Britain's universities would be better off outside the EU

Earlier this year, over 100 vice-chancellors signed an open letter in support of European Union membership. Many of them have issued dire warnings about what will happen to our universities in the event of Brexit. But academics and students need to think for themselves. They are being led over the top by a short-sighted vice-chancellor class into a more integrated and politicised EU. They should vote for a more open, innovative and internationalist future—and that means voting to Leave. If Britain drops out of the EU, universities will receive more funding, access to a wider pool of international students, and enjoy a regulatory regime that will promote better research.

The funding question is simple. Take the often cited example of Horizon 2020, the €80bn EU programme for research and innovation. Britain does receive money from it—but the programme is open to non-EU countries as well. Britain has the only EU universities in the world's top 20 (as ranked by Times Higher Education) and the most Nobel prizes of any member-state—the idea that it would be kicked out of Horizon 2020 as an act of political sabotage is as unserious as it is impracticable.

Leaving would also mean that EU students would be charged full international fees, ending the indefensible practice of charging foreign students differently according to their nationality. This would create a windfall for universities that could be spent on scholarships for the brightest or help for students from poorer backgrounds. Furthermore, Vote Leave has been clear that some of the money currently spent on EU membership would in future be dedicated to scientific research.

Universities would also get access to a broader talent pool of students and faculty. The current visa policy, under which the worst German student gets automatic access while things are difficult if not impossible for the brilliant Indian scholar, is as morally flawed as it is academically harmful. Outside the EU, we will use our control over immigration to grant more visas for students and academics. Furthermore, all nationalities would be treated equally, giving greater access for UK universities to talent from Asian countries (all of the world’s top five school systems for science and mathematics are in east Asia) or North America’s leading universities.

EU regulations are even more damaging to our higher education sector than they are to immigration policy. To vote to remain in an ever-more integrated EU is to accept a level of political direction that is incompatible with the Haldane principle (the idea that researchers, rather than politicians, are the best judges of how to spend research funding). the European Parliament has voted to subsidise tobacco farming, restrict GM crops against its own scientific advice and promote homeopathic remedies for farm animals. Placing this institution in charge of future decisions on gene editing or artificial intelligence is like entrusting the Chuckle Brothers with stress-testing a suspension bridge.

The EU’s flawed regulations come from backward-looking institutions and decision-making processes. Its methods have given us a clinical trials directive that has slowed research to the point of risking patients’ lives, and intellectual property rules that threaten academic freedom. Its only response to failure is to double down on these methods. If we vote to leave we can have flexible, organic institutions and pro-innovation regulations based on expert scientific advice, a system far more suited to the fast-moving world of the future.

The EU is the wrong answer to every problem facing UK universities. We need to engage more with Africa, Asia and the Americas but it forces us further into Europe. We need less centralisation and politicisation, it is committed to more. We need greater research funding and more international students, yet it promises less of both. So why do Vice Chancellors support remaining in an EU that will become at best irrelevant and at worse debilitating? The answer is that they are part of a European elite that cannot see beyond the continent’s borders and who are ideologically wedded to the centralised bureaucracies of the past. Neither approach is suited to the future for Britain’s universities, nor fit for their great tradition of forward-looking openness.

Academics and students should vote to leave this fundamentally flawed political union. Our universities will then be at the forefront of a renaissance, reaping the benefits of higher funding, more talented international students and better regulations. The opportunities outside the EU are endless. It may not please your Vice Chancellor, but if you vote to leave then the least of the consolation prizes is the world.