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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to build partnerships between European universities and UK (a) university and (b) business sectors.

The UK has strong and deep research and innovation ties with our European partners through longstanding university and industrial partnerships both bilaterally and multilaterally. We remain committed to associating to European research programmes, but if delays to our association continue, we will introduce a comprehensive set of alternative programmes to maintain our global science superpower trajectory. We will continue to support work with European universities to maintain research and innovation excellence, collaborative networks and thought leadership.