Published 29 August 2017
Last updated 8 December 2020 + show all updates

The Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Science Minister Jo Johnson have reassured the research community that the government will provide additional funding for scientists and researchers who have sought EU funding before we leave, to ensure brilliant research and innovation will still be funded. Funding will be available to support UK research proposals to Horizon 2020, the EU’s funding programme for research and innovation. This commitment will protect UK bids to:

• European Research Council
• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
• SME instrument programmes

if the Commission stops evaluating them in a no-deal Brexit.

This is part of the government’s commitment to raise investment in research and development and maintain the UK’s position as a science superpower in a post-Brexit world.

The Prime Minister also announced yesterday that the government will develop a fast track visa route for scientists, so that the UK continues to attract international talent in science and research from around the world.

Science and Innovation Minister Jo Johnson said:

While it remains our ambition to secure a deal with the EU, we also need to be ready to leave without one. Today’s pledge means that researchers and innovators can submit proposals to Horizon 2020 with confidence, right up to 31 October, knowing that the best proposals will be funded – regardless of how we leave the EU.

The UK’s science and research system is one of the very best in the world. But great ideas know no borders, and science is a global endeavour. That’s why we are also creating a fast-track visa route to attract the best and brightest researchers to the UK.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will assess bids to the programmes if they are not evaluated by the EU – making sure ideas from the UK’s brightest researchers and innovators won’t go to waste. The commitment will provide welcome reassurance to UK businesses and researchers applying for prestigious grant programmes that support research from some of the science community’s most creative thinkers. Successful applications will have grants funded for the lifetime of their grant proposals.

The UK will remain eligible to participate in other Horizon 2020 schemes as a third country and successful bids will be funded by the government’s existing guarantee and extension.

Today the government has also announced a £60 million boost for worldwide research collaborations tackling climate change, infectious diseases and adopting artificial intelligence in society.

Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance said:

Science is an international endeavour and relies on collaboration and exchange of people and ideas. These measures are welcome and will help protect the strong UK science base.

1. The government, and its delivery partner UKRI, will make further announcements about how to apply for this new funding in due course.

2. If we leave the EU without a deal in place, the UK will become a third country participant in Horizon 2020. Organisations from third countries can participate in a wide range of collaborative H2020 grants. However, the prestigious H2020 ‘mono-beneficiary’ schemes are not fully open to third countries, including some key parts of these programmes:

• European Research Council (ERC): highly prestigious grants which enable the best researchers to undertake ground-breaking frontier research
• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA): grants for individual fellowships, staff exchanges, and research training networks. Aimed at researchers at the beginning of their careers
• Small-and-Medium Sized Enterprise Instrument (SMEi): high-intensity grants for SMEs. These grants support market-creating innovations

3. The government has already guaranteed funding for successful applications to EU schemes in the event of a no deal.  But we will be making sure that top researchers and the most innovative SMEs around the UK continue to have access to funding by:

• ensuring that any applications which the Commission does not assess after the UK leaves the EU can be assessed – and successful applications will be funded

• Valued at more than £28 million the work is one of a small number of the artist’s works depicting Venice
• Arts Minister Rebecca Pow leads call to save the treasure for the nation

Arts Minister Rebecca Pow has placed a temporary export bar on Claude Monet’s ‘Le Palais Ducal’ in the hope that a UK buyer can be found to keep the work in the country. 

Valued at £27,534,000 plus VAT of £706,800, the painting was completed following Monet’s 1908 visit to Italy with his second wife Alice. The work shows a sun-lit Doge’s Palace in Venice and its reflection in the water. 

Monet visited Venice as a respite from working on his famous water lily series and during the holiday he began to paint. The artist had anticipated a return to the city, however Alice’s failing health hindered the couple from returning to Venice in 1909. 

This meant that the Venetian series has a smaller number of completed canvasses and the images have a wider range of motifs compared to Monet’s other series of works. The artist worked on this particular canvas in situ during the 1908 visit but it is thought that the work was completed at his home in Giverny during 1911-1912. 

Monet’s inability to return to Venice and paint a complete series, combined with the phenomenal success of the water lily paintings, has led to the Venetian paintings remaining relatively overlooked.

