-
That was a very interesting perspective. Although the phrase "a bad move for UK science to leave Europe" is a bit misleading, as the referendum is about membership of the European Union. We are not voting to somehow leave Europe.
I'm waiting for more information before I can decide. I'm yet to hear anyone speak coherently on what will happen to British farming if we leave. Liz Truss has said there is no Plan B following an exit, which is rather concerning from the Defra secretary (although I would expect nothing less from her). It is absolutely impossible to make a reasoned decision in this area when there is such a dearth of information. No one has any idea what agricultural, trade, budgetary and regulatory policies would be put in place if we voted Out, so how can we decide either way? The current EU agricultural policy is utterly hopeless, but if no viable alternatives are being proposed then I'm not sure how to form a view.
Ratty-
No one has any idea what agricultural, trade, budgetary and regulatory policies would be put in place if we voted Out, so how can we decide either way?
For me this is a salient issue and is also part of what frustrated me about the Scottish referendum. No one knows what the world after an 'out' vote will look like, and it could of course be possible for an 'independent' Britain, unencumbered from a bureaucratic and inefficient EU to lead the world with progressive and world leading legislation on all sorts of issues from human rights to trade to the environment. However, unfortunately my current reading is that i do not trust that this will be the case... quite the reverse in fact. For this reason IN.
ewanmac
Most definitely IN.
Collaboration across academia (I'm particularly thinking about biomedical research and clinical trials, which is what I'm familiar with) is incredibly important, and I do think that it will be a bad move for UK science to leave Europe, particularly as there are incredibly high skills and earnings barriers, many of which would preclude early career researchers from taking up posts here. Both my PhD and post-doc labs were largely filled with non-UK citizens. It could be argued that the UK should pay post-docs more, and try to encourage more people to go into science, but I don't necessarily see either of those things changing soon.
Besides pure man-power, would UK researchers be able to access EU grants, would it still be easy to collaborate with EU research groups? Without that funding, would we risk not making the latest research and technologies available to UK patients? The European Medicines Agency is based in Canary Wharf, I assume it would have to leave and take those jobs with it.
The massively ironic thing is, as a commonwealth immigrant, I can vote in this referendum, but my EU colleagues cannot.