On the evening of 9 October 2018 Dr Mike Galsworthy, programme director at Scientists for EU, and Professor Alison Smith, Head of the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, will discuss “Brexit and UK science, what’s the problem and what can we do aboutit?“ at Emmanuel United Reformed Church in Cambridge.
Doors will open at 5:30 pm, and the discussion, will start at 6:00 pm.
Tickets cost £2 and are available on the door or online at:
Please download the event flyer and post it in your common room, college, departmental notice board or community centre.
With only six months to go until the UK is scheduled to leave the EU, there remains a huge degree of uncertainty about what impact Brexit will have on many key sectors of the UK economy, and scientific research is no exception.
The past few decades have seen the EU’s Research and Innovation programmes grow dramatically, evolving into an infrastructure that has supported increasingly close scientific cooperation across and among the member states, while at the same time promoting scientific excellence. The UK and its scientific community have played a leading role in setting the EU’s research agenda, with this influence helping to cement the UK’s position as one of the best places in the world to do science.
So what impact will Brexit have on UK science? What steps can the UK take to continue to benefit from membership of the EU’s scientific programmes if we leave the EU? What can we do as citizens, scientists and voters to mitigate or prevent the problems caused by Brexit for UK science?
Join us on Tuesday 9th October and find out!
About our speakers:
Dr Mike Galsworthy
Dr Mike Galsworthy is programme director at Scientists for EU, and is an independent consultant in research and innovation policy and a visiting researcher at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). His recent work includes a series of case studies on “international innovation” by UK universities for Universities UK and an analysis to assess the effectiveness of the EU’s health research programme under FP7 (science programme for the years 2007-2013). His commentary on UK-EU research relations has been cited in Government and House of Lords documents. Mike has analysed and written commentary (academic and lay) on EU research programmes since 2009, has given invited talks on science policy and has been vocal on why the UK should stay in the EU for science since 2013.
Professor Alison Smith
Professor Alison Smith is University Professor in Plant Biochemistry and Head of the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge. Professor Smith’s research focuses on understanding how plants, algae and microbes make chemicals, particularly vitamins. Fundamental aspects of the work involve identifying and characterising genes for the biosynthetic enzymes, and investigating how they are regulated. The knowledge gained is then applied to develop strategies for metabolic engineering in both plants and algae to increase the content of vitamins, or other high value chemicals. Professor Smith is a founder, with other biologists and engineers in Cambridge, of the Algal Biotechnology Consortium, whose interests are the exploitation of microalgae for bioenergy production, and for the development of algae as novel industrial biotechnology platforms.
