British science needs Europe, President Gast writes in The Times

President Gast made the case for Horizon Europe association, writing in The Times.

In a column for The Times Red Box, President Gast writes “The UK government speaks of Global Britain and great ambitions for science. When it comes to research, Global Britain and the EU must go hand in hand.”

"It’s our European connections that help UK researchers to work with the best in the world.”

Professor Gast adds: “European collaborations are crucial to the influence and impact of UK research.

President Gast also argues that European research has much to gain from collaborating with British scientists and reaffirmed Imperial’s call for the UK to be an associate member of Horizon Europe. “The influence and impact of European research benefits from collaborations with the UK.

"Horizon Europe will be stronger with the UK as an associate member. The UK should be its number one candidate. Europe’s university and science leaders echo this message.”

The full column can be read at The Times

Horizon Europe

During a recent visit by the Home Secretary, President Gast made it clear that European connections are fundamental to Imperial’s status as the UK’s most international university, and that associate membership of Horizon Europe would allow UK science to thrive.

And at the Science|Business conference in Brussels, President Gast told European science and policy leaders that collaboration with European partners will be essential after Brexit.

European collaboration

In the past five years some 62 per cent of our research papers have an international co-author and of this number, over half include an author from mainland Europe.

About 60 per cent of Imperial’s research papers with a US collaborator have a European co-author.

Almost half of our publications with China, 68 per cent with Canada and 83 per cent with Brazil carry a UK-EU collaboration.

France’s CNRS is Imperial’s top overseas research collaborator with more than 550 joint research papers published every year.