Research Fund for Coal and Steel

(asked on 21st May 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if he will ring-fence for the steel sector the UK's €250 million share of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel returned due to the UK leaving the EU.


Answered by
Andrew Stephenson Portrait
Andrew Stephenson
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 4th June 2019

The UK Government is committed to ensuring that UK and EU researchers, universities and businesses in the steel sector will be able to continue to collaborate after the UK leaves the European Union.

The Government’s priority remains ensuring the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) is ratified. This would ensure that UK entities’ right to participate in the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) would be unaffected by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU until the end of 2020: the WA envisages that UK participants will be eligible to bid for RFCS funding until that date.

In the event the UK leaves the EU without an overall withdrawal agreement, the Government will guarantee the payment of awards for UK organisations which successfully bid directly to EU programmes, including RFCS, until the end of 2020, for the whole lifetime of projects agreed.

Beyond 2020, the UK government is considering options for supporting R&D in steel and will continue to work with the sector, unions and Devolved Administrations to develop a long-term viable solution for the UK steel industry.

The Government will decide on science and innovation expenditure, including on R&D for steel, in the next Spending Review. Science and innovation have been made a priority by the UK Government and is at the heart of the Department’s Industrial Strategy, in recognition of the strong economic benefits of public investment in science and innovation and its capacity to leverage private investment.

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