Arts Minister Rebecca Pow said:

Monet is one of the world’s most famous and celebrated artists and his works still resonate more than 100 years on. With his trademark ingenuity he managed to capture the changing ways people viewed nature and the world around them at the turn of the century. 

This is a rare and beautiful example of Monet’s Venetian studies and I hope that the funds can be raised to keep this treasure in the UK.” 

Born in Paris in 1840, Oscar-Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) was a prolific French painter and a key founder of the Impressionist movement. Monet was introduced to painting from nature by Eugène Boudin and went on to become one of the foremost artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The term ‘Impressionism’ comes from the title of Monet’s work ‘Impression, soleil levant’ which was first exhibited in 1874. Monet’s style of painting focused on capturing the same scene many times over with changing levels of light and the seasons. 

The Minister’s decision follows the advice of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA). The committee noted that the work was a beautiful painting from an important period in the career of one of the foremost artists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. They also noted that examples of the artist’s post 1900 travelling works are rare in UK public collections.

The RCEWA made its recommendation on the grounds of the painting’s outstanding aesthetic importance and its interest for the study of Monet’s Venetian series. 

Committee Member Aidan Weston-Lewis said:

This exceptional painting brilliantly demonstrates the pivotal status of Monet’s later art between impressionist representation and modernist abstraction. The massive, block-like form of one of Europe’s most celebrated buildings appears to float, mirage-like, on the waters of the Venetian lagoon. Its façade, dissolving in the sunlight, is separated from its choppy reflection by a strip of blue, transforming the picture surface into a loose grid of geometrical shapes. This would be a highly desirable and no doubt very popular addition to any public collection in the UK.

The decision on the export licence applications for the painting will be deferred until 8 November 2019. This may be extended until 8 May 2019 if a serious intention to raise funds to purchase it is made at the recommended price of £27,534,000 plus VAT of £706,800.

Offers from public bodies for less than the recommended price through the private treaty sale arrangements, where appropriate, may also be considered. Such purchases frequently offer substantial financial benefits to a public institution wishing to acquire.

ENDS

Notes to editors

1. Organisations or individuals interested in purchasing the painting should contact the RCEWA on 0845 300 6200.

2. Details of the painting are as follows: Claude Monet (1840-1926) Le Palais Ducal, 1908 Oil on canvas 81 x 93 cm, signed and dated bottom right ‘Claude Monet 1908’ 

3. Provenance: Galerie Durand-Ruel & Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (jointly acquired from the artist on 8th March 1913). Paul Cassirer, Berlin (on consignment from the above from 1914). Hans Wendland, Berlin (acquired from the above on 19th January 1918). Galerie Thannhauser, Lucerne, Berlin & Munich (acquired from the above on 4th September 1924). Erich Goeritz, Berlin & London (acquired from the above on 1st April 1926. Deposited in the Toronto Art Gallery, Toronto, from 1946 until 1950). Thomas Goeritz, London (by descent from the above circa 1957). Thence by descent to the present owner

4. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest is an independent body, serviced by The Arts Council, which advises the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on whether a cultural object, intended for export, is of national importance under specified criteria. 

5. The Arts Council champions, develops and invests in artistic and cultural experiences that enrich people’s lives. It supports a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to digital art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. www.artscouncil.org.uk.

Glasgow has been chosen as the UK city to host a major UN climate change summit next year, if the country’s bid is successful.

The UK is bidding to secure the Presidency and host the COP26 summit over two weeks at the end of 2020 in partnership with Italy.

The UK government say the conference will be hosted at Glasgow’s Scottish Events Campus (SEC), boosting Scottish business and driving investment in the region.

Five years on from the Paris Agreement, the COP26 Climate Change Conference is the first major test of the international community’s commitment to scale-up efforts to reduce emissions over time. It will shine a spotlight on the action taken since 2015 to keep climate change within manageable levels, and drive future action.

Selected for its world-class facilities, the SEC is just outside Glasgow city centre on the banks of the River Clyde. It will host 30,000 delegates from around the world, including climate experts, business leaders and citizens from across the UK.

