From Charlie Paton
Michael Brooks makes the argument that disenchantment with the EU, recently expressed in European elections, will negatively affect UK science on the basis that for every £1 we contribute in research funding, we get £1.40 back.
This calculation excludes the costs to UK science of having to compete in a dog-eat-dog circus of labyrinthine complexity.
UK scientists typically spend as much as half their time filling in forms and cobbling together trans-EU consortia, a precondition for funding. Who bears this cost? The universities, which are increasingly obliged to employ full-time consultants for any chance of success.
London, UK
