Northern Ireland physicists face a unique post-Brexit situation

A year after the United Kingdom officially left the European Union, its scientists remain uncertain about the future. Researchers in the UK report that they are overlooked as collaborators for large projects with EU partners and that they fear losing access to large pots of research funding.

Northern Ireland, with its complicated border with the Republic of Ireland, is a major source of the uncertainty. Since the 1990s, an unmarked and unpatrolled border has divided the UK’s smallest country (by both population and size) from the Republic of Ireland, which remains a member of the EU. That border played an important role in “the Troubles,” a nationalist conflict that persisted for decades in Northern Ireland, and many are loath to introduce a hard border and possibly reignite factional passions. The Northern Ireland Protocol, a compromise between the UK and the EU, allows the UK to maintain an open land border with the EU through the Republic of Ireland, but checks are required on goods coming from Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales). Both the EU and the UK are unhappy with the compromise but have been unable to agree on a remedy.

The result is that Northern Ireland sits in an odd middle ground between the EU and the rest of the UK. In terms of science, the country is facing uncertainty similar to Great Britain’s about research funding and collaboration. Yet at the same time, some science-based companies there have been able to take advantage of their ability to tap the large EU market without the red tape that was introduced with Brexit.

“Applied research funding and industry funding seem to be looking good,” says Jim McLaughlin, head of Ulster University’s School of Engineering and director of its Nanotechnology and Integrated Bioengineering Centre. But he and others caution that it’s difficult to distinguish between the economic effects of Brexit and those of the pandemic.

Caught in the middle

Physics-based industries play an important role in the Northern Ireland economy, according to a 2021 report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research. They employ almost 49 000 people and have an annual turnover of about £10 billion ($12.7 billion), which adds roughly 7% to the country’s gross domestic product. Physics manufacturing (which includes electronics and medical tools) provides the greatest contribution, followed by energy, physics science and technology, and telecommunications. However, the report’s data run only through 2019, and so do not capture the effects of Brexit and the pandemic.

By comparison, physics-based industries make up 11% of the UK’s GDP and directly generate £229 billion annually. The relatively small size of the sector in Northern Ireland means it can be unstable, says McLaughlin. “You can get a couple of years of really good, dynamic growth for companies, and with that comes R&D, and then suddenly, because of other factors, we can get a knock-back very, very quickly.”

For now, anecdotal evidence suggests surprisingly robust R&D expenditure. McLaughlin says more Northern Irish companies have developed R&D contracts with the university than he would have predicted before Brexit. He points to a £42 million grant to develop nanotechnology manufacturing with data company Seagate, as well as other applied research projects in energy and optics and photonics. Some of the boost in research funding comes from applied biomedical research, which is likely due to the pandemic, he adds.

Getting hard data is far more difficult, and little if any exist regarding physics-based industry, as it takes a year or more for data to become available. In the UK overall, manufacturing exports to Europe are 15% lower than they would have been in a no-Brexit scenario, according to a report by academic consortium UK in a Changing Europe . The drop is due to the increased administrative burden as well as difficulties in attracting labor. In contrast, since 2021 the majority of EU-trading manufacturing firms in Northern Ireland report either business as usual or an increase in trade, according to industry body Manufacturing NI.

Lee Reynolds, the head of Ireland and Northern Ireland at the UK’s Institute of Physics (IOP), says that the Northern Ireland Protocol is affecting trade and research, but “the impact on business is harder to discern, with the COVID impacts mixed in amongst it all.” Another wrinkle is that Northern Ireland companies actually have a problem opposite that of most UK businesses: The ones that trade with the rest of the UK have to undergo border checks and have faced disruption, whereas those that deal with the Republic of Ireland and other EU nations are seeing benefits, Reynolds says. Still, companies in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK share the common frustration of difficulty attracting talent, which is one of the sector’s most pressing issues, according to the IOP . The skills shortage is another outcome of Brexit and its curbs on migration between the UK and the EU.

Fears over funding

The Northern Ireland Protocol is also at the heart of some of UK researchers’ funding troubles and uncertainty. With a budget of €95.5 billion ($102 billion) for 2021–27, Horizon Europe is the EU’s key research and innovation funding program. But the impasse between the EU and the UK over the Northern Ireland Protocol is standing in the way of finalizing the UK as an “associate” member of the program. Although the protocol has no direct bearing on Horizon, it is being used as a bargaining chip in negotiations around the UK’s membership. In March the UK guaranteed support to Horizon applicants for awards intended to be signed by the end of the year; what happens after that is unclear.

The continued uncertainty is “quite demotivating,” says Marco Borghesi, a plasma physicist at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). Whereas Ulster focuses on engineering and applied research, QUB is home to a physics department of about 60 staff, with a particular emphasis on basic research including astrophysics, plasma physics, and condensed-matter physics. Researchers “keep applying in the hope that these agreements will be implemented, but there is no guarantee,” Borghesi says.

There could be more uncertainty in store for Northern Ireland. A general election is scheduled for 5 May. And if there is no resolution to the Northern Ireland Protocol—which the UK says is threatening Northern Ireland’s trade with other UK nations—it is possible the UK will trigger a dispute with the EU, which may have further ramifications for research funding.

To compensate for shaky European relations, QUB is turning its attention to its southern neighbor and to the US. “In the last few years, there has been renewed interest in establishing contact at a scientific level between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland,” says Mauro Paternostro, head of the School of Mathematics and Physics at QUB. “I think it would have happened anyway, but Brexit is accelerating the process.”

The US is attractive because of the US–Ireland R&D Partnership Programme , which has disbursed more than €73 million since its inception in 2006 to promote collaboration among the US, Northern Ireland, and the Republic of Ireland. Earlier this year the program announced a commitment of €9 million to fund cooperative projects in the three countries, with 10 research positions being created in Northern Ireland.

But physicists in Northern Ireland are still hoping that the UK will come to an agreement with Europe over the Horizon program—and soon. “Funding on a European level is very important to us,” says Paternostro, adding that it allows Northern Ireland to feel less “on the periphery” of the UK.

The whole of the UK may become familiar with that feeling of isolation if it does not strike a deal with the EU around the Horizon program and the Northern Ireland Protocol. Developing areas like quantum computing and nanotechnology are of particular concern, says McLaughlin: “As new areas come through, that big mastermind thought process that goes on within Europe is very, very important, and those are the areas that will suffer” in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.