Report Approaches towards Brexit among Polish researchers in the UK

While Polonium Foundation operates world-wide, a large proportion of the Polish diaspora is based within the United Kingdom. The announcement and proceeding with Brexit has raised concerns and doubts in the community, and we wanted to find out how it has influenced Polish researchers in the UK so far. We wanted to capture their views and present them more broadly.

What we did:
Polonium Foundation’s Research & Policy Team designed a survey and invited Polish PhD students and academics based in the UK to participate. The questionnaire asked about the impact of Brexit on both professional and personal life, and took into account the position held, years lived in the UK, and immigration status. Collected data was further analysed by the Research and Policy Team.

We have also been working together with other diaspora organisations (SRUK, PARSUK, AISUK) to join our voices and provide policy recommendations where possible. In 2019, we organised a thematic workshop looking at various post-Brexit scenarios for science, and we published a short opinion piece as a result. The collaboration continues, and many other diaspora organisations have also produced similar surveys.

Meet our research team: