Yes I do understand your concerns Eddie.
“The UK gets far more research funding from the EU than any other nation does.”
And it also donates to the EU more than almost any other nation does. Post-Brexit the UK can decide what it spends those contributions on. At present it cannot. If it chooses to spend them on research or the NHS or a day at the races it will be our choice, not somebody else’s. THAT’s the point.
You mention long term certainty. Nobody can be sure what conditions will prevail in five or ten years time, let alone 25. And that holds whether we are in or out of the EU. There is no certainty that the EU will continue to fund what it does at present forevermore. It faces more challenges than the UK alone does, with problems faced by 27 (and rising) other nations, all with their own very different problems. But the UK will only have to consider its own requirements.
I also understand your concerns about staffing. I have every confidence that the UK will not lose key staff from other EU countries. They will want to remain here, we want them, nothing will prevent that.
People of the UK do not dislike Europe. They dislike the EU. They do not like paying someone a tenner and getting a fiver back provided they spend it as directed. The EU has enormous problems most of which are of its own making and none of which it shows any signs of being able to solve. Its policies have inflicted enormous hardship across the continent, especially the southern nations. The UK could not continue its membership without that damage and hardship extending to here. Leaving will be fraught with difficulties. But they will be overcome and it won’t be the disaster that some expect. There is nothing the UK can do within the EU that it cannot do outside. But there is an awful lot we cannot do whilst we remain members.