Royal Society of Chemistry response to House of Lords report on science & the EU

Today, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee published the final report from their inquiry into the relationship between EU membership and UK science and research.

We provided written evidence to this inquiry and our president, Professor Dominic Tildesley, who gave oral evidence to the committee last December, said: “The House of Lords inquiry provided an excellent opportunity for the chemistry community to share their views and evidence on how the EU affects their work …in responding to the inquiry, we are helping to ensure that the debate around science and the EU referendum is informed by evidence”.

The report opens by acknowledging that the issue of the forthcoming referendum is much broader than that of the relationship between UK science and the EU, and so it makes no recommendations on whether or not the UK should remain in the EU. However, it does explore potential future scenarios for UK science both in and out of the EU, making recommendations of areas for further scrutiny in each case.

The final report quotes both our written and oral evidence on issues such as the alignment of UK and EU research priorities and the harmonisation of regulation.

Read our full evidence submission to the inquiry online and you can also watch the oral evidence session featuring Dominic Tildesley.