City View

Will Brexit stunt the development of the University of Kent? It’s an important question. As one of the major employers in the region, it offers careers and jobs to not only academics, researchers and teachers, but also to many other skill categories. Its large estate with a diversity of buildings, plus the need to cater for the accommodation and catering of many thousands of students, creates a big local payroll.

But will Brexit put a stop to its continuing international expansion? The University prides itself and, indeed, promotes itself as the ‘UK’S European University’. It is for this reason it recruits large numbers of students, both from the diverse countries of Europe as well Uk-based students.

By 2018 Kent University will have been located in continental Europe for 20 years. It started with a base of six students in a small rented room in Brussels to evolve into what is a major trans-europe educational operation with four key centres.

These are the Brussels School of International Relations, the Paris School of Arts and Culture, the Rome School of Classical and Renaissance Studies and the Athens Heritage Management programme.

Kent is the only UK university that has focused its international growth within Europe.

This is why such a high proportion of Kent University’s staff and students voted to Remain in the 2016 Referendum. The economic, cultural and educational benefits were self-evident. This is particularly for the students that have enrolled on the University’s degree programmes that require study at its partner European universities.

The ‘European’ success of Kent University, despite its institutional branding, remains a little-known secret in the local community. But it is something to be proud of and adds significantly to the international reputation of the City of Canterbury as a centre of scholarship and learning.

But will Brexit bring this success story to an end? As with everything else about Brexit, we simply don’t know. Having said that, the UK government has confirmed that students from the EU starting courses in the 2019/20 academic year will be eligible for ‘home fee status’ and therefore charged the same fees as Uk-based students. They will also be eligible to access financial support as is presently available.

In the short-term this is reassuring, but in the longer term what are the likely outcomes? Uncertainty always breeds caution and it is difficult to see how in the longer term there will not be a fall-off in EU students coming to Kent University.

A similar uncertainty applies to its research. Kent University scores high in its ability to attract private and public sector funding for its research programmes.

Much of this research is conducted with colleagues across Europe with funding provided by EU institutions. Unless special post-brexit deals are negotiated for universitybased research, this funding tap will be switched off. Areas that are likely to be affected include artificial intelligence, bio-technologies, robotics and other such areas that will be shaping the future world of ourselves and our children.

Of course, knowledge cuts across borders and collaborative research will continue with European colleagues, but as with automobile production, it helps if there are no national barriers that interrupt international and European supply chains. Brexit can only harm this research collaboration

But we are not there yet. Brexit has yet to happen and maybe it won’t. I suspect the majority of Kent University staff and students are still hoping for the latter.