"What do we need to do to carry on attracting researchers from around the world?"
UK Higher Education International Unit/i-graduate conference, BERR Conference Centre, London
04 March 2009
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A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to attend Harvard Law School as a postgraduate. That was, in many ways, a life-changing experience for me. It opened my eyes to a new country, to new people and to different ways of approaching both higher education and the law to the ones I had experienced in Britain.
We all talk a lot about the benefits of international mobility – both inward and outward – for undergraduates. But less tends to be said about the importance of postgraduate mobility.
Although I’m admittedly prejudiced, having experienced it for myself, I think that’s a great pity. Postgraduate study abroad can be even more rewarding than undergraduate study. Postgraduate students tend to be older, with more experience of life and often a clearer idea of where they want life to take them. They have more education behind them and are, by definition, some of the brightest people of their generation. In short, they bring more to the party.
Yet postgraduate education in general and postgraduate mobility in particular remain in some senses poor relations of our university system. This is something about which John Denham spoke only last week. He stressed how important it is for our universities to be able to attract the world’s best postgraduate researchers and also ensure that research careers are attractive and attainable for home students.
And he also pointed out that we lack a coherent policy on postgraduates in this country, a fact that’s reflected in a funding system that can often look confusing, if not actually ramshackle.
The new framework for higher education that we’ll be publishing later this year should give us, for the first time, a clear strategy on postgraduate research. I can’t tell you what it will look like yet, but I can say that the need for us to continue to be a destination of choice for the best research talent from overseas must be a key part of it.
I have nothing but praise for the success our universities have achieved in that respect so far. Of almost a quarter of a million students from outside the EU who are currently studying here, more than half are postgraduates.
Added to that are more than 40,000 postgraduates from elsewhere in the EU.
International students comprise over 40 per cent of all our research postgraduates, more than in any other country I could name. Although overall numbers are much larger in the USA, only a third of research students there are from other countries.
In some subject areas, the effect of overseas recruitment is even more pronounced. In my own field, the law, almost 60 per cent of postgraduate researchers in Britain come from abroad. Something similar is true of other subjects too, including engineering, IT and maths
Along with, I hope, the whole sector, I welcome them and the benefits they bring.
They are helping to augment our universities’ already-impressive impressive research reputation.
They are providing a valuable international dimension to our campuses.
They are helping to support the continued availability of a wide variety of courses, where demand from home students is low.
Moreover, their presence, the money that they spend while they are here, provides an important stimulus to local economies, especially in difficult times like these.
UUK’s own research has shown that, in 2001, total expenditure by overseas students in Britain, of whom postgraduates were a large component, was worth over £1.5 billion and supported nearly 22,000 jobs.
The skills overseas researchers acquire here can also benefit our economy directly. The evidence is that around 40 per cent of postgraduate researchers from overseas want to stay in the UK to work, temporarily or permanently, after they complete their studies.
So what do we need to do to carry on attracting researchers from around the world?
Well, I