51³Ô¹ÏÍø

President Gast made the case for Horizon Europe association, writing in The Times.

In a , President Gast writes “The UK government speaks of Global Britain and great ambitions for science. When it comes to research, Global Britain and the EU must go hand in hand.”

"It’s our European connections that help UK researchers to work with the best in the world.”

Professor Gast adds: “European collaborations are crucial to the influence and impact of UK research.

President Gast also argues that European research has much to gain from collaborating with British scientists and reaffirmed 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s call for the UK to be an associate member of Horizon Europe. “The influence and impact of European research benefits from collaborations with the UK.

"Horizon Europe will be stronger with the UK as an associate member. The UK should be its number one candidate. Europe’s university and science leaders echo this message.”

The full column can be read at

Horizon Europe

During a recent visit by the Home Secretary, President Gast made it clear that European connections are fundamental to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s status as the UK’s most international university, and that associate membership of Horizon Europe would allow UK science to thrive.

And at the Science|Business conference in Brussels, President Gast told European science and policy leaders that collaboration with European partners will be essential after Brexit.

European collaboration

In the past five years some 62 per cent of our research papers have an international co-author and of this number, over half include an author from mainland Europe.

About 60 per cent of 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s research papers with a US collaborator have a European co-author.

Almost half of our publications with China, 68 per cent with Canada and 83 per cent with Brazil carry a UK-EU collaboration.

France’s CNRS is 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s top overseas research collaborator with more than 550 joint research papers published every year.