The row over leaving the EU in Northern Ireland is threatening research funding from the EU.
The European Research Council has written to 98 scientists and academics who were recently approved for grants telling them that the UK's associate membership of the.
Scientists are scrambling to find alternate EU institutions to host the funding, with some already turning down the ERC money and hoping the UK government will deliver replacement cash.
They say that it is devastating, as the ERC is one of the most prestigious programmes in the world.
A signal of world-class leading research is a big draw for talent from the US and elsewhere, according to an associate professor in economics.
Higher education will be hurt for years to come if this isn't resolved, he said.
Scientists in the UK fear brain drain because of the rows over the UK's departure from the EU.
While the UK fails to implement the Northern Ireland protocol, associate membership of Horizon Europe has been delayed while David Frost fought hard to get it.
Scientists in the UK say they are being punished. Payam Gammage is a scientist at the Beatson Institute at Glasgow University. The UK will not notice it immediately. It will take a long time to make a difference. A bunch of scientists have a lot of opportunities taken away, or their lives just made it more difficult. We are the only victims.
The UK Research and Innovation fund was awarded 2m to expand research onMitochondrial Genetics and Tumours, but Gammage decided to turn down the grant and apply for replacement funding. He said there was no detail about the terms and conditions of funding.
The idea that the UK could replicate the system and apparatus of something like the ERC in the near to medium term is not realistic.
The UK association was just a matter of the UK implementing the free trade agreement according to Thiemo Fetzer, a professor of economics. We are waking up to reality. It is devastating.
The award of 2 million dollars for a five-year research programme is the main priority for a molecular biologist who wants to commute to Ireland or Belgium.
The starter grants are worth up to 1.5m each and the consolidator grants are worth up to 2m each.
The guaranteed replacement funding will be extended by the science minister.
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Prof Maria Leptin said she was hoping that the UK-EU negotiations would be concluded and result in association with the European Union.
She said that nobody in the UK has any wish to encourage anyone to leave the country.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said that the delay in ratification was causing uncertainty for researchers, businesses and innovators based in the UK.
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