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Maria Leptin also says funder’s letter to UK winners of ERC grants “was misunderstood”
Supernatural intervention is now needed to overcome the obstacles to the UK joining the EU’s Horizon Europe R&D programme, the president of the European Research Council has implied.
Maria Leptin was commenting on letters the ERC sent to UK-based winners of its grants in April, informing them that they had only two months to decide whether to leave the UK to be eligible for those grants.
“If, by some miracle, UK association occurs, this problem will go away,” Leptin (pictured) told the League of European Research Universities, in an interview to mark the group’s 20th anniversary.
UK association to Horizon Europe, which would give the country access on almost equal terms with EU member states, was agreed in December 2020 but has not been formally signed off by the bloc due to political disagreements.
In particular, the UK and EU are split over trade with Northern Ireland. The UK government has indicated in recent days that it is prepared to legally diverge from the part of the December 2020 agreement relating to Northern Ireland, which the EU has indicated would have repercussions for the broader deal.
‘Unfortunate misunderstanding’
Leptin said the letter the ERC sent to UK-based grant-winners “was misunderstood, and that was unfortunate”, adding: “The ERC did not issue any instructions to grantees in the UK.”
“We all know that ERC grants cannot be paid out to host institutions based in non-EU countries that are not associated with Horizon Europe, such as the UK,” she said.
If no miracle is forthcoming, she added, “successful ERC grant applicants in the UK will discover in September or October that they cannot take up their grants”.
The UK government is offering winners alternative funding, but researchers and the ERC itself could lose money unless the situation is addressed quickly, Leptin suggested.
“[UK-based winners] are entitled to transfer elsewhere, but if they leave it too late, they could lose the money,” she said. “If they decide to stay in the UK, we have to find someone from the reserve list to receive the grant, and if that doesn’t happen in time, the money is also gone.”