Prediction of an academic ‘Brexodus’ has not come true

FEARS of an academic “Brexodus” have been exposed as myth after figures revealed the numbers arriving have increased in the past year.

A Freedom of Information survey by The Spectator magazine found that 25 per cent more academics arrived in the UK than went home to Europe.

In all, 6,801 academics came from other EU countries to work in British universities in 2017, compared with 5,416 EU staff who left.

The study of 116 out of 130 universities found that two thirds – 75 institutions – were “net gainers”, 34 saw a net loss and seven had no overall change.

Among larger universities, including Edinburgh and LSE, the trend is more marked: the number arriving last year was nearly two-thirds higher than the number leaving.

Robert Tombs, a professor of French history at St John’s College, Cambridge, said: “The Leave decision and our limping progress out of the EU are emotionally troubling to many academics. But ‘Brexodus’, though much heralded, seems not to be happening.”

Last November the British Academy warned that the university sector could be under threat due to changes to immigration rules after Brexit.

In May 2016, Lord Patten of Barnes, the Chancellor of Oxford University – which chose not to supply figures for the FOI survey – warned that the university would suffer after Brexit.

Cambridge University disclosed that 509 staff from EU countries joined in 2017 – outstripping the 382 who left.