Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has privately backed the UK’s return to a €96 billion ($84.6 billion) EU science programme, it was revealed on Wednesday.
Mr Sunak has written to Nobel Prize winners assuring them he favours a post-Brexit deal on the Horizon Europe scheme.
It comes despite ministers drawing up a £14 billion ($17.4 billion) UK rival to Horizon, to be brought in if talks with Brussels fail.
Horizon is a seven-year push for breakthroughs in areas such as artificial intelligence, cancer research and climate change.
British scientists fear a go-it-alone scheme would cause a brain drain and foil Mr Sunak’s aim to make the UK a “science superpower”.
Downing Street said the UK "hopes negotiations on Horizon Europe will be successful, and that is our preference".
But "it must be on the basis of a good deal for UK researchers, businesses and taxpayers that also reflects two years of EU delays to the UK’s association," it said in a statement to The National.
Hopes of a deal rose after the UK and EU turned a page on Brexit by striking an agreement on Northern Ireland.
However, ministers are wary of Horizon’s subscription costs and there have been claims Mr Sunak is cool on the idea.
Nobel Prize laureates led by Sir Adrian Smith, the president of the Royal Society, wrote to Mr Sunak in February about Horizon’s importance.
Sir Adrian said on Wednesday that a reply had come from Downing Street two days ago.
“In that letter, the Prime Minister did personally state his preference for association,” he told the UK Parliament’s science and technology committee.
Mr Sunak had previously accused the EU of “playing politics” with Horizon during the talks on Northern Ireland.
A UK role in Horizon was agreed in principle in 2020 but the EU later said it did “not seem opportune” to finalise it amid post-Brexit tension.
One possible sticking point is whether the UK will have to pay for the share of the 2021-27 budget from which it has not benefited for two years.
Scientists in Britain have been able to apply for Horizon projects, with funding underwritten by the UK government for now.
But £1.6 billion ($1.98 billion) had to be handed back to the Treasury because of delays in implementing the scheme.
The uncertainty is also driving away talent and undermining Britain’s influence in scientific circles, the committee was told on Wednesday.
Britain's Science and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan has held talks on Horizon with the EU's innovation commissioner Mariya Gabriel.
“If we don’t associate, I see us drifting off into the cold North-east Atlantic rather by ourselves,” said Prof Paul Nurse, one of the Nobel laureates and the director of Francis Crick Institute, which focuses on biomedical research.
He said the almost “universal message” from scientists was that “association with Horizon is crucial for the success of UK science and therefore the future of our country”.
Prof Irene Tracey, vice chancellor of the University of Oxford, said it would be preferable to have a deal done by the start of the new academic year in the autumn.
The £14 billion Pioneer scheme unveiled this month would be brought in if Britain cannot join Horizon on “fair and appropriate terms”, the UK government has said.
Some scientists said there were elements of Pioneer that should be taken forward regardless of Britain’s role in Horizon.
But Sir Adrian and other scientists said a UK-only replacement would be problematic.
“There’s a grown-up recognition and acknowledgement that it is right and proper and prudent to think through alternatives,” he said.
“I don’t think it would be right to say that there is enthusiasm that some of those alternatives would be sensible substitutions.”
Besides Horizon, Britain could also join the EU's Copernicus Earth observation programme and its Euratom nuclear fusion research.
