EU Research Grants and Brexit

The UK government and the EU negotiators have agreed in principle that :

"Following withdrawal from the Union, the UK will continue to participate in the Union programmes financed by the MFF 2014-2020 until their closure (excluding participation in financial operations which give rise to a contingent liability for which the UK is not liable as from the date of withdrawal). Entities located in the UK will be entitled to participate in such programmes. Participation in Union programmes will require the UK and UK beneficiaries to respect all relevant Union legal provisions including co-financing. Accordingly, the eligibility to apply to participate in Union programmes and Union funding for UK participants and projects will be unaffected by the UK's withdrawal from the Union for the entire lifetime of such projects."

If this withdrawal agreement is finalised this would mean that the UK Horizon 2020 participants and projects would be unaffected by the EU exit.

However, the UK government has also stated that, as a responsible government, it will prepare for all eventualities, including ‘no deal’, until the outcome of the negotiations with the EU becomes certain.  The UK government maintains the Underwrite Guarantee and will underwrite all competitively bid for EU funded projects submitted while the UK is still a member of the EU and has extended this guarantee to cover UK participants’ funding in all Horizon 2020 calls open to third country participants from the date of exit.

To that end, there will be a data collection exercise commencing at the end of September 2018 and coordinated by UKRI. The data collection for this University will be coordinated by the Research Grants Section within the Finance Department. It is not yet clear what financial information will be required. However, it is likely we will need to record actual expenditure incurred at that date and we have already been asked to provide indicative figures to UKRI at the earliest opportunity.

To help us ensure the most accurate possible, please ensure that costs, particularly staff costs, are charged to grants on a timely basis.

Further information is available in the document "UK participation in Horizon 2020 : UK Government Overview".

Update at 27/9/2018 10.30 : UKRI have now opened their portal for data collection in relation to EU grants. Please note that the data collection will be managed by RGS and individual researchers/administrators should not enter data via this portal.

Contact RGS EU Team