Written evidence submitted by the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (LEA0232)

In responding to this consultation, this contribution is intended to complement the official response from the University of Manchester. The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research does not seek to repeat many of the statistics which are widely available on the contribution of EU funding to the UK research base, but it suffices to say that the task of ensuring that the UK research system, and UK based researchers, are not adversely effected by negotiations to leave the European Union is likely to be both complicated and challenging.

The Institute agrees that the priority for any negotiation intended to ensure stability and strength for the UK research base should be to retain as full access as possible to European funding streams, and to continue to be as centrally involved as possible in their development and management.

About the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research

The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research is a research institute at the University of Manchester, based at the Alliance Manchester Business School. The Institute brings together expertise in science, technology and innovation policy and management. Our work centres around four main themes: innovation management and competitiveness, the governance and dynamics of emerging technologies, systems transitions and societal challenges, and science, technology and innovation policy and organisations.

Importance of EU support to the growth of UK science policy expertise

We make this submission as a centre of expertise on science and innovation policies rather than from the perspective of a research group affected by the prospect of Brexit. However it should be noted that the European Union has been and remains a major source of science policy research funding. Over the last four or so decades European Union research and consultancy contracts have created and sustained in the UK a world-leading cluster of science policy analysis groups, both in the University sector and in the private sector. Whilst UK government and research councils sources have intermittently made major investments in the field, their interest in science policy studies has waxed and waned: there is little doubt that without a continuous demand for research and consultancy from Brussels, the UK would not have the capacity in this area that it does.

Science is not a zero-sum game

We would like to begin our submission with a general comment about the shortcomings of the dominant discourse about science. This is important because this dominant discourse is likely to frame how we think about the potential impacts of Brexit on science – and on how we think about what might be appropriate responses.

Globally, more science is done now than ever before, more public and private money is spent on research, and the number of researchers working is greater than it has ever been. Indeed, increases in investment in research by other countries are often deployed by those lobbying for greater spending in the UK, as if science were some kind of zero-sum game in which nations compete to discover knowledge, apply it and commercialise it - all within their own national borders.

The notion that science is a zero-sum game rests on two fallacies. The first is the belief that a "chain" of causal connections straightforwardly and consistently links fundamental discoveries with final technologies and products. This assumption affects every aspect of our discourse about science and innovation. Econometric evidence does indeed suggest that the social return to public R&D spending is significant, but such studies tend to narrowly model innovation as a linear process in which cash inputs are turned into knowledge outputs, treating new knowledge as the important driver of innovation. However, surveys of innovators and decades of accumulated case histories of actual innovations both suggest that most innovations are not driven by or even dependent on new fundamental scientific knowledge. Scientific research may affect innovation through general, underpinning knowledge and techniques, and, vitally, as the context in which advanced human capital in science and engineering is developed, but the contribution is more often indirect than direct. To focus only on direct contributions is to miss the most important roles science plays in innovation.

The second, related, problem concerns what we might call the "closed system fallacy". This reasons that, because discovery X is made in Country A, then the rest of the linear process described above should necessarily happen in the same place – that is it should be commercialised into an economically useful technology or product in the same country. But as we have already noted, there will always be far more scientific and technological R&D going on outside even the most scientifically advanced nation than there is within it. Scientific and technological knowledge does not flow freely and costlessly, but it does flow from node to node around the world - otherwise science would grind to a halt. Proximity is often important in both science and innovation, but there are other kinds of proximity than spatial proximity. There is no reason to suppose that discovery, commercialisation and innovation should normally happen in the same place. For this reason, active international collaboration at the leading edge of science and technology is crucial in underpinning our access to global knowledge and innovation networks.

Leaving the EU: implications and opportunities for science and research

1. Under any model, it would be inconceivable that the UK would not continue to collaborate in some way with European and other international partners. That UK researchers will continue to reach out to international colleagues, and that they will continue to seek to access UK expertise and facilities, reflects the intrinsically international nature of the research enterprise, and the strength of UK research as viewed by peers across the world.
2. However, without full access to and influence over the direction of the European Union’s research funding streams and activities, the nature of this collaboration will inevitably change, with collaborative arrangements and joint funding becoming more complicated if outside of the existing Commission structures, and with the UK becoming a less attractive hub for collaboration with partners from around the world if access is not straightforward to the wider European research space.

3. Norwegian, Swiss and other models would all allow the UK to remain partners in the EU research funding mechanisms, but these assume an acceptance of freedom of movement that has, in debates so far, seemed to be at odds with the intention expressed in the UK’s referendum. As has been widely noted, recent Swiss moves to restrict freedom of movement have led to restrictions on their participation. 
4. Aside from the question of access to Horizon 2020 and similar programmes, mobility is crucial for UK research – a fact that the UK Government has previously acknowledged. The scientific community makes strong representations that the UK must be open to talent from around the world to visit and work here in the UK, so that the country can nurture, develop and absorb expertise. Retaining the high quality talent already here, and attracting new researchers, will be crucial for ensuring the stability and continued strength of UK research groups.
5. The mobility of international skilled labour, together with other factors such as foreign direct investment (FDI), institutional collaboration and skill transfer, is a key component in processes of knowledge transfer and diffusion of R&D expertise. Mobility of skilled people as part of innovative capital has long been considered to be crucial for economic growth: international flows of knowledge and human capital add to a country’s stock of skilled workers and technology, intensify international knowledge spill-overs, thus enhancing national innovative capital. Highly skilled workers are seen to bring specialised skills, training and experience not easily replaced in the short term and often filling persistent skills gaps/shortages in labour markets. For these reasons, among the high wage economies of Scandinavia, the EU, Oceania, Canada and the USA, competition is intense to attract those highly skilled migrants.
6. Changes to migration policy post-Brexit will lead to a level of uncertainty for both EU and global migrants considering working in the UK. There is a significant challenge to ensure that any changes to the status of movement between the EU and the UK will not deter international flows of highly skilled labour to the UK.

