The chief executive of Siemens UK has urged the Westminster government to keep the nation in the European Union¡¯s research programmes, which aid collaboration with universities in projects that he described as being ¡°fundamentally important¡± to industry, but also to create a new British innovation fund.

It remains unclear whether the UK will seek to, or be able to, associate to the EU¡¯s next research programme, Horizon Europe, which starts in 2021. But it is widely thought that a no-deal Brexit that ruptures UK-EU relations would make an agreement impossible.

Juergen Maier said that no-deal would be the ¡°worst possible outcome¡± for research, ¡°and I?do point that out to ministers on every occasion, because they don¡¯t often understand the research agenda, which to a company such as Siemens ¨C to any company that looks to innovate ¨C is fundamentally important¡±.

Mr Maier highlighted the EU-funded Triangulum smart cities research project, in which Siemens collaborated with the universities of Manchester, Eindhoven and Stavanger as well as local authorities in those cities.

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Such initiatives were crucial in ¡°developing innovation and IP¡±, he said, ¡°so going forward Siemens wants to continue to participate in programmes like that. Either Britain has to find a way of being part of [EU research programmes]¡­or ¨C probably and, actually ¨C Britain [should launch] its own innovation fund into which European and global partners are invited to participate.¡±

Asked about ministers not understanding the importance of EU research programmes, Mr Maier ¨C a British-Austrian national who came to the UK aged 10 ¨C said that ¡°unfortunately, whilst the country has got an incredible amount of brilliant research in our universities, we haven¡¯t had ¨C for really four decades ¨C a strategy that really understands and really gets behind the prosperity that can be created from that innovation, in terms of creating many new industries [and] many new jobs¡±.

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Mr Maier said he had told ministers that EU research programmes were ¡°important for wealth creation in the UK¡±.

He highlighted the Siemens plant in Congleton, Cheshire, where he started his career. The plant makes industrial motors that rely on an inverter, and ¡°what made that possible to package [the inverter] in a compact form¡­back in the late 1980s was a patent out of [what is now] Manchester University¡±, Mr Maier said.

¡°The value that is created in a lot of British factories comes out of some innovation or IP that sparks, very often, out of a university.¡±

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com