Stephen Hawking warns Britain about the risks of leaving the EU
LONDON -- Stephen Hawking speaks his mind about a lot of important topics, but they're usually not as political as his latest letter.
The theoretical physicist is one of 150 Cambridge fellows from the Royal Society, an academy that promotes excellence in science, who penned an open letter warning about the impact of Britain voting to leave the European Union.
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The letter in Thursday's Times argues the EU has boosted UK science through increased funding and benefited from freedom of movement throughout the continent.
"Being able to attract and fund the most talented Europeans assures the future of British science and also encourages the best scientists elsewhere to come here," the letter written by scientists, mathematicians, engineers and economists says.
Using Switzerland, which is outside the EU, as an example, the letter says they have limited access to EU funds because they voted to restrict the free movement of workers, which it claims has left them "desperately" seeking an alternative way to attract young talent.
"If the UK leaves the EU and there is a loss of freedom of movement of scientists between the UK and Europe, it will be a disaster for UK science and universities."
Recent polling by YouGov found 37% of people want to stay in the EU, while 38% would opt to leave, 25% don't know or won't vote.
Britain will make its decision about whether it's going to stay in the EU on June 23 when the country heads to the polls.
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Blathnaid Healy is the UK Editor at Mashable. She joined the company in October 2014 and is based in the London office. Before Mashable, Blathnaid was Content Manager and COO of WorldIrish, a startup focused on the Irish diaspora. She spent almost five years working at Ireland’s largest media company RTE as a multimedia journalist where she also set up the broadcaster’s first dedicated social media team and project managed output for several high-profile events across web, mobile and social media. Blathnaid has reported from the US, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Romania and, of course, Ireland. And in case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced Blan-id.
