Did you notice that last week the chancellor announced that the UK government would cover the costs of payments to farmers and scientist currently being paid by the EU until - 2020? 2020 now there is the rub. Most agricultural grant schemes (Agri-environment schemes etc) and large EU science grants are 5 year agreements. So committing to fun these for just 4 years means that they are no longer economically viable. No university will sign up for a grant that means it has to pick up the salary costs in the final year. Similarly farmers will not enter agreements in which there are costs but no guaranteed returns in the last year. So the chancellors promise means very little. How come this obvious 4 year clause was not picked up in the news? Brexit is already cutting science funding across UK universities.