Claire Perry, former Minister for Energy and Clean Growth and recently named the UK nominated President for COP26 by the Prime Minister, said:

As one of the UK’s most sustainable cities, with a record for hosting high-profile international events, Glasgow is the right choice to showcase the UK’s commitment to the environment.

The UK is a world-leader in emissions reduction, having cut our emissions by over 40 per cent since 1990 – faster than any other G20 country since 2000. And we recently committed to go further, by legislating to reduce our net emissions to zero by 2050.

In 2020, world leaders will come together to discuss how to protect our planet and set the direction for the years to come. Where better to do so than Glasgow, at the state of the art Scottish Events Campus.

Lasting for two weeks at the end of 2020, this will be the largest summit the UK has ever hosted with up to 200 world leaders expected to attend for the final weekend.

The conference will include programmes for young people, and make use of the wide range of conference and exhibition spaces at the Scottish Events Campus.

The UK government will work with the local community to make the event a success for Glasgow, for Scotland and for the whole of the United Kingdom. The Summit will be the culmination of a year of climate action, including events in regions and cities in all four nations of the UK.

Covered with more than 13,000 glazed ivory-white tiles, the contemporary and functional design draws inspiration from historic London Tube stations, such as nearby Great Portland Street, and will help reflect light into the surrounding streets.

Designed by architects Weston Williamson + Partners, with William Matthews Associates, the four-storey cube will contain a substation and electrical equipment as well as a vent shaft for the Northern line.

HS2’s vent shaft for the London Underground

A pattern of perforated tiles will allow air into the building and variate the façade – prompting HS2’s designers to dub it the ‘sugar cube’.

The glazed terracotta tiles – known as faience tiles – are an instantly recognisable feature of many London Underground stations, including South Kensington, Covent Garden and the former Euston Tube stations. It is robust, durable and low maintenance, making it ideal for functional buildings.

The use of tiles also echoes the traditional practice of cladding the back of tall buildings with glazed white tiles to bring light into courtyards and confined spaces.

Welcoming the milestone, HS2’s Euston Programme Director, Rob Carr, said:

HS2 will transform Euston and more than double the number of seats out of the station during peak hours. It will improve journeys for millions of people every year as well as unlocking opportunities for new homes, shops and jobs around the wider area.

The new vent shaft and substation will be one of the first things we build and it’s important we get it right. I’m pleased that Camden has given us the green light and i hope this intriguing, functional and contemporary design will be welcomed by all those who live, work and travel through Euston.

Weston Williamson + Partners Founding Partner, Chris Williamson, said:

The Euston vent shaft is an important and vital piece of urban infrastructure which facilitates a comfortable environment for all users. It has been a close collaborative design process and the result builds on the best of Britain’s infrastructure heritage with the use of materials and expressing functional requirements.

At Euston, the arrival of HS2 will more than double capacity, improving journeys for the 44 million people who use the station every year, as well as releasing space for extra commuter services into the capital. As a result commuters from places like Milton Keynes could see a 76% increase in the number of seats into Euston during peak hours.

The plans for the vent shaft were approved by the London Borough of Camden, the local planning authority, under Schedule 17 of the HS2 Act, subject to an agreement on suitable lighting. Its construction will allow the old vent shaft to be removed to make way for the new platforms.

The new shaft will be on Stephenson Way, a small street behind Euston Road, on the site of Wolfson House, which is currently being demolished. The structure will be as big below ground as above, with tunnels linking it to the Northern line.

Wolfson House, an eight-storey 1960s office block, was originally built for University College London’s science department. An HS2 team made up of Costain and Skanska (CSjv) are managing the demolition of the building alongside sub-contractors John F Hunt.

A top-down approach is being taken to the demolition, with the building surrounded by an acoustic wrap to limit dust and noise, and the top floor already gone. In total, more than 2,300 tonnes of concrete and 200 tonnes of steel are expected to be removed during the work, which is due to finish around the end of the year.

Twenty-one tonnes of asbestos was painstakingly removed during the early stages of the project, with a specialist team from John F Hunt brought in to complete the job.