The United Kingdom risks losing its world-leading position in human embryo research if suggestions for a 30-fold increase in license fees are taken forward, British researchers claimed this week.

The UK government's fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), is proposing to raise its fees for processing research project licenses from the present £200 (USD $367) to £6000 (USD $11,000). It claims the change is necessary to comply with government rules that regulation should be wholly paid for by those being regulated.

But UK researchers say that the increase is not well justified. They say that any attempt to increase fees will stifle research in emerging areas, such as stem cell research, and vital work on freezing and storing human embryos.

"We recognize that there are some administrative costs due in processing a license, but all our license applications will have already gone through local ethics committee approval and refereeing by funding bodies. To charge £6000 in addition seems something that is difficult to justify," Alison Murdoch, head of the in vitro fertilization research facility at the University of Newcastle and chairman of the British Fertility Society, told The Scientist. Murdoch's group recently applied for the United Kingdom's first human cloning license through HFEA.

The UK government prides itself on having a well defined policy on research using human embryos. In its 1990 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, it introduced legislation that made it legal to carry out research on embryos for specified purposes, such as treatment of infertility. In 2001, regulations were amended to allow for therapeutic cloning to investigate embryonic development and improve treatment and understanding of serious disease.

Last month, the UK research councils jointly awarded £16.5 million (USD $30.3 million) for stem cell research following the opening of Europe's first stem cell bank on the outskirts of London. But having given with one hand, scientists now say that their government is clawing back with the other.

"The UK government put forward a really clear message in its 1990 act that we should be allowed to use embryos for research for specific reasons and purposes," Murdoch said. "A government-backed authority putting on prohibitive charges will stop this research from happening."

It is not clear why the HFEA needs to charge such large amounts of money, said Peter Andrews, who will head up the United Kingdom's new Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Centre at the University of Sheffield. But he said that the effect on academics would be limited if research funders were to agree to pay the fees. "Presumably then it can be coped with," he said.

The majority of stem cell research is financed by large funders that have flexible funding at their disposal. But other areas of embryo research do not enjoy similar backing and will find extra money harder to come by. "Much of the basic R&D work that goes on in IVF units is funded just from within our own resources," said Murdoch. "The £6000 pounds for the HFEA…might be the total cost of what we have for a project."

The HFEA said that it had arrived at the £6000 figure by estimating how much money it spends on processing license applications annually, and then dividing the sum by the number of applications it receives per year. However, it said it did not have a breakdown of the costs involved.

The House of Commons science and technology committee is currently investigating the need for revision to the 1990 act in the face of scientific advances. Meanwhile, the HFEA is consulting about its proposals for fee change until June 30. Besides the £6000 suggestion, there is a proposal for variable fees between £3000 and £9000 (USD $16,500), and another for spreading the cost of the fee over the length of the project.

"No fee is not an option," the HFEA says in its consultation.