I Am Interested In Science
Brexit: Scientist behind one of the century's most important discoveries set to leave UK over EU exit
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Andre Geim considers taking research elsewhere as international student applications plummet
The Independent Simon Parkin Thursday 10 August 2017
Andre Geim, professor of condensed matter physics at the University of Manchester guides Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge around the National Graphene Institute in October 2016 National Graphene Institute/University of Manchester/Bloomberg
For many years Andre Geim was best known for designing an experiment that looked more like a parlour trick than a serious piece of scientific research. One Friday evening, in a moment of boredom at his Dutch lab, the Soviet-born physicist casually poured a glass of water onto a super-electromagnet. When the water struck the magnet it didn’t spill to the floor, as Geim had expected, but instead began to float as a cluster of pristine liquid balls. Geim, with characteristic wit and flourish, published his findings in the April 1997 issue of Physics World alongside a picture he took of a live frog sitting pensively on the levitating droplets.
Shortly after Geim arrived at Manchester University in 2001, he began hosting Friday night sessions for students to conduct what he calls “curiosity-driven research”—a similar way to demonstrate the value of impromptu experimentation. In 2002, following one of these gatherings, Geim’s attention was drawn to a ball of used Scotch tape in a nearby wastepaper bin. On it was a grey residue, from where it had been stuck to a piece of graphite. Geim, who specialises in minutely thin materials, placed the tape under an atomic microscope and found the layers of residual carbon were thinner than any he’d seen before. Immediately he suspected he had found graphene, a one atom-thin material (a strand of human hair is between 100,000 and 300,000 atoms thick) that had, until this moment, been only a white whale of speculation among theoretical physicists.
In the subsequent weeks Geim worked 14-hour days with one of his Ph.D. students, Konstantin Novoselov, to discover graphene’s extraordinary properties. The material, it turned out, was 200 times stronger than steel; electrons would whisk across its honeycomb-like structure 1,000 times quicker than in copper. The commercial value of the material soon became clear. A clutch of patents illustrate its potential uses: mobile phones with folding screens, ultra-long-life batteries, aircraft wings and high-speed trains. In 2015, to quicken the arrival of these products, Manchester University launched the National Graphene Institute, a project supported by £1 million a year ($1.3 million) in funding from the EU’s Graphene Flagship, Europe’s largest ever joint research project.
Alchemising research into commerce often takes years. But graphene’s world-changing moment may be at hand. The material’s hexagonal lattice makes it a potential sieve, one that could be used to filter nanoparticles, organic molecules, and even salt from water. United Nations estimates suggest that, in just eight years, 14 percent of the world’s population will encounter water scarcity. Graphene could present a new, affordable, and potentially ubiquitous way in which to turn salt water into drinking water. In a climate-changed world, graphene might even save lives. Geim and Novoselov shared a Nobel Prize in physics for their work on graphene in 2010.
All of this potential came into doubt on June 23, 2016, when 51.8 percent of the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. Geim describes himself as a Euro-sceptic. Yet he watched the results of Brexit trickle in with a sense of gathering dismay (“At about 4am it became clear that the Remainers were likely to lose,” he told me. “I went to bed acknowledging the human species were not very smart animals.”). Geim’s response was typical of that of many scientists, for whom freedom of movement and cross-border partnerships are indispensable. A Brexit survey run in March by Nature found that of the 907 UK researchers who were polled, around 83 percent believed the UK should remain in the EU. Paul Drayson, former minister of science in the Department for Business, told Scientific American: “The very idea that a country would voluntarily withdraw from Europe seems anathema to scientists.” In Geim’s case, he and most of his engineers are not British by birth. Indian and Chinese nationalities dominate, followed by Russians, Ukrainians, Italians, Spanish and Polish. All of his funding comes from the EU. The Brexit result has cast thick doubt about how money and people will flow to and from the UK.
Geim washes an old mug in a grimy kitchen in the corridor along from his office at Manchester University. While the 12 months following the Brexit vote have been characterised by confusion about where the UK will stand in its future of dogged isolation, Geim seems clear on what will happen next. “Nothing positive can be expected,” he says. Geim speaks with an Eeyore-ish languidness, that can, as we move into his office, seem gloomy. “We cannot even expect a neutral outcome anymore,” he says. “The question now is simply: to what extent is this going to be a disaster for science in the UK.” Geim suspects the UK will be summarily “kicked out of crucial scientific collaborations” such as the European Innovation Council and Horizon 2020, an enterprise touted as “the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever” which provides almost €80 million ($94 million) to researchers seeking to take their ideas “from the lab to the market.”
Geim’s bracing straightforwardness is born of experience. He came to the UK in the late 1980s with just £1 in his pocket. Having served Soviet Russia, Geim knows only too well the risks of blinkered national hubris and isolationism. In practical terms too, he has already seen the effects. Every year Geim receives a steady flow of applications from abroad seeking to join the Marie Curie research programme in Manchester. In 2017 he has received no applications at all.
