Brexit - Message to staff from the VC

Dear colleagues,

As we approach the end of the year, I think we had all hoped we would have more certainty about the future relationship the UK will have with the European Union.

I know that this remains a very unsettling time, especially for staff and students who are directly affected or who have family in Europe. Our response needs to be twofold: to give all the support we can to those directly affected by Brexit; and to strengthen our own determination to remain a welcoming, inclusive, international community, and one that extends these values to build better relationships, mobility and collaborative partnerships with colleagues and institutions in the EU and beyond.

Current situation

This deep uncertainty surrounding the negotiations has meant that we have been planning and preparing for a number of potential scenarios. 

• As you will know one possible scenario is that we emerge into 2021 without an overarching deal on the future UK/EU relationship. 

• But even if a deal is agreed, there is potential for at least short-term disruption and challenges, for example with travel logistics, procurement and supply chain challenges both for everyday goods, but also the specialist equipment and supplies we use, and the potential for cross-border disruption of financial transactions and data sharing. In response to this uncertainty we have planned a range of actions that we hope will, where possible, mitigate against that disruption. 

• Our most important priority remains supporting our staff, postgraduate researchers and students. We have been directly advising those affected with information and specific action required, such as identifying the risks arising from changes to visa regimes and seeking to alleviate concerns about the operation of the settled status scheme. You can read more about this advice on our EU departure pages.

The longer-term consequences of Brexit are also a real concern. Our level of access, if any, to Horizon (and other EU) research and postgraduate training funding and Erasmus has not been resolved. There are three potential outcomes in respect of research and mobility: 

• That an agreement to continue to participate - and contribute funding - to Horizon and Erasmus will be included in an overarching UK/EU deal; 
• That any agreement may be part of a sector specific follow-on agreement that may take time to negotiate; 
• That the UK government does not agree terms for access to Horizon and other EU research funding streams, or the Erasmus scheme, and seeks to create its own, alternative schemes. While some preparatory work has been done on these alternatives, they would likely take some considerable time to define fully and implement. 

None of this is at all ideal. We will continue to work with Universities UK and the Russell Group to seek clarity and push for the best possible future arrangements that facilitate research collaboration and funding, maintain research and career development opportunities for postgraduate and early career researchers, and give our students the many advantages that mobility programmes such as Erasmus offer. 

Future updates

The nature of these kinds of negotiations means the situation may unfold rapidly in the run up to 31 December. 

We will be keeping a close eye on the negotiations, working through what the outcomes mean for York and the wider HE sector, and will provide further updates in the early New Year, including any further UUK or Russell Group briefings. 

For now, let me reassure you that we are doing all we can to prepare for any short and medium-term impacts. 

And again, the most important factor in all of this is that our commitment to supporting staff, postgraduate researchers and students remains undiminished. 

I want particularly to thank colleagues in our EU Staff Forum who have been enormously helpful in providing insights into the key challenges they are facing. 

Our commitment to internationalism

Whatever the final arrangements turn out to be, we will leave the legal framework of the European Union at the turn of the New Year. 

That changes nothing in our commitment to internationalism: the belief that collaboration across national borders, and bringing students and staff together from different countries, is a force for public good. 

Those interactions spark new knowledge and carry it across borders for the general benefit of all our societies. So we will continue to develop and deepen our existing educational and research partnerships across the EU, in particular our strategic alliances with Maastricht University and CITY College in Thessaloniki. We will continue to build research, teaching and mobility partnerships across the whole of Europe and, indeed, further afield. And we will continue to recruit talented staff and students wherever they hail from.

So, as we look forward to a well-earned break over the festive period, I hope you will join me in embracing 2021 as a year in which to reinforce our commitment to internationalism. We may now need to develop new ways of demonstrating that commitment and delivering its benefits. But, as a University founded on the belief that we should nurture ‘citizens of the world’, I have no doubt that we will.