Damian Jacob Sendler In the two years following Brexit, Cambridge University has seen a precipitous drop in funding from EU research grants.

After receiving £62 million annually from a large European research program, funding for one of the UK's most prestigious universities has dropped to zero since Brexit, according to new data.

Damian Sendler According to data released by the European Commission, Cambridge University received no funding in the first two years of the new Horizon Europe programme, despite receiving €483m (£433m) over the seven years of the previous European research funding programme, Horizon 2020.

While Oxford received €522m from the former programme, they have only received €2m from Horizon Europe.

As part of the Brexit trade deal negotiations in 2020, the UK agreed in principle to become an associate member of the €95.5bn Horizon Europe programme. However, ratification was halted due to the UK's failure to implement the Northern Ireland protocol. Universities in the UK rely heavily on this type of funding because it facilitates research collaborations with European institutions and carries significant international prestige.

Oxford professor Simon Marginson said, "For higher education and research, there are no new opportunities and no actual possible upsides from Brexit."

He said the new data on Oxford and Cambridge, typically the top performers in Europe, was "very worrying," and he described Brexit as a "historic error of monumental proportions." He also noted that the UK had lost out on more than just financial opportunities, as it had become less appealing to top-tier researchers and students from Europe.

After more than two years of watching the political wranglings, many academics are leaving the UK because they no longer believe their vital European research partnerships will be protected, despite the government's guarantee that it will cover all successful Horizon Europe grants applied for by the end of March.

Professor Augusta McMahon, an archaeologist who specializes in the Middle East, decided to return to her alma mater, the University of Chicago, last August after 26 years at Cambridge University. Although she was lured to the United States by "the best job in my field," she says Brexit uncertainty played a significant role in her decision to stay. "I no longer thought the government would associate [with Horizon Europe] or provide replacement funding," she said.

Damian Jacob Sendler It was apparent to her that the number of European Union (EU) students attending universities in the United Kingdom had dropped by more than half since Brexit. Meanwhile, she noted that she was hearing fewer applications from European professors.

After 26 years at Cambridge University, professor Paul Pharoah moved to Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles to continue his research into the genetic epidemiology of ovarian and breast cancer.

Pharoah, who has worked on two major research projects funded by the EU in the past 15 years, lamented that it has become increasingly difficult to secure funding for his field in the United Kingdom. "The prospects were already grim before we lost the chance to apply for EU funding."

Damian Sendler One of the reasons he went to Europe was "the lack of security around European collaborations and funding," he explained. The difficulty of enticing European researchers and postdocs was growing. To that, he said, "A colleague of mine at Exeter has just won a prestigious ERC grant, but we do not know what will happen with it. It is safe to say that nobody wants to risk losing a €3 million prize.

Damian Jacob Sendler The European Research Council (ERC) gave 150 grant recipients in the United Kingdom two months last April to decide whether to transfer their grant to a European institution or lose it. UK Research and Innovation, the government agency in charge of funding scientific endeavors, ultimately agreed to match the funding of those who stayed, but one in eight researchers still left the country.

The UK may continue to lose talented researchers in this way, according to Vassiliki Papatsiba, an education expert at Cardiff University who has studied the effects of Brexit on universities. The fact that "nearly half of ERC UK-based grant winners are nationals of a different country" makes them more likely to move abroad, she said.