Battling hard at being heard in Brexit

CaSE has been heavily involved in all matters Brexit following last years’ referendum, engaging with parliamentarians and championing the needs of science and engineering in policymaking.

Being heard in Brexit was held on Thursday 28^th September, attended by delegates from 50 member organisations from across academia, charity and industry. The event provided an opportunity for a cross-sector discussion on the priorities for science and engineering in both a transition period and the future post-Brexit.

Following a previous member meeting last year with Sir John Kingman, CaSE has remained committed to not only representing our members in high-level meetings in Westminster, but also organising member events to enable dialogue between our members and policmakers. We were delighted to have Sir Mark Walport, Chief Executive Designate of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), talk about his vision for the role of UKRI in securing a positive outcome for UK science in the coming years, while also providing an opportunity for the community to raise their concerns in a Q&A session. UKRI, which will officially be created in April 2018, will bring together the 7 research councils, Innovate UK and a new organisation, Research England.

Representing a broad spectrum of stakeholders within science and engineering, the meeting allowed several resounding priorities to be heard that have been echoed by the community as a whole. The access to EU funding and grants were a major concern for the group, as was the future of collaborations between UK and EU institutions. Members again spoke of the need for broad harmonisation and alignment of regulation with the EU, for trade as well as for research and collaboration. This is an area where the UK has had significant influence historically and there was the view that both the UK and the EU would benefit from continued close working in this area. There was also some agreement on the role of UKRI as a facilitator in supporting new research opportunities for the UK, which lead nicely into the conversation with Sir Mark.

Sir Mark spoke about the role of UKRI in an ever-changing environment, acting as a catalyst for research without interfering or creating unnecessary bureaucracy around funding opportunities. He shared the aims of UKRI to continue to push the frontiers of human knowledge, deliver economic benefits to the UK and creating social impacts to make the UK healthier and stronger.

A full event summary can be found on the CaSE website.