Dr. Catherine Day:

My views would be less rosy. First, most of Horizon 2020 is designed in such a way that funding is allocated according to the criterion of excellence, so there will still be competitive bidding. It will not be the case that there is suddenly a big pot of money that will be reallocated to Ireland. Second, when the UK leaves, it takes its budget contribution with it, so the EU budget will be smaller as a result. Third, we do not know what kind of relationship will replace the current UK membership, but it is highly likely that part of that future relationship will give the UK access as a third country to European research. Non-EU countries have such access.

Our criterion is excellence and international collaboration is considered to be a vital ingredient in the research project. Fourth, the UK will be far-sighted enough, as part of a very focused competitiveness strategy, to continue out of UK Government funding to keep up a high level of funding for research because it understands it is key to its future prosperity. For all those reasons, I come back to what I said. It will be a tougher environment in which we will also have to make those investments. There can be some positives but I do not think they will be specifically in the area of research funding.