FACING a threat to their intake of EU students and the real possibility of the loss of hundreds of millions of pounds in research funding, Scotland’s universities are squaring up resolutely to Brexit and praying for a soft one.
Scotland’s university chiefs have made their displeasure over Brexit well known, and are unanimous in seeking a soft Brexit with a deal that preserves not only Scottish access to EU research funds, but also permits EU students to come here freely with Scottish students able to go abroad – the EU Erasmus programme which encourages such student interchanges is under immediate threat from Brexit.
It is instructive to look at the UK picture, not least because there are thousands of Scottish students who attend university elsewhere in the UK.
A soft Brexit deal for education and research envisages UK universities being able to still attract EU students and funds to continue the sort of research that leads to, for example, medical breakthroughs – it is no exaggeration to say lives may depend on such links and funding being maintained.
The Russell Group of 24 leading UK universities including Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Glasgow has warned there would be no winners from a Brexit settlement that introduced new barriers restricting international research collaboration. The Group’s Acting Director Dr Tim Bradshaw said: “Working together, Russell Group universities and European partners have made huge breakthroughs in medicine, engineering and any number of other fields.
“Joint working will continue after Brexit but there would be no winners from restrictive new barriers to collaboration. That would be bad for the UK and bad for Europe.”
Ken Mayhew is Emeritus Professor of Education and Economic Performance and Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford.
According to Mayhew, in a paper he originally produced in January but has since updated, the threat to higher education comes not just from reduction in research funding but also loss of staff and students due to the Tory Government’s revision of immigration policy generally – and immigration policy is a reserved matter for Westminster.
He wrote: “Higher education authorities worry that after Brexit, EU staff (or at least new recruits) will be treated by the immigration authorities in just the same way as their other foreign employees.
“Yet it is far from clear just how much difficulty universities have in fact experienced in hiring non-EU staff, though recent increases in visa and associated costs together with reports in Times Higher Education and elsewhere suggest that difficulties have increased.
“But a major threat looms if there is a general toughening of immigration policy.
“In this context, one serious issue relates to post-doctoral researchers who have come to work in the UK on short-term contracts in the hope that this would lead to permanent positions. The attractiveness of such posts could well diminish under tougher immigration rules.”
Mayhew is in no doubt that a soft Brexit deal is necessary: “The best outcome for higher education would be a comprehensive sectoral agreement with freedom of movement within the sector for students and staff and access to EU funding in return for a contribution.
“Short of that, it will be important to get associate status in EU funding programmes. But a satisfactory outcome could be prejudiced by disputes in the negotiations about freedom of movement more generally. And this is where the UK’s general stance on immigration enters the picture.
“There is a likelihood of a general tightening of immigration policy and the Government continues to insist on including students in the overall immigration figures.
“Moreover, a Home Office consultation paper, published in late 2016, floated the idea of tougher immigration rules for foreign students, possibly linked to judgments about the quality of institutions and courses.
“At the 2016 Conservative Party conference Home Secretary Amber Rudd promised to ask ‘what more can we do to support our best universities – and those that stick to the rules – to attract the best talent?’, while looking at tougher rules for students on lower quality courses.
“In that spirit, an experiment is already in place: a two-year pilot that eases visa rules for masters students at Bath, Cambridge, Imperial, and Oxford and offers them more generous staying-on rights after completing their studies.
“Such developments, together with a possible tightening of the resident labour market test, could pose a threat for some of the UK’s lower ranking universities.”
The case for Scotland making its own immigration policies for students was never better made.
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