Horizon Europe and Burnham’s plans for the EU relationship
Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s speech to Labour conference last week concluding with a surprise commitment to lay out “options” for Britain’s long-term relationship with the EU. In subsequent remarks to the media, he said that this could mean “going all the way” – further unpacking of the available choices is planned for publication alongside the UK-EU summit in November.
Even earlier in September, Burnham had reportedly told European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen that the UK was ready to look again at closer relations with Europe – including possibly rejoining the union.
This would appear to set the stage for several years of discussion and negotiation, with the new Prime Minister’s plans eventually to be put to the country in Labour’s next election manifesto. In such a context, it surely becomes even more unlikely that the UK does not associate to the next Horizon Europe programme starting in 2028.
Under Labour, the UK government has given every indication that it will associate, but always stressed that this will depend on value for money assessments. In September 2024, a DSIT position paper put it as follows:
“The UK will, of course, be interested in potentially associating to FP10 assuming it is open, relevant and provides good value for our research community and the UK taxpayer.”
The publication also intimated that the UK preference was for the next framework programme (FP10) to not see a greatly expanded budget – “in a world of constrained resources third countries will [...] need to consider the affordability of association” – and to “maintain and evolve” its structures rather than be radically changed.
Last autumn’s post-16 education white paper also pledged to “continue our partnership with Horizon Europe to enable researchers to access vital collaborations and facilities not easily available domestically.”
If the Burnham administration does indeed re-open the question of EU membership – as opposed to continuing the strategic ambiguity of Starmer-era “dynamic alignment” with Europe – then it becomes even harder to imagine a world in which the UK does not association to Horizon, given how this would impact on broader negotiations and diplomacy.
One question, then, is how this affects UK R&D spending plans. Notwithstanding the preferences expressed in the September 2024 position paper, the next framework programme appears likely to have a substantially expanded budget – possibly as much as double, in cash terms – and to cleave more closely to European priorities, even if some of the focus on European competitiveness may not end up being as pronounced as earlier proposals had suggested.
Following the June 2025 spending review, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology set out its future allocations for European research programmes:
This was accompanied by a disclaimer that the amount set aside would inevitably be subject to change:
“This allocation makes provisions for our existing membership of Horizon Europe and Copernicus and the first 2 years of their successor programmes. The budget and scope of the successor programmes are currently uncertain and subject to future negotiations between Member States, the Commission and the European Parliament. The UK will continue to engage constructively with the EU as these details become clearer. This allocation will be reviewed once more information is known.”
The UK’s contribution to Horizon Europe is calculated proportionally, comparing the UK’s GDP to that of the EU overall. There are some second-order considerations around clawback and operational contributions, but the broader picture is that if the new framework programme ends up having a budget which is close to double the current one, then the increase to the UK’s contribution will be in the order of billions of pounds.
Next year’s Westminster spending review is already predicted to see some hard choices around departmental budgets, with additional money needed to be found for defence and other political priorities. A larger contribution to European research programmes will see trade-offs elsewhere. Burnham’s apparent desire to keep the door open to EU membership in coming years makes it difficult to envisage a different course of action, though there is still the option for the UK to push for some form of partial association.
The same logic would seem to also apply to membership of Earth observation programme Copernicus. Over the summer, an independent evaluation gave a qualified endorsement to the UK’s continued participation, while think tank Science Works made a strong case for the country to deploy the funds spent elsewhere. The recent UK space strategy said that “no decision has been made on the UK’s future relationship with Copernicus after 2027.”