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Act now if you believe in UK-European association

The United Kingdom university sector is understandably still hedging its bets about policy paths to pursue since it is abundantly clear that Brexit isn’t ‘done’.

The international division of Universities UK, which speaks for 136 UK universities, is pushing strongly for thinking outside the Brexit box. It has recently highlighted another seven factors which shape the policy context.

The ongoing coronavirus outbreak will surely restrict academic mobility. And anxiety about climate change is bound to shape medium-term trends towards travelling less. Some universities have already declared plans to reduce their carbon emissions to net-zero by 2025. Increasing the pressure, a broad-based UK higher education sector commission, including students, is preparing for the UN’s climate change summit, COP26, to be held in Glasgow, Scotland.

Also set to trouble international relations and probably academic mobility is how to manage autocracies’ potential influence on academia. A recent report of the UK House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee was scathing that Foreign Office incompetence is not seeing academia as at risk.

On the other hand, the UK government is pushing for more international students and academics. The new graduate visa route has been widely welcomed in the UK sector as a tool for maintaining the UK as an attractive destination for research. The Johnson government promise of ‘a visible symbol for the UK’s new scientific regime’ has, however, yet to be seen as more than a soundbite.

Brexit in a world of global disruption

There really is no way Brexit can be fully put aside.

One signal was the unusual public outcry over suspicions, denied by the government, that it will not support the Erasmus scheme into the next round of European Union programmes.

Another was that on 31 January, the UK’s ‘Exit Day’, higher education and research organisations from across Europe joined with UK bodies to address their national governments on the mutual benefit of continued strong cooperation.

The 36-strong roll-call of names, which includes rectors’ conferences from the Baltics to the Mediterranean and those at risk from authoritarian regimes (Hungary being a prime example), want to ensure the UK’s full association with the EU science programme, Horizon Europe, and Erasmus+.

Keeping up the drip-drip pressure for the strongest possible relationship is the UK’s ErasmusPlus agency. It is reminding universities and further education colleges of opportunities still available during the 2020 Brexit transition period. The deadline is 24 March.

As the agency highlights, the EU’s mid-term evaluation of the Erasmus+ programme shows that a broad climate of cooperation is beneficial for research: 74% of practitioners in the higher education sector reported the creation of new research projects and 37% the creation of new spin-offs as a result of their Erasmus involvement.

A technical way forward?

The grassroots question is whether the cross-border consortia and research partnerships, led by continental universities, will consider UK universities and researchers as risk-free partners.

This concerns not only Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe, where early post-referendum experience was discouraging for UK researchers. It could also affect the much-appreciated cross-border Knowledge Alliances, which promote innovation and technology, or the recent European Universities Initiative, where only four UK universities are so far involved.

But a positive outcome also turns on whether the UK government will accept the technical way forward offered by the EU for continued UK-EU educational and research cooperation. This is to keep the issue separate from the UK-EU negotiations on trade and the future relationship. On the main talks, the agenda seems more conflictual day by day.

For the higher education signatories to the 31 January Exit Day declaration, the challenge is obvious. If they really believe in the mutual benefits of strong UK-European association, they need to act now to fight for a protected space for higher education and research negotiations.

Anne Corbett is senior associate at LSE Consultancy, United Kingdom.