UK businesses urged to register for continued Horizon 2020 research funding

• Businesses currently benefitting from Horizon 2020 funding – the EU’s biggest research and innovation programme – urged to register their details
• 5,500 registrations from UK public and private organisations already but thousands more are estimated to have not yet signed up for crucial updates
• Government has committed to British science and research funding in all scenarios as the UK prepares to leave the EU

UK businesses benefitting from Horizon 2020 research funding are urged to register their details with the government so they can continue to receive funding if the UK leaves the EU with no deal, Science Minister Chris Skidmore said today.

The government’s online portal was launched in September 2018 after the government announced it would guarantee all successful UK funding bids submitted by public and private organisations before Brexit, including the EU’s Horizon 2020 research programme.

To date, there have been around 5,500 registrations to the portal out of a potential 8,200. Around 4,500 are from higher education institutions and around 1,000 registrations from businesses, research organisations, public bodies and charities.

Science and Innovation Minister Chris Skidmore said:

We have guaranteed that UK organisations and businesses who receive EU science and research funding will continue to do so even if we leave the EU without a deal at the end of March.

I want to ensure researchers and innovators have the confidence to push on with their great work, which is why I urge businesses to register their details on this simple online portal for Horizon 2020 grants. It takes just 10 minutes per grant for the data to be inputted and more than 5,500 registrations have already been received.

The online portal, managed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is the first step towards supporting the continuity of funding for UK organisations which have been awarded grants.

It asks recipients to input basic information so UK researchers and businesses can be informed of next steps if the government needs to underwrite Horizon 2020 funding.

Operations Director at UKRI, Anne Dixon, said:

I’d like to thank everyone who has already taken the time to register their information on UKRI’s portal or submit multiple grants using our template. We have had contact from most universities and in particular now, we look forward to hearing from more businesses and other organisations with UK Horizon 2020 grants. We would welcome the research and innovation community’s support in spreading the word to other partners to help us ensure we reach everyone who is in receipt of a grant.

The government’s guarantee will cover all successful Horizon 2020 bids by UK participants before the UK exits the EU, for the full duration of the projects. Horizon 2020 is the EU’s biggest research and innovation programme, financially supporting researchers and businesses in EU member states to take their innovations and discoveries to market.

Science and innovation are at the heart of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy, with the ambition to increase the amount the UK invests in research and development to 2.4% of GDP by 2027.

How to register

To register you need to:

• access the portal
• enter details of the type of organisation: business; research; research and technology organisation; or public sector, charity or non Je-S registered research organisation
• enter contact details
• enter funding details, including grant agreement number and participant identification code
• once submitted, applicants will receive an email from the UKRI grants team confirming registration to the portal and afterwards will automatically receive subsequent updates. For organisations in receipt of multiple grants, a spreadsheet is available to submit them in bulk. Please email: EUGrantsFunding@ukri.org.

Notes to editors

1. The government announced in August 2016 that it would underwrite UK funds for all EU-funded projects successfully bid for while the UK is a still a member of the EU.
2. In August 2018 it was announced that UKRI would deliver the underwrite if it needs to come into effect. The Horizon 2020 Technical Notice is available here.
3. In September 2018 UKRI launched a portal to capture basic information from grant recipients, together with this Q and A about the portal (PDF, 208KB)
4. The underwrite guarantee also applies to all ‘competitively bid for’ nuclear research grants from the Euratom Research and Training programme and recipients will be able to use the same UKRI portal to register under the guarantee.

Facts and figures

Some fact and figures about Horizon 2020 are:

• the UK is a top 5 collaboration partner for all other EU countries under Horizon 2020
• at end of September 2018, the UK had the second highest number of project participations in Horizon 2020 - over 10,200
• UK businesses have around 2,700 Horizon 2020 project participations (€982 million).
• the UK has secured around €5.1 billion funding to date (14.3% of the total, second only to Germany)
• the UK accounts for: 4.1% of the world’s researchers, 10.7% of all citations, 15.2% of the world’s most highly-cited articles, 3 of the world’s top 10 universities
• the UK receives around €70 million per year direct funding from the Euratom R&T programme