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Senior UK science and industry leaders have warned that delays in negotiating membership of the EU’s €95.5bn Horizon science programme are “absurd” and damage UK aspirations to be a science superpower.

Rejoining Horizon was expected to be one of the early “wins” from prime minister Rishi Sunak’s breakthrough over trading arrangements in Northern Ireland last February, which ended a post-Brexit diplomatic impasse between London and Brussels. 

At the time Ursula von der Leyen heralded the so-called Windsor framework agreement as “good news” for EU and UK scientists and promised to set to work “immediately” on a deal to allow the UK to participate. 

But four months on, EU and UK officials say talks have stalled over the UK’s financial contribution to the scheme, causing mounting frustration among leading figures in science, industry and academia. 

Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse, head of the Francis Crick Institute in London, urged the politicians to stop quibbling over relatively small sums of money and get a deal done.

“It’s absurd that this is taking so long. Every month of delay in these negotiations is damaging science and damaging the country,” he said.

The UK reached a £2bn-a-year deal for associate membership of Horizon in 2020 as part of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, but its participation was blocked for two years because of the stand-off over Northern Ireland.

People involved on both sides say the talks have become bogged down over the UK’s financial contributions to the scheme in the light of those two “missing years”, and over a mechanism for calculating “correction” payments if the UK receives more, or less, than its annual contributions.

Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society, Britain’s senior scientific academy, said the delays were damaging the UK, and urged both sides to reach an agreement before the long European summer holiday began.

“Researchers are leaving or not coming to the UK and British researchers are being left out of key collaborations. That holds back European research and that hurts everyone. With political business set to wind down, the EU and UK governments need to sort this out now,” he said.

Chloe Smith, science and technology secretary, told the FT earlier this month that: “Negotiations are ongoing and they’re going constructively.” She added: “Our preference is to associate with Horizon.”

However a senior UK government insider accused the Commission of turning Horizon into a “bargaining chip” in the row over Northern Ireland, creating the two-year delay that has caused the current disagreement between the two sides. “We want a deal, but it has to be a fair deal,” the insider added.

EU Commission officials say they are not certain that Sunak really wants to rejoin, which makes it difficult to negotiate. One described the talks as “stuck”, a second as “frozen”. A senior UK official said talks were ongoing, but admitted that narrowing the gaps was “tough going”. 

Academic bodies also urged both sides to compromise. “Time has value here. Joining Horizon is not just a ‘money in, money out’ equation. We need flexibility from both sides to get a deal as quickly as possible,” said Vivienne Stern, the head of Universities UK, the sectoral body for higher education.

European universities are also pressing for a deal. Almost 6,000 academics have signed a petition calling for swift association. Arancha González, dean of the Paris School of International Affairs (Sciences Po), said: “There are three big scientific blocs in the world. One is the US, one is Asia, mainly China, and the other is Europe.

Industry groups, including the British Chambers of Commerce and MakeUK, the manufacturers body, also urged the both sides to “redouble” their efforts to reach an agreement. “Business is clear — our participation in Horizon Europe is a win for the UK and a win for the EU,” said William Bain, head of trade policy at the BCC.

Martin Smith, head of policy at the Wellcome Trust, the charitable foundation, said he was optimistic there were sufficient political incentives to reach an agreement.

“Failure would reflect very badly on Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen: if they can’t make progress on a matter of such mutual interest, that doesn’t reflect well on either of them,” he said.

The Foreign Office said it wanted negotiations to succeed but added that the government would revert to its homegrown alternative, the £14.6bn ‘Pioneer’ programme, if talks failed. “We are prepared to support our R&D sector in all scenarios,” a spokesperson said.

An EU Commission spokesman said it was working on the UK’s association to Horizon and had already informed the UK it would not be required to pay for the two years that it had already missed.