On the path to becoming a science superpower .

Rishi Sunak’s Windsor framework is a triumph for many reasons but for the UK science community it could be a massive breakthrough.

The deal opens the door for Britain to rejoin the Horizon Project, the EU’s research funding programme. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, has even promised that work could begin “immediately”, once the agreement is implemented.

Horizon has provided UK researchers and businesses with billions of pounds in grant funding and allowed our institutions to attract the brightest talents. It also allows us to collaborate with international scientists.

In the chancellor’s budget in a fortnight, we hope to see updates to the government’s reforms of financial regulation and the research and development (R&D) tax credit regime that many of our businesses rely on.

At IP Group, we invest in breakthrough innovations and every one of our UK companies relies on Britain’s world-leading R&D tax credit system. Founders know what their spend is in their business plan. They know how much time they have to hit their next milestone.

But changes made in the autumn budget cut the amount that small and medium-sized companies can claim, making it harder for them to plan.

There is another reason to be optimistic about Britain’s goal of becoming a science superpower. Reforms to the regulations that govern investment by UK pension funds, known as Solvency II, will alter how much capital pension funds must hold versus how much they can invest. These changes are expected to release up to £100 billion that could be ploughed into our economy.

These new funds could be transformative for the UK’s science sector by changing the long-term financial ecosystem. At the outset, access to finance is less of a problem. But, all too often, our most promising founders are driven abroad in pursuit of the money they later need to grow.

The Windsor framework, along with Solvency II reform, can help plug this funding gap for British “scale-ups”, keeping them on our shores.

By opening the door to the European Research Council, the Windsor framework will also help us to move our scientists around.

Great minds working together are the answer to the world’s problems — which is just one more reason why the UK’s scientific community is cautiously celebrating this week.

This piece also featured in The Times.