Universities have as much to lose as major companies from a ‘no’ vote in any forthcoming EU referendum, says Paul White
The chief executive of the Confederation of British Industry has done it. Firms involved in inward investment in the UK (such as Nissan) have done it. But, as yet, British university leaders have not raised their voices in the Europe debate.
There are outstanding reasons why Britain’s universities should do so. Knowledge, understanding and insight know no boundaries. Advances in research and education depend on talent, and science is expensive. The UK’s participation in various EU programmes create access to that talent in terms of researcher and teacher mobility, and through encouraging some of the brightest students in the world to study and to take up postdoctoral positions in Britain.
The benefits of the international pooling of resources and expertise have been demonstrated in the work of CERN and in the development of Graphene for which British-based scientists won the Nobel prize – both significant beneficiaries of EU funding. And such funding has compensated for the ‘flat cash’ settlements from the UK government.
EU membership discussions often take a balance sheet approach. In research funding, the UK is massively a net receiver. Data to June 2013 shows that the UK hosts the highest proportion of European Research Council grants of all EU member states: 23% against Germany’s 14%. While the UK contributes around 11.5% to the overall EU budget, it has won 14.5% of the research funding under the Framework 7 programme.
Between 2007 and 2011, the UK received €3.6bn for research and innovation from this source. These are not benefits that are confined to the university sector. Valuations carried out as part of the development of the next round of EU research support show that every €1 of funding from Framework 7 (the latest funding programme for research and technological development) produces an industry added-value of €13. The annual contribution of the programme to industrial output in the UK exceeds €3bn.
These figures include indirect effects, many of which depend on industrial partners. Would such partners be prepared to work on the same scale with UK universities if they were not able to draw benefit from participation in EU research programmes? Boeing at Sheffield, Janssen Pharmaceutica at Oxford, the Tata group at Warwick: as in manufacturing, for such companies future research partnership with universities elsewhere within the EU may seem a more sustainable proposition.
The EU is the UK’s principal trading partner. The development of skills to operate in such a market is further dimension of universities’ benefits from membership of the Union. More than 14,500 UK students participated in 2012/13 in the Erasmus programme to study or work in another country as an integrated part of their degree, a figure that has doubled in six years. Cultural agility is crucial to the UK’s ability to compete in the global economy. Were the UK to leave the EU this interchange of students, and young researchers through schemes such as the Marie Curie fellowships, could be threatened. Withdrawal from the Erasmus programme would damage yet further the already problematic recruitment of students into modern European languages.
Graduates from UK universities who hold an EU passport can seek employment anywhere within the EU. UK-domiciled students do so less than students graduating in a number of other EU countries, but for many the existence of the EU-wide labour market presents important opportunities for their career development. Departure from the EU could restrict UK graduates to the UK labour market.
Surely if the UK were to leave the EU it could negotiate the ‘associate’ status that is currently enjoyed by Switzerland or Norway? Switzerland has been a great success story in European research funding. But it is not at the Council of Ministers where policies and budgets are hammered out.
In the creation of Horizon 2020, the EU’s future research programme, the view that the prime criterion for funding should be research excellence won through. The Commissioner, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, credits this in part to the support of David Cameron supported by evidence provided by British universities. The alternative, favoured by some member states, was to share funding according to national contributions. An EU without the UK at its heart could take very different paths on various educational issues.
With the progressive evolution over recent years of the reach of EU policies and institutions, the core activities of British universities – research and education – have become intimately linked to opportunities elsewhere in Europe. The UK higher education system is recognised as the second strongest in the world, after that of the US. But part of that strength is derived from collaborative international research fostered by the EU, and by the stimulus of the free movement of talented staff and students.
UK universities have as much to lose as major companies if a ‘no’ vote in a forthcoming referendum consigned them to a semi-engaged offshore status. It is time for the UK university sector to stand up and enter the debate.
Professor Paul White is pro vice-chancellor for learning and teaching at the University of Sheffield – follow it on Twitter @sheffielduni
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via Education: Research | theguardian.com http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/nov/26/eu-referendum-uk-higher-education
