EuCheMS has signed the Future Partnership Project statement launched by the Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust – a project which aims to send a powerful message to leaders in the UK and the EU that science knows no borders and that a shared vision for an ‘ambitious, close and achievable future agreement on research and innovation’ is essential.

With Brexit looming, EuCheMS, in partnership with 52 signatories, has fully endorsed the call for a future partnership that ‘enables excellent research and innovation to flourish across Europe’. The message is all the more significant in light of the recent proposal on the future framework programme – Horizon Europe – unveiled by the European Commission on 2 May.

European research programmes provide vital support for cross-border cooperation, and it is crucial that the EU and the UK continue to work together to ensure that barriers to collaboration, harmonisation and innovation do not occur in the future relationship. The success of past framework programmes, as well as the ongoing Horizon2020, lies in the scale and breadth of their actions, but also in the unique combination of expertise produced by the different Member States.

‘As representatives of research communities across the wider European Research Area, we are united in our desire for an ambitious and close future partnership on research and innovation. This would be good for European science and, in turn, for science globally.’

You can read the Future Partnership Project statement here, and access our Brexit Position Paper: ‘Research and Education Without Borders After Brexit’ here.