Leaving EU would harm status of British universities - lobby group

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/07/27/uk-britain-eu-universities-idUKKCN0Q10QU20150727

Thus opines one Julia Goodfellow EU bumlicker frst class

"Brexit" would harm international academic collaboration, Julia Goodfellow, president-elect of Universities UK, is due to say later today at the launch of a university-led campaign attended by pro-EU lawmakers.

"The case for staying in Europe is about ensuring the future prosperity of the UK," she will say.

"It's about maximising the chances of new discoveries that enhance the society in which we live, it's about the UK's standing in the world, it's about British jobs and it's about opportunities for British people now and in the future."

As a former University lecturer I can say with authority this is total bollocks.

Our EU membership is about providing and financing EU students at the best British Universities denying places to our own children and supporting EU students with money we will never get back.

Ah say the Europhiles but our students can go and study at EU institutions. True indeed except with two caveats. They will have to pay for themselves and attend lectures in Portugese, Serbo Croat or whatever.

All EU students learn English from an early age and all major text books are written in English translations. Our home based students would have to master many languages to compete.

All ready Oxford is taking more and more mid Europeans and less and less Geordies. We are the EU's biggest suckers.

Our universities love the EU as they dole out (return) huge amounts of cash as 'research' grants to greedy academics but all such grants are conditional on multi country projects so you need partners in at least 3 other EU countries to get the money. Nice one by the EU bribing us with our own money and providing a nice subsidy to EU airlines.

Another one on the list of the great and the good UK institutions in the EU's pocket

PS
J Good fellow got a pay rise of 19% last year taking her salary as VC Kent to £265000 pa more than call me Dave. No wonde she supports the status quo!

Douglas Carswell has writen the very good answer to Goodfellow I reproduce below. Note she is financed by a organisation that has grown fat on EU money

27JUL 2015

UNIVERSITIES UK IS WRONG TO SAY UK SHOULD STAY IN EU AT ALL COSTS

This morning, Universities UK has launched a highly political campaign, calling for Britain to remain in the EU at all costs, even before the terms of membership  the UK will be voting on in an EU referendum are made clear. A number of claims by the group do no stand up to scrutiny though. The group is seeking to portray a vote to leave an unreformed EU as damaging for university funding and co-operation, despite this not being the case. Furthermore, as Change, or go points out, the amount of EU funding for Universities is  dwarfed by the amount we pay into the EU, and is not contingent on membership:

Claim: UK universities accessed over £870 million in research funding in 2013 alone.
Response: The main system for channelling funding, Horizon 2020, includes a number of “associated countries” including: Iceland, Norway, Turkey and Israel. The UK does not need to be an EU member to continue to cooperate with Horizon 2020.

Claim: The Erasmus programme 207,546 students and 21,133 staff from the UK have benefited from it.
Response: Erasmus does not require EU membership. Erasmus+ is not limited to just EU states, or even just to EEA countries. The programme covers 32 primary countries – the EU, the EEA, Turkey, and even Macedonia. Nearly every country in the world has opted in to some elements of the Erasmus+ package.

Claim: The UK’s research base has been strengthened by over 6,000 individual researchers coming to UK universities by the EU’s Marie Curie scheme.
Response: A country does not need to be in the EU to benefit from the Marie Curie scheme. According to the Commission, the eligible host institutions for Marie Curie are organisations active in research or researcher training located in EU Member States or “Associated States.”

Claim: Free movement of staff and students allows UK universities to access to talent from across Europe.
Response: Leaving the EU need not compromise the free movement of staff and students. A number of countries, including Norway and Switzerland, have free movement agreements with the EU. However, were Britain to opt out of free movement, the reduction in migratory pressures means that the UK could reverse the decision by the Home Office to scrap the Tier 1 post-study work visa (a decision which, according to the Institute of Directors and James Dyson, has made Britain less attractive to students).

Claim: Nearly half of UK academic papers have an international author
Response: Universities UK admits that “we have links all around the globe.” Our ability to work with countries beyond the EU would not be harmed by leaving the EU.

These arguments are being put forward by the the President-elect of Universities UK, Dame Julia Goodfellow, who is hardly a neutral figure in this debate. She is is Board Member of the extremely pro-EU campaigners British Influence, and she contributed to a 2003 paper that stated “There is no going back from the euro” and claimed that the euro was “an irreversible engine for heightened competitiveness”

Meanwhile, the UK enjoys the highest university standards in Europe, and is outmatched globally only by the United States. The UK Government itself has raised concern about the problems the EU has created in the educational sector in its review of the Balance of Competences:

“The UK Government does not believe that the EU approach to education policy coordination sufficiently recognises the variety and variation of experience and expertise in member states.”

It also states: “Even among what might be considered its natural audience, the inconsistent Ministerial attendance from all member states at meetings of the EducationCouncil or the Youth Council, as well as the level of attendance at Director General meetings, High Level Group meetings and meetings of thematic groups, suggest – anecdotally, at least – a bureaucracy and a system with little traction.”

Outside of an unreformed  EU, the UK would still be capable of cooperating with other universities through a number of key organisations, including:

• The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This is the leading organisation for comparative education indicators, analysis and trends, notably through its PISA and Education at a Glance (EAG) programmes. OECD members are not limited to the EU, but include Korea, Australia, Chile and Israel
• The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA)
• United Nations agencies, including UNESCO, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and UNICEF

Even if all these schemes didn’t exist, as home to numerous pre-eminent educational establishments, Britain will remain a key education destination of choice for students across the EU and around the world.

TAGS > DAME JULIA GOODFELLOW, ERASMUS, EU, HORIZON 2020, UNIVERSITIES UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aITzCyYGnJg&feature=youtu.be

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