Universities in UK weigh in on Brexit debate, saying it would lead to a funding “disaster”

A number of prominent academics and scientists in the UK have said that should Britain leave the EU in the planned Brexit referendum, it would cost tens of millions of pounds in funding for institutions in the UK and jeopardise their competitiveness on the world stage.

Mike Galsworthy, a visiting researcher at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and director of a prestigious group of scientists, told British media.

“The EU is one huge community of talent.  You can put together multinational, innovative, bespoke teams to tackle the really big global challenges. It’s not just the money; that could, maybe, be compensated. It’s that we’re on top of this massive engine, driving us all forward together… Hoping British science would do as well if we weren’t is like imagining Lionel Messi would be the player he was without the Barcelona first team playing all round him.”

On the other side of the debate are those who maintain that any funds lost by the EU subsidising would be offset by savings made by the ending of UK contributions to the EU.

Vice-chancellor of the University of Kent Dame Julia Goodfellow said that the university is “built around the European Union” and added that if Britain left the EU “It would seriously dent our capacity to compete, and we’d be toying with our young people’s future – they need, all of them and more than ever, an international outlook.”