Chemical Technology July 2016

NANOTECHNOLOGY

#Brexit and the impact on research and technology for the world by Gavin Chait

19,1 % in China and 16,7 % in the US. Better yet, the free movement of researchers and their families has permitted polyglot teams to emerge, and the collaboration between governments to create a single source for funding. The sheer scale of research investment possible when a population of 500 million collaborates has resulted in the multinational super-collider at CERN, as well as production of the super-expensive equipment necessary to research nano-materials or rare particles. Researchers at the University of Manchester first identi- fied graphene in 2004, when physicists Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov first described their successful isolation of the atom-thin carbon material. Both are immigrants. Geim is a Soviet-born Dutch-British physicist. Novoselov is, similarly, Soviet-born. Their research led directly to the UK government invest- ing over €50 million into the development of the National Graphene Institute (NGI), supported with an additional €35million from the European Regional Development Fund. Overall, 62 % of all funding put into nanotech research has come from the EU, along with 67 % into evolutionary biology. Over the last decade, the UK has received some €12 billion in research grants from the EU. The UK is the second largest beneficiary of European Commission and

M id-way through 2015, I applied for grant funding for my new start-up, Pikhaya.com. The Open Data Incubator has €7,8 mil from the EU’s Horizon 2020 fund to provide €100 000s to viable startups. My UK- registered company applied and was accepted into the first tranche of grantees to kickstart my new business. Without that funding, it would probably not have gotten off the ground. A year from now, we will no longer qualify for that funding. The UK will be out of the EU. On 24 June, across the UK, highly-skilled professionals woke up to discover that the majority of people had voted in a referendum for the UK to leave the EU. All the leading universities, research institutes, business organisations, unions, political parties and civil society groups had cam- paigned to remain in the EU. It had little effect. ‘Project Fear’, as the Remain campaign came to be called, was seen as overhyped and unbelievable. The reality is that it was too restrained. According to Unesco’s ‘Science Report’, the EU has 22,2 % of the world’s scientific researchers, compared to The difference between last year and next year can be life-changing.

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Chemical Technology • July 2016