EU/UK vote: Hawking cautions against Brexit
Eminent physicist Stephen Hawking is the latest in a growing list of figures to warn against the consequences of the UK voting to leave the European Union on 23 June.
He is joined by more than 150 fellows of the Royal Society, the UK’s premier scientific institution, in arguing that a Brexit would be a ‘disaster for UK science’.
In a letter to daily newspaper The Times, they write that increased funding from the EU has elevated the quality of not just European science but UK science in particular.
‘We now recruit many of our best researchers from continental Europe, including younger ones who have obtained EU grants and have chosen to move with them here.
‘Being able to attract and fund the most talented Europeans assures the future of British science and also encourages the best scientists elsewhere to come here,’ they add.
‘If the UK leaves the EU and there is a loss of freedom of movement of scientists between the UK and Europe it will be a disaster for UK science and universities.’
The scientists point to Switzerland as a warning of what could happen to the UK should it quit the union. In 2014 Switzerland was forced to introduce Temporary Backup Schemes as a substitute for European Research Council grants after voting in favour of immigration quotas.
‘Switzerland pays into the EU and was a popular destination for young scientists. It now has limited access to EU funds … and is desperately trying to find alternative ways to attract young talent,’ the letter cautions.
Hawking is joined in the letter by Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees, three Nobel laureates and its organiser Sir Alan Roy Fersht, master of Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge University.
Lord Rees will contribute the foreword to the 18th edition of Pan European Networks: Science & Technology, which will be published later this month.
