On 23 June 2016, 52% of people in the UK voted in favour of leaving the European Union (EU). Several weeks later and with a new government in place, there is still no certainty on what the separation will involve, and it may take years before it takes place.

As we highlighted in our July 2015 editorial (Nature Nanotech. 10, 565; 2015), science in the UK has historically benefited from EU membership, both in terms of funding and the large number of skilled European scientists working in the UK thanks to freedom of movement. The situation will not change immediately. Andrea Ferrari, professor at the University of Cambridge and chair of the EU Graphene Flagship management board, assured Nature Nanotechnology that the Graphene Flagship will continue to operate with a business-as-usual attitude at least until the official separation. For example, there is no reason why new members based at UK institutions should not be able to join the programme in the next few months. There is also no reason to believe that EU funding will decrease dramatically in the near future before a formal exit, whenever that will be.

But the uncertainty of what will happen after the separation is problematic. Although there is currently freedom of movement, it can be expected that fewer European scientists will want to move to the UK. It is also likely that technology and innovation companies will be cautious about investing in the UK until the situation is clarified. Even more worryingly, UK-based scientists will have to wait for the outcome of long negotiations to find out whether their participation in EU-wide projects will be, at best, similar to what it is now.

We remain convinced that science is one of the areas that will suffer as a result of the UK leaving the EU, and it is disheartening because scientific collaboration embodies fully the principle of peaceful cooperation to create a politically, economically and socially stronger continent, a principle that is at the very foundation of the EU. Perhaps the EU should engage more with its citizens to show them that it is still founded on this principle, rather than just being the technocratic and authoritarian institution that the growing number of Eurosceptics perceive it to be.