7. Inevitably, access to funding is always a concern for researchers. However, it is not simply a question of levels of available cash, but rather the types of mechanisms and the access that these funding streams open up. EU funding streams support investigator-driven research (e.g. through European Research Council competitive grants), collaborative research projects in science and innovation (through H2020 programmes), researcher mobility (e.g. through Marie Sklodowska Curie actions) and research and innovation infrastructure (including through European Structural Funds, which have been increasingly tapped to build science-related infrastructure in the UK).
8. Horizon 2020 funding provides the main support for UK collaborative research with European partners. National public funding streams tend to work on the assumption that ‘our money’ must fund ‘our’ scientists, following the zero-sum logic alluded to earlier - and so rule out direct funding of international collaborators. Outside of the Inter Governmental Research Organisations (such as CERN) there are limited bilateral and multi-lateral programmes, many of which tend to fund networking or mobility rather than actual collaborative research. In recent years there has been an upturn in bi- or multilateral collaboration between national funding agencies in Europe, but this has been stimulated by and conducted through frameworks (e.g. mutual recognition of peer review standards) put in place by EU policies (such as the Joint Programming Initiatives).
9. Decades of access to EU funding has allowed academics to be participants in, and/or architects of transnational knowledge communities. Most disciplinary communities and many problem-oriented ones are highly internationalised - but European funding has allowed researchers to deepen this and establish sustained collaboration. In fields such as particle physics there is little alternative to international collaboration (but also, because collaboration predates EU co-operation in such fields, they may be less dependent on EU sources than in others).  Exclusion from EU programmes may impact most strongly on research fields where international collaboration is increasingly important but which are not inherently dependent on a few major international facilities (most lab based sciences, many social sciences and humanities fields). Interpersonal relationships are of course likely to persist, but isolation from sustained European collaboration may affect topic selection, methodology development and the accepted standards of excellence and thus have implications for the intellectual development of fields and the place of UK researchers within those fields.
10. Influence, as well as access, is important. The UK has been a strong voice in the broader debates around science and innovation policy, and, to lose the opportunity to influence the broader discourse on STI matters across Europe is likely to be detrimental to the interests of the UK in the long run. The ideas, understandings and practices that shape Europe’s research culture will all develop without formal or substantial UK input, with the potential of further isolating the UK community, leaving the UK in the unenviable position of a follower rather than a leader.
11. Influence, access and movement are all issues of key importance to the UK research community, and given the scale of current involvement and the size and strength of the UK research community, it seems that no other existing arrangement with a third country can offer a suitable off the shelf solution for the UK.

12. The UK Government and its agencies have made great efforts to promote collaboration with the USA, China, India and other emerging economies. Mechanisms, such as the Newton fund and the Global Challenge Programme have been linked to the UK’s development agenda, and funded through the development budget. This has necessarily meant that the focus has been on specific countries. There might be potential to extend the mechanisms to a wider range of countries, perhaps focussing on challenges rather than geography, but the terms would necessarily need to be altered.
13. However, none of these is a surrogate for the EU level programmes. The nature of partnerships and networks is entirely different, and the scale of both funding and infrastructure would be impossible to replicate on a country by country basis. It is also important to note here that EU programmes have themselves been a platform for systematic collaboration with and capacity building in non-EU ‘third countries’ - so Brexit threatens a significant source of support for UK collaboration with non-EU researchers.

14. The committee has also asked whether there might be indicators or metrics that could be used during the Exit negotiation period to monitor whether a risk/opportunity is materialising. The difficulty here is that the metrics typically used to measure the health of the UK research base are largely lagging indicators: bibliometrics, joint authorship, patents and the like will only reflect the impact of decisions being made today in years to come. Even more near-term information such as student numbers, or staff recruitment will only be available retrospectively. Anecdotal evidence from researchers experiencing difficulties will also be late indications of damage done to the perception of the position of UK researchers.

15. Stability is crucial to ensure that the UK remains an attractive place for funders and industry to invest, for the brightest minds to visit and settle here, and for researchers to feel secure enough to take the risks that are required for innovation to flourish. While the recent announcement from the Chancellor that the Government will underwrite UK participation in Horizon 2020 funding streams is welcome, the delay in committing to this is widely accepted to have hit potential UK participation in new projects and will have affected perceptions elsewhere in Europe.
16. In 2010 and 2011 the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research conducted a major survey of research-active staff in EU-27 universities and non-university research institutes, asking about experience of and attitudes towards mobility in the context of their research career. Our data shows that the UK was typically the second most attractive destination for future outward mobility, after the US (with researchers in some disciplines, and those without prior experience of international mobility rating the UK as the most attractive destination). This reflects the perceived critical mass, dynamism and openness of the UK research system; this is a perception that the UK will need to work hard to maintain.
17. The broader sense that the UK is no longer open for business but has rather turned its back on European collaboration will be even more difficult to heal and threatens the UK’s access to global knowledge and innovation networks. It is hard to see what the UK Government, by itself, can do to mitigate this risk short of a radical change in willingness to use UK funds to directly support research collaborations by funding overseas as well as UK-based collaborators. The prevailing zero-sum logic of national competition in science and innovation presumably means that such a policy would be politically very difficult to sell.

August 2016