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Andre Geim considers taking research elsewhere as international student applications plummet
The Independent Simon Parkin Thursday 10 August 2017
Andre Geim, professor of condensed matter physics at the University of Manchester guides Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge around the National Graphene Institute in October 2016 National Graphene Institute/University of Manchester/Bloomberg
For many years Andre Geim was best known for designing an experiment that looked more like a parlour trick than a serious piece of scientific research. One Friday evening, in a moment of boredom at his Dutch lab, the Soviet-born physicist casually poured a glass of water onto a super-electromagnet. When the water struck the magnet it didn’t spill to the floor, as Geim had expected, but instead began to float as a cluster of pristine liquid balls. Geim, with characteristic wit and flourish, published his findings in the April 1997 issue of Physics World alongside a picture he took of a live frog sitting pensively on the levitating droplets.
Shortly after Geim arrived at Manchester University in 2001, he began hosting Friday night sessions for students to conduct what he calls “curiosity-driven research”—a similar way to demonstrate the value of impromptu experimentation. In 2002, following one of these gatherings, Geim’s attention was drawn to a ball of used Scotch tape in a nearby wastepaper bin. On it was a grey residue, from where it had been stuck to a piece of graphite. Geim, who specialises in minutely thin materials, placed the tape under an atomic microscope and found the layers of residual carbon were thinner than any he’d seen before. Immediately he suspected he had found graphene, a one atom-thin material (a strand of human hair is between 100,000 and 300,000 atoms thick) that had, until this moment, been only a white whale of speculation among theoretical physicists.
In the subsequent weeks Geim worked 14-hour days with one of his Ph.D. students, Konstantin Novoselov, to discover graphene’s extraordinary properties. The material, it turned out, was 200 times stronger than steel; electrons would whisk across its honeycomb-like structure 1,000 times quicker than in copper. The commercial value of the material soon became clear. A clutch of patents illustrate its potential uses: mobile phones with folding screens, ultra-long-life batteries, aircraft wings and high-speed trains. In 2015, to quicken the arrival of these products, Manchester University launched the National Graphene Institute, a project supported by £1 million a year ($1.3 million) in funding from the EU’s Graphene Flagship, Europe’s largest ever joint research project.
Alchemising research into commerce often takes years. But graphene’s world-changing moment may be at hand. The material’s hexagonal lattice makes it a potential sieve, one that could be used to filter nanoparticles, organic molecules, and even salt from water. United Nations estimates suggest that, in just eight years, 14 percent of the world’s population will encounter water scarcity. Graphene could present a new, affordable, and potentially ubiquitous way in which to turn salt water into drinking water. In a climate-changed world, graphene might even save lives. Geim and Novoselov shared a Nobel Prize in physics for their work on graphene in 2010.
All of this potential came into doubt on June 23, 2016, when 51.8 percent of the British electorate voted to leave the European Union. Geim describes himself as a Euro-sceptic. Yet he watched the results of Brexit trickle in with a sense of gathering dismay (“At about 4am it became clear that the Remainers were likely to lose,” he told me. “I went to bed acknowledging the human species were not very smart animals.”). Geim’s response was typical of that of many scientists, for whom freedom of movement and cross-border partnerships are indispensable. A Brexit survey run in March by Nature found that of the 907 UK researchers who were polled, around 83 percent believed the UK should remain in the EU. Paul Drayson, former minister of science in the Department for Business, told Scientific American: “The very idea that a country would voluntarily withdraw from Europe seems anathema to scientists.” In Geim’s case, he and most of his engineers are not British by birth. Indian and Chinese nationalities dominate, followed by Russians, Ukrainians, Italians, Spanish and Polish. All of his funding comes from the EU. The Brexit result has cast thick doubt about how money and people will flow to and from the UK.
Geim washes an old mug in a grimy kitchen in the corridor along from his office at Manchester University. While the 12 months following the Brexit vote have been characterised by confusion about where the UK will stand in its future of dogged isolation, Geim seems clear on what will happen next. “Nothing positive can be expected,” he says. Geim speaks with an Eeyore-ish languidness, that can, as we move into his office, seem gloomy. “We cannot even expect a neutral outcome anymore,” he says. “The question now is simply: to what extent is this going to be a disaster for science in the UK.” Geim suspects the UK will be summarily “kicked out of crucial scientific collaborations” such as the European Innovation Council and Horizon 2020, an enterprise touted as “the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever” which provides almost €80 million ($94 million) to researchers seeking to take their ideas “from the lab to the market.”
Geim’s bracing straightforwardness is born of experience. He came to the UK in the late 1980s with just £1 in his pocket. Having served Soviet Russia, Geim knows only too well the risks of blinkered national hubris and isolationism. In practical terms too, he has already seen the effects. Every year Geim receives a steady flow of applications from abroad seeking to join the Marie Curie research programme in Manchester. In 2017 he has received no applications at all.
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