A leading scientist who was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme about the threat to research funding caused by Brexit has complained to the BBC about the way her contribution was treated.

Dame Anne Glover, professor of molecular biology at Aberdeen university, said she felt “very let down and disappointed” by the BBC.

She had not been informed in advance that her pre-recorded interview would be followed by a studio-based interview with another professor, Angus Dalgleish, who is a spokesman for a fringe anti-European Union body called Scientists for Britain.

Although the BBC presenter did say that Dalgleish campaigned for a leave vote, there was no mention of the fact that he stood as a Ukip candidate at last year’s general election.

Glover’s disappointment was compounded by Dalgleish referring to her concerns as “rather hysterical”, a comment she regarded as sexist.



Nor can there said to be any sense of equivalence between Glover, who served for two years as chief scientific adviser to the president of the European Commission, and Dalgleish, a cancer specialist.



Glover said: “If that is what the BBC thinks of as balance then it requires a reassessment of what that terms means. I was thoroughly misled. It was a poor show by the BBC.”



She had agreed to appear on the programme on the understanding that she would give a factual analysis of the effects on UK-based scientific research funding caused by the Brexit vote.

British universities and research centres receive billions from EU funding via Horizon 2020, the EU research and innovation programme. Last time around, said Glover, the UK obtained €8.8bn from the fund, as against the €5.4bn it contributed.

Research also relies on the free movement of people. Glover registered her concern that quitting the EU would limit the current ability to get “the best minds in world to come to the UK.”

She was echoing the views of the Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse, a former president of the Royal Society, who regards leaving the EU as the biggest threat to research in Britain in living memory.

Dalgleish’s qualifications do not bear comparison with those of either Glover or Nurse, a point made by media academic, Julian Petley.

Petley, professor of screen media at London’s Brunel university, said: “It’s bad enough that the BBC felt it necessary to ‘balance’ well-informed and representative views from the scientific/academic communities with views which, to put it politely, are marginal and atypical, but to fail reveal that Mr Dalgleish’s views reflect his political affiliations beggars belief.”

The Today item can be heard on the BBC’s website, at 1 hour 50 minutes into the taped replay.

At 6pm, the BBC issued this statement: “Professor Angus Dalgleish was correctly labelled on Today as a spokesman for Scientists for Britain and campaigner for Brexit.

“He was there to discuss one perspective on funding for the scientific community, as Dame Anne Glover had been on to discuss another side which, as we made clear, carried the weight of scientific opinion.

“It is not always possible to give pre-recorded contributors advance notice of who else will discuss a topic. In this instance, they were clearly broadcast as separate interviews.”