The pivotal role of EU research diasporas in EU-UK scientific and diplomatic relations

The implementation of Brexit in 2020 upended EU-UK foreign relations. Among the many policy areas that were critically disrupted, research and science faced substantial changes, posing challenges for scientists, institutions of higher education, and research organizations, as well as the UK government, European governments, and the EU overall. Researchers based in the UK experienced this disruption through changes in funding, access to resources, international collaborations, and mobility. The UK’s departure from the EU funding program Horizon Europe, whose predecessor Horizon 2020 had awarded around €7 billion in research grants to the UK,1 meant that multiple research opportunities were stripped away from UK- based researchers. Among them, EU researchers based in the UK have particularly struggled with these circumstances. The EU scientific diaspora has had a unique experience dealing with the transformations precipitated by the no-deal Brexit,2 which confers this group a pivotal position in the reconstruction of the scientific and diplomatic relations between the EU and the UK.