Just how much would no-deal Brex­it harm bio­med­ical sci­ence? Re­searchers speak out

As Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty lead­ers face off in a bid to be­come the UK’s next Prime Min­is­ter, sci­en­tists from a range of spe­cial­ties — from can­cer to cli­mate — are sound­ing loud­er alarms about the threats of a loom­ing no-deal Brex­it for their re­search work.

Cit­ing an analy­sis by the Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don of the lat­est EU re­search fund­ing da­ta, the Guardian re­port­ed that UCL and eight oth­er Rus­sell Group uni­ver­si­ties ran on­ly 20 big Eu­ro­pean re­search col­lab­o­ra­tions in 2018, a steep drop from around 50 in 2016. And in­di­vid­ual re­searchers are feel­ing the cloud of un­cer­tain­ty snuff­ing out prospects.

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