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AHRC, science and the
creative industries – p6
Hetan Shah People will not share data
for commercial purposes – p23
REF 2021 Consultation concessions – p4
Revealed: EU facilities
looking to exit UK
PIs plan moves to shift project headquarters elsewhere
UK-based academics leading research infrastructures
supported by funding from the European Commission
are to begin moving their headquarters to other
European Union member states from as early as 2019.
Gerry Gilmore, professor of experimental philoso-
phy at the University of Cambridge, coordinates an EU
astronomy consortium called Opticon. He told Research
Fortnight that Opticon’s scientific leadership would be
moving to another EU member state as early as January
2021, once its Horizon 2020 contract finishes.
The Optical Infrared Coordination Network for
Astronomy was launched more than 25 years ago to
bring together the operators of Europe’s medium to
large optical infrared telescopes and corresponding
data archives. It involves researchers and funders
in seven EU countries, led by the UK’s Science and
Technology Facilities Council. The project’s admin-
istrative and coordination team is likely to move,
probably to the Netherlands, although the details and
hosts have not yet been confirmed, Gilmore said.
Access to research infrastructures is available to
non-EU states, but EU membership plays a signifi-
cant role in decisions on where to locate facilities.
“The uncertainty is just too great and whatever status
Britain may have in future EU Framework programmes
it will be essentially a second-rate status,” he said.
The impacts of Opticon’s decision will be wide-rang-
ing. Gilmore will lose the project’s leadership and he said
that there was no guarantee that the consortium’s 12 UK
universities—including Oxford, St Andrews, Bath and
Sheffield—will remain in post-Brexit.
Several UK-based start-ups and small companies
that have spun-out from the project are likely to be
wound up and the UK may also stop benefitting from
the intellectual property that the project is gener-
ating, Gilmore said. “The UK will lose substantial
scientific leadership and influence in the EU. There
is going to be bad news all around. I don’t think peo-
ple realise how many new jobs and new opportunities
have just been destroyed.”
The Europlanet advanced research infrastructure,
which coordinates planetary science facilities across
Founded by William Cullerne Bown
15 March 2017
by Cristina Gallardo cgnews@ResearchResearch.com
Europe, is led by the Open University. The project,
which is funded under Horizon 2020 until August
2019, is also facing hard decisions.
Europlanet’s chairman Nigel Mason said that the
project would be run from the Open University until the
end of its Horizon 2020 contract. However, the execu-
tive board and management committee are discussing
its post-Brexit future and sustainability plans, ahead of
a mid-term review by the Commission in May.
One likely OptiOn, he said, was to evolve towards
a distributed office network—keeping one office in
Britain but setting up others, including the main
headquarters, within the EU. If, however, the pro-
ject remains a research infrastructure and applies to
Framework 9, the Commission is likely to nudge it
into becoming a European Research Infrastructure
Consortium—a move that will require the facility to be
hosted by an EU member state.
It is understood that the project’s managers would
like to move to Strasbourg. Mason denied that any
new location had been chosen, but acknowledged that
several EU countries had volunteered to host the infra-
structure’s headquarters. Proposals will be reviewed
by the board at a conference in Prague in September.
“Given the political situation, we have to prepare for
all eventualities. The distributed network of offices is
the preferred option, it makes sense as it engages the
community across Europe, and many other projects
are considering this option,” Mason said. “Europlanet
will continue existing and the UK will continue to play
a major role in our activities.”
Both Gilmore and Robert Massey,
the deputy executive director of Every new opportunity
the Royal Astronomical Society in for research funding
London, said that several other from every sponsor in
research infrastructures based in the UK, EU, US & beyond
the UK were also considering scaling Every discipline
down their UK presence and moving
Every fortnight
headquarters after 2019.
Issue No. 496