The House of Commons Education Committee today released a report suggesting key measures that the government should employ to avoid a damaging Brexit for UK universities and their globally competitive status.

The report strongly emphasises the need to ensure an open possible migration policy for students and academics, as well as guaranteeing domestic funding for the sector.

Visa-free access is proposed for foreign students, in order to make a system “closely resembling freedom of movement” that is “open with few barriers”.

According to the report these overseas students should not be included in the net migration target. A ComRes poll of 2,000 British adults after the referendum in 2016 found that only 24 per cent thought international students were immigrants. 71 per cent said they would support policies to boost growth by increasing overseas students.

With regards to academics from the EU, the committee calls for a unilateral guarantee of the residency rights of current academic staff from the EU by the end of 2017 at the latest. They also recommend putting in place an easier, less bureaucratic visa system than the current Tier 2 (skilled worker) visa for foreign academics. According to the University and College Union over three-quarters (76 per cent) of EU academics at UK universities said that, due to the referendum result, they were now more likely to consider leaving UK higher education.

Whilst stressing the importance of attempting to continue to participate in funding schemes such as Erasmus+, which encourages and provides funding for academic exchanges across Europe, and Horizon 2020 (the largest EU Research and Innovation programme with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years) the committee says that domestic financial alternatives must be sought in case participation requests are denied. For Erasmus+ the report also suggests that it could be extended to include travel beyond Europe.

The committee also advises the government to create a new “regional growth fund” in order to replace and exceed the current European structural funding.

The Chair of the Education Committee, Neil Carmichael MP, stressed the importance of these recommendations in ensuring that UK universities remain internationally competitive: “Higher education in the UK is a world leader but Brexit risks damaging our international competitiveness and the long-term success of our universities.”

He urged to government to “act urgently to address the uncertainty over EU staff  and avert the risk of a damaging 'brain drain' of talent from our shores”.

Cambridge report finds Brexit economic fears ‘pessimistic rather than realistic’

Carmichael added that the UK’s ability to draw in talented people should be capitalised upon, as the UK is currently the second-most popular destination in the world for international students and the most popular destination for students from the European Economic Area wanting to study abroad. “As we leave the European Union we now have the opportunity to reform our immigration system to ensure we reap the full rewards of the ability of our universities to attract the brightest and best students and staff from across the world.

“A future administration should develop a bold cross-Government strategy to take advantage of the global reach of our universities and ensure that higher education plays an important role in upcoming trade deals with the rest of the world.”

A YouGov survey conducted earlier this year found that 90 per cent of academics think that Brexit will have a negative impact on higher education.

Voicing their concerns, in March Cambridge students, academics and members of the wider community put together 'The Cambridge Brexit Report'. The report is to be presented to the House of Commons