK government are determined to finance big science as well.¡± Just how is that possible under a no-deal Brexit which ruptures wider UK-EU relations?

Andre Geim, one of the researchers who discovered graphene and was recognised with a Nobel prize, in an article published today: ¡°The government may try and reduce the?barriers to entry for scientists but they cannot reduce turmoil that would be caused to science in the UK by a no-deal Brexit. Scientists are not fools. They know that turmoil is inevitable for many years.¡±

There¡¯s no mention of the ERC in the Times article, but it¡¯s a key element of the graphene story.

All this?reminded me of how the Vote Leave campaign ¨C now effectively the government ¨C misrepresented Geim¡¯s words during the referendum campaign.

Thirteen Tory MPs who were part of the campaign, including Johnson and Michael Gove, signed a letter calling the EU¡¯s research programme ¡°unnecessarily bureaucratic¡±.

It continued: ¡°As the Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim said: ¡®I can offer no nice words for the EU framework programmes which...can be praised only by Europhobes for discrediting the whole idea of an effectively working Europe.¡¯ After we vote leave, it should be a priority to increase funding for science and fix problems with the funding system, not all of which are the fault of the EU.¡±

As I pointed out at the time, the ellipsis in the MPs¡¯ quotation from?Geim¡¯s Nobel lecture removed the words ¡°except for the European Research Council¡±. I wonder why Vote Leave removed those words?

Those associated with Vote Leave seem to have a hard time acknowledging the importance of the ERC and the respect it has within science.

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Vote Leave also published a during the campaign, which said that ¡°the EU has too much control and is anti-science¡±.

The Johnson announcement on visas is straight from this briefing, which said that after Brexit the UK could have a ¡°much more sensible ¡° immigration policy ¡°in which criminals are banned and?we explicitly fast track scientists to come to Britain and work here¡±.

Vote Leave also said in that briefing: ¡°If Britain takes back control of the money we send to Brussels and diverts some of it into science, we could make Britain a world leader in crucial fields.¡±

"We could safeguard British research which is also threatened by government cuts and Whitehall¡¯s anti-science culture stretching over decades. We could also continue to participate in international scientific collaborations, including the EU¡¯s Horizon programme, just as other non-EU countries do.¡±

The briefing repeated that the UK would continue to be able to collaborate in research with the EU once it left the union. It added: ¡°Given countries like Fiji already participate it is unbelievable to claim that Britain will be excluded.¡±

Robert-Jan Smits, formerly the European Commission¡¯s directorgeneral for research and innovation, recently said: ¡°In [the event that] Boris Johnson walks out without a Brexit deal, the chances for the UK to become associated to Horizon Europe are not close to zero, they are zero.¡±

¡°No one can expect from Brussels that favours are given to someone who has enjoyed a great meal with good wine and then leaves the restaurant without paying his part of the bill.¡±

The next programme starts in 2021 and timing is already tight for the UK to associate, even without a no-deal Brexit derailing the whole enterprise.

Are Vote Leave and Johnson¡¯s pledges on access to EU research super-strong like graphene, or just super-thin? We may soon find out.

John Morgan is deputy news editor at ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ.?

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