Are you thinking about applying for a job at Ensembl, but worried about working in the UK post-Brexit? You don’t need to. The UK government and EMBL are committed to continuing support for the EBI in Cambridge. What does this mean?
- EMBL is an organisation independent of the EU. It has many overlapping countries, but there are many non-EU countries in EMBL, such as Switzerland, Israel and Australia, and EU countries not in EMBL, such as Bulgaria, Cyprus and Slovakia. As such, leaving the EU does not mean that the UK will leave EMBL, and does not mean that the EBI’s status as part of EMBL will be in any way threatened.
- We have always recruited internationally in order to find the best candidates. EMBL’s agreement with the UK government guarantees our ability to bring anyone we want into the country, with their families, from anywhere in the world. If the UK government starts insisting on visas for EU citizens to live and work here, then we will do exactly the same as we currently do for non-EU citizens.
- The major funding body for Ensembl is the Wellcome Trust, who are not EU dependent. We do have some funding from EU grants, and we will continue to be eligible for them under the EMBL treaty in the same way that other international organisations, such as CERN, the WHO and the UN, are.