Thread by @JJHTweets

THREAD In 2011 79% of respondents to a study of UK public attitudes to science agreed with the statement ‘the UK needs to develop its science and technology sector in order to enhance its international competitiveness’, with only 3% disagreeing.

A sector that people like it seems. Why then are 40% or so of the public considering a vote to leave the EU and take away a whole bunch of EU funding?

UK research is highly competitive across a wide range of fields.

While the UK represents only 0.9% of the world population and 3.2% of research and development (R&D) expenditure, it accounts for: 6.4% of the world’s academic publications; 11.6% of citations; and 15.9% of the world’s most cited publications.

Pretty impressive stuff eh? This scientific excellence also benefits the UK’s innovation performance, with the UK consistently ranking in the top five countries globally for university and industry collaboration in R&D and in the top ten for innovation capacity.

The UK does exceptionally well from the EU’s Framework Funding Programme, receiving €6.1bn or 15.4% of the funds allocated to date. This equates to a higher percentage of FP7 funding than either our share of EU Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or population;

only the Netherlands does better on either of these measures. The funding from the EU is split between higher education institutions, which attract 70.3% of the UK’s total, and businesses, which have been allocated just 18.6%. Small businesses receive 13.1% of UK funding.

“But the UK Government fund research too”, some say…. The OECD found that the UK Government is among the lowest funders in the OECD of research and development as a percentage of GDP and at 1.79%. Science and Research is

just one more area where the UK rely on EU funding to maintain our world leading position.

@michaelgove when will the Government publish the post Brexit replacement funding proposals?