UK vs. Horizon Europe [episode 23]

Just read in The Guardian that the UK Government or more exactly the PM hopeful Liz Truss  (since Boris Johnson has gone AWOL!) is starting a formal procedure against the EU for British scientists being excluded from Horizon Europe funding due to said Government renegading on its former signature of the Northern Ireland Protocol. (After the EU announced last June re-commencing its infringement proceedings against the UK.) Just stick to Science!

hit by Brexit!

After realising while at ISBA²² that Probabilistic Numerics,  the book of Philipp Heinig, Michael Osborne, and Hans Kersting, had appeared, I requested a copy for review in CHANCE from Cambridge University Press, which they kindly sent me. However, I received it with a 21€ bill for the novel VAT tax the EU has just (re)established for goods imported from outside the EU. From now on, I will have review books delivered to my Warwick address or sent from within the EU! (I have attempted to complain about paying VAT on free goods, but customs were not at all sympathetic!!!)

Dear President of the European Commission

BoJo’s return to no-future

The [harebrained] proposal of Boris Johnson to return to so-called imperial measurements or units illustrates [beyond his usual flair for spinning out of yet-another-scandal] an all-too-common innumeracy of politicians (and possibly a lingering anti-French sentiment as metric units were introduced by the French Revolution), preferring to cater to their Brexit voters rather than realising the drawbacks and costs of a parallel system of measurements, as illustrated by the 1999 Orbiter crash. Does he plan to exit the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures as well?! Or does he expect an improvement in numeracy with the public using different bases (other than 10) at ounce once?!

sunset on the horizon…

“The window for association is closing fast, and we need to ensure that political issues do not get in the way of a sensible solution. We have always been very clear that association is the preferred outcome for protecting decades of collaborative research, and the benefits this has brought to people’s lives across the continent and beyond.” Adrian Smith

As reported in the Guardian of today a terrible impact of BoJo’s Vote Leave Brexit the UK Government failing to implement the Northern Ireland protocol is that this threatens ERC funding for UK scientists, as the associate membership of Horizon Europe was part of the Brexit negociations, whose “deal”  has been delayed because of this. About a hundred new ERC grant recipients who are currently located in the UK have to either relocate to (eager) EU universities or to give up this most prestigious funding…