The announcement, on 7 September 2023, that the EU and UK had agreed, in principle, that the latter would associate with the 2022-2027 Horizon Europe research programme was greeted with virtually universal relief by scientific communities in both jurisdictions. While the estimated €2.6 billion of funding linked to British participation is very welcome, the greater benefit will be the new opportunities for British based scientists to join with colleagues in other countries, not just in the EU, to seek solutions to some of humanity’s most pressing challenges.
Yet, this welcome is mixed with frustration that agreement took so long. It could have happened in 2021, but was delayed when the UK threatened to renege on the EU Withdrawal Agreement. The Windsor Framework broke the impasse and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that she was “happy to start immediately, right now, the work on an association agreement which is the precondition to join Horizon Europe.”1