The UK and Switzerland have signed their own science cooperation deal after both countries were excluded from a major EU scheme.
The Horizon Europe programme covers the 27 EU member states as well as 16 “associate” members ranging from Ukraine to Norway.
But Britain is currently locked out of the flagship €95.5 billion (£81.2 billion) EU programme because of political tensions.
The separate Swiss-UK deal, which was finalised on Thursday, does not actually provide any new science funding.
But science minister George Freeman said Britain wanted to deepen its “international relationships with leading research and development economies like Switzerland”.
The deal is meant to be a signal to scientists from the two countries to cooperate with each other.
Britain could participate in Horizon under the terms of its agreement with the EU but Brussels has yet to formally give the go-ahead.
The UK government has accused the European Commission of deliberately dragging its feet on the UK’s association to the scheme in response to Britain threatening to break parts of the Brexit deal.
Officially, Brussels denies this is the case – though EU ambassador João Vale de Almeida, has described access to the scheme as “collateral damage” in the row over the Northern Ireland border.
In the meantime UK authorities have provided some bridging funding for British researchers who have applied for Horizon funding.
Switzerland is also being locked out of Horizon Europe while its government negotiates with Brussels.
The EU wants to rationalise its many overlapping treaties with Switzerland into a single off-the-sheld association agreement, but the country wants to keep its bespoke arrangement.
This summer a group representing 140 British universities warned that UK science funding was at a “precipice” if Britain did not gain access to Horizon Europe soon.
Universities UK wrote to the EU’s executive stating that “failure to secure UK association to Horizon Europe would be a lose-lose for health, wealth and wellbeing and would do a disservice to future generations in Europe and beyond”, with many members “forced” to leave projects.
And last year Cancer Research UK said failing to gain access to Horizon Europe would be a “significant blow” to the fight against cancer.
