英国援助削减的全球研究合作伙伴关系“毁灭”

领先的科学家说，英国外国援助预算的急剧削减使发展中国家数百个研究项目的未来悬而未决，并严重破坏了信任的伙伴关系。

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) announced on 11 March that its international development budget for 2021/22 had been reduced from £245 million to £125 million as a result of the economic impact of COVID-19, leaving a “£120 million gap between allocations and commitments”.

它说，将有800多个项目受到削减的影响，削减将看到诸如全球挑战研究基金（GCRF）授予的赠款和牛顿基金会大大减少或在某些情况下终止。

“真正关心的是我们的合作伙伴，他们在这一过程中信任这一过程和将失去工作的早期职业研究人员，以及在重要发展问题上浪费的进步，”

东英吉利大学火山学教授詹妮·巴克莱（Jenni Barclay）

Nick Talbot, executive director of the Sainsbury Laboratory, said it was a “massive breach of trust” to cut ongoing projects of real impact for developing countries. He said he faced a “major cut” to a GCRF project grant in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Talbot, a world-renowned expert in molecular plant pathology, leads a project on rice blast, a disease that can devastate rice yields, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa where disease-resistant varieties are lacking and control strategies limited.

“Our project has examined the rice blast pathogen population and provided information on the resistance genes that could defend rice varieties grown locally from infection,” says Talbot. “We have used plant breeding to introduce multiple diseases resistance into locally grown varieties favoured by farmers and consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

塔尔伯特（Talbot）以及布基纳法索（Burkina Faso），布隆迪（Burundi），坦桑尼亚（Tanzania）和马达加斯加（Madagascar）的科学家说，英国团队与内罗毕的合作伙伴一起工作，并监督了疾病仓库并监督当地的繁殖工作。

“It is a highly complex project and we have trained many African scientists, including PhD students. We have rice varieties in field trials across 17 sites in Africa, and our next stage will be to bring some of the varieties to registration and release to farmers. We need about three to four years’ further funding to achieve this, but the cut we have received puts a lot of that in jeopardy.”

Talbot said he was doing all he could to maintain partner budgets in Sub-Saharan Africa, but admitted he did not know how he would implement such a deep cut, adding that the exact amount remained under discussion. “It’s heartbreaking for such a successful project to be affected like this,” he said.

In an online briefing, the UKRI says it is working with stakeholders to discuss “the best way forward”. “No one could have foreseen the economic impact of an extended global pandemic when we entered into these longer-term programmes,” it says.

科学家动员了成千上万的人签署请愿书，要求英国政府撤销削减。“这一重要资金流的破坏将产生巨大影响，”one lettersigned by more than 5,000 people.

“As well as directly threatening the futures of the vulnerable and marginalised that this funding targets, the resultant abrupt termination of research projects will obliterate the hard-won trust with international development partners and governments overseas,” the letter warns.

撰写了这封信的东安格利亚大学火山学教授詹妮·巴克莱（Jenni Barclay）说，她的立即回应是“恐怖恐怖”之一。“我不敢相信英国政府通过这一前所未有的行动理解了它对'全球英国'所做的事情 - 取消竞争性资助的项目，或者如此彻底地削减他人，很难看到如何维持动力和信任。”

Barclay said the second phase of a GCRF-funded project she worked on had been cancelled, while she was waiting to hear the fate of a project she leads in Quito, Ecuador, under the Urban Disaster Risk Hub, which works to integrate disaster risk management into urban planning. The hub is one of 12 flagship interdisciplinary hubs supported by the GCRF to tackle global challenges such as climate change.

巴克莱补充说，英国科学家的削减是“很难进行”的，但是“真正的关注是我们的合作伙伴，他们在这一过程中信任这一过程和将失去工作的早期职业研究人员，以及在重要发展方面的浪费进步问题。”

Asked to respond to the petitions, a spokeswoman for the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said: “We are working with our delivery partners, including UK Research and Innovation, to implement a new research and development settlement for 2021/22 as part of our wider commitment to maintain the UK’s world-class reputation for science, research and innovation.”

Mara Lawniczak进化遗传学家Wellcome Sanger Institute, says she had her budget cut from about £180,000 to £60,000 for a project she leads in Mali, involving single cell RNA sequencing on malaria parasites. The study aims to improve understanding of malaria transmission.

Lawniczak说，该赠款已经为一家诊所旁边的昆虫建造提供资金，该诊所在Ntjiba县为20,000多人提供服务，并为一台60,000英镑的测序机器做出了贡献，这是西非第一个同类的测序机器。

When patients go to the clinic for treatment — also partially funded through the project — they are invited to contribute to the study, with thousands of children expected to receive malaria treatment, regardless of whether they take part, said Lawniczak. All that is now at risk, she fears.

Lawniczak补充说：“当您被授予赠款时，您永远不会认为奖励颁发后可能会削减，尤其是不是这样的戏剧性。”她说，她在马里的研究合作伙伴阿卜杜拉耶·吉姆德（Abdoulaye Djimde）对这种情况感到“无助”。“如果这是一个新的合作，并且地毯被从下面拉出，为什么[低收入和中等收入国家]的合作伙伴会再次与我们合作？他们已经投资了这个项目 - 人们，时间，资源，脑力 - 建立在信任资金中的基础上。”

Djimde said: “These drastic budget cuts are truly unfortunate as they undermine the trust of the communities we work with and the local scientists’ confidence in the international collaboration.”