QUB warns over Brexit ‘risks’
Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), UK, has warned that Brexit poses ‘challenges and risks’ to its ability to attract international staff, students and EU research funds.
The concerns are expressed in a paper analysing the possible implications of Brexit.
It highlights that EU undergraduate applications to QUB have dropped by over 6% this year.
Among other measures, QUB has called for ‘continued employment and free movement rights for current and future EU staff’ after the UK leaves the EU.
The university also says that ‘any restriction or reduction in access to EU programmes would represent a significant risk to the excellence of our research’.
It said: ‘It is vital that Queen’s staff and students (EU and preferably international) should be able to travel across the land border unimpeded.’
QUB has a large number of EU and international students and staff.
It has 1,010 EU students enrolled in 2016/17 and a further 1,931 international students.
Also, one fifth of its staff are from EU member states outside of the UK.
The university has attracted £56m (~€64m) in EU research funding in the past five years, £14.5m of which came from Horizon 2020.
The Northern Ireland Executive has also set a target of obtaining £145m from the fund.
The QUB document warns that a number of key programme for government (PfG) objectives will be compromised if its concerns are not addressed during the Brexit negotiating process.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond had previously said EU-funded projects signed before Brexit would be guaranteed by the Treasury after the UK leaves the EU.
