A post-Brexit agreement for research and innovation Outcomes from a simulated negotiation process. Bruegel Special Report 28 January 2020

The UK will leave the European Union on 31 January 2020. Negotiators and commentators have spent more than three years discussing the terms on which the UK will withdraw, but comparatively little attention has been paid to the future relationship between the UK and the EU after Brexit at a sectoral level. Withdrawing is merely the first stage of the process, and the UK and the EU will soon begin to think about negotiating a new relationship and decide which issues to prioritise. Research and innovation is one of the key areas in which the UK and the EU will need to establish a post-Brexit relationship. Over the past two decades, the UK and the EU have been at the forefront of that enterprise through the development of the European Research Area (ERA). Together, European nations have created a world-leading research base. Six of the world’s top twenty universities are in the ERA, and Europe produces a third of the world’s scientific publications with just 7% of the global population. A new post-Brexit relationship on research and innovation will need to be negotiated to ensure we sustain and grow this valuable and mutually beneficial partnership. Research and innovation are critical to achieving lasting competitiveness and economic development, especially with the dominance of the USA and the rising challenge of China in this field. An early agreement providing for cooperation on research and innovation would reflect the economic and social importance of research and innovation to the people of the UK and the EU. This report sets out what the Wellcome Trust and Bruegel have learned from a project to simulate a negotiation process between the UK and EU to create a post-Brexit research and innovation agreement. Our negotiating scenario assumed that the UK had left the EU with a withdrawal agreement, and that the negotiation was taking place during a ‘standstill’ transition period. Our exercise demonstrated that it is possible to reach agreement among experts on the terms of an EU-UK research and innovation deal. However, the project also revealed that some elements of an agreement may be harder to negotiate than expected. A shared purpose and belief in the importance of research and innovation is not enough to see a deal come to fruition. It is also necessary to overcome a number of political and technical challenges that are spelled out in this report. The process must start now to ensure an agreement is reached as soon as possible. We hope that this report will provide inspiration and guidance for that process

B vitamins and cognitive performance in older adults: Review

A copious amount of scientific scrutiny has been dedicated to documenting typical and atypical human ageing, with a substantial body of work focusing upon the impact of lifestyle choices. One such lifestyle choice is that of diet and, in particular, micronutrient ingestion. Epidemiological studies have reported positive associations between B vitamin status and cognitive function, including negative associations between biological markers (i.e., homocysteine) of dysregulated one-carbon metabolism and cognitive function. This has led to a surge of randomised control trials (RCTs) investigations into B vitamin therapy. However, results have continuingly failed to show beneficial behavioural effects. Despite this, results reliably show treatment-related increases in B vitamin level and decreases in homocysteine level—both of which have been identified as risk factors for atypical ageing. In this paper we argue that it would be premature to conclude that B vitamin therapy has no potential and that more research is needed to systematically investigate the optimal dose, the therapeutic “window,” and individual differences in therapy responders and nonresponders. We start with a brief look at one-carbon metabolism and then consider the evidence from epidemiological studies and RCTs in relation to three specific B vitamins: folic acid (B9), pyridoxine (B6), and cobamides (B12)

The effects of trophic transfer and environmental factors on microplastic uptake by plaice, Pleuronectes plastessa, and spider crab, Maja squinado

Microplastic pollution is apparent throughout the marine environment from deep ocean sediments to coastal habitats. Most of this is believed to originate on land, although marine activities, such as fishing and shipping, also contribute to the release and redistribution of microplastic. The relative importance of these maritime plastic sources, the manner by which they are distributed in the environment, and their effect on uptake by marine organisms are yet to be fully quantified. In this study, the relative impact of fishing activities on microplastic uptake by demersal fish and crustaceans was explored. Local fishing intensity, proximity to land and mean water velocity are compared to microplastic uptake in plaice, Pleuronectes platessa, and spider crab, Maja squinado, from the Celtic Sea. Observations were also made of microplastic contamination in ingested sand eels, Ammodytes tobianus, to establish a potential route of trophic transfer. This study is the first to identify microplastic contamination in spider crab and to document trophic transfer in the wild. Individuals were sampled from sites of varied fishing intensity in the Celtic Sea, and their stomach contents examined for the presence of microplastic. Contamination was observed in 50% of P. platessa, 42.4% of M. squinado, and 44.4% of A. tobianus. Locations of highest plastic abundance varied between P. platessa and M. squinado, indicating that different factors influence the uptake of microplastic in these two taxa. No significant link was observed between fishing effort and microplastic abundance; however, proximity to land was linked to increased abundance in M. squinado and Observations of whole prey demonstrate ongoing trophic transfer from A. tobianus to P. platessa. The lack of significant difference in microplastic abundance between predator and prey suggests that microplastic is not retained by P. platessa