British universities have made an urgent plea to Boris Johnson to intervene and stop threats of steep research funding cuts from the Treasury, which would cost the sector £1bn and imperil thousands of jobs. Prof Julia Buckingham, the president of Universities UK (UUK) which represents university leaders, said in a letter to Johnson that her members were “increasingly alarmed by reports that the Treasury has not made funding available to support the UK’s association to Horizon Europe,” the European Union’s funding programme for research and innovation. The UK has retained participation in Horizon Europe as part of its trade deal with the EU, but university leaders now fear the government isn’t willing to contribute the cost of taking part and wants to instead fund it from existing research budgets. The cost of participation was previously part of the UK’s EU membership fees. “If this position is maintained, it will amount to an effective cut in excess of £1bn, equivalent to cutting more than 18,000 full-time academic research posts and weakening the UK’s attractiveness as a destination for talented researchers and private and foreign investment,” Buckingham said. “In my view these cuts would represent a grave strategic error, undermining the capacity of UK science and research in a manner which could fundamentally weaken the system in the long term.” Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group of research-intensive universities, said: “That reduction would not only deal a serious blow to UK science and research, but it will hobble the government’s ambitions for a swift, innovation fuelled recovery.” University leaders had hoped the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, would announce the new funding in the budget but instead there has been continued silence from the Treasury, while other parts of the government have been evasive when asked for a funding commitment. Reports from inside Whitehall suggest that if carried out, the Treasury’s plans would leave the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy having to meet the costs of participation in Horizon Europe out of existing science budgets. Previously the UK was a net beneficiary of the programme, receiving more in research funding within British universities than it paid in. UUK’s concerns comes after the UK Research and Innovation agency – which administers £9bn of government science funding – told universities earlier this month that its budget for international development projects had been cut from £245m to £125m, following the government’s decision to shrink its international aid budget from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%. Bradshaw said the international cuts undermined years of work on what he called “science diplomacy” linking research with development projects across the globe. “Taken together, these cuts put our global reputation as a science superpower at risk. We are calling on the government to provide urgent clarity on its plans to fund Horizon Europe and on its commitment to core research and innovation investment in the UK,” said Bradshaw. The cuts to overseas development-funded research leaves a deficit for commitments already been made to existing projects. Universities say they are having to curtail projects before they have finished, cut staff and withdraw from important international partnerships in areas such as infectious disease and climate change.