DSIT published UK participation figures for the EU's Horizon Europe research programme on Friday 5 June. The UK's share of funding won rose to 9.3% in 2024, from 5.8% in 2023, worth €994m, with its share of proposals climbing from 18.9% to 24.1%. The department described the result as a partial recovery toward late Horizon 2020 levels, still below the 2018/19 peak.1
Horizon Europe is the EU's flagship research programme; the UK re-associated in 2024 after Brexit exclusion. The sharpest move sits in Pillar 2, the strand funding industrial and applied collaborative research that feeds university tech-transfer offices and spinouts. The UK's Pillar 2 share rose 68% year on year, from 3.7% to 6.2%. The part of the recovery most likely to surface later as commercial IP is also the part growing fastest.
DSIT's own framing keeps the ceiling in view. Re-association has reopened the collaborative-funding pipe, but it is not yet running at pre-Brexit volume. The France science alliance signed in May is the bilateral hedge that runs alongside the multilateral programme, a second channel for the same collaborative research while Horizon participation climbs back toward where it was.
