My guest is Brian Cox. Brian Cox is a scientist, a broadcaster and professor of particle physics at the University of Manchester.

Welcome to the podcast, Brian. Thank you. Right. I thought we're going to start, if we've made may, by talking about a topic, which is extremely topic at the moment, which is the European Union's research and development program, Horizon Europe.

So could you start first of all by explaining what is Horizon Europe and why is it so important

from your point of view? Well, it's one of the world's largest and most successful

funding science funding programs. It's a collaboration across Europe and elsewhere, actually. So, for example,

I believe New Zealand are just about to join. So it's, it's to, for my mind, if you believe,

as I do, I don't want to use the word word believe actually. It is true that science is one of

the most important things that we do globally as a world. And Horizon Europe is one of the most

important funding frameworks in the world. Therefore, from my perspective, it follows. It's one of

the most important things that we do

as a civilisation. And over the years, from a UK perspective, we've been extremely successful

at attracting money from the Horizon funds and also. And this is the key point. It's not about

competition between countries.

Programs like Horizon are there to encourage collaboration.

And that's vitally important. Science is a global pursuit.

It is for the benefit of everybody.

It is, you know, I don't want to overdo it, but I'm going to overdo it. It is

one of the necessary foundations of our civilisation. And that's how important it is. So it's

more than just getting a slice of the 100 billion or 95 billion euro budget. It's more than that.

I mean, I just about a month ago actually there was a letter and this is how important it is. It's more than that. Far more. I mean, I just, about a month ago, actually, there was a letter, and this is how important

it is.

It's kind of unprecedented, I think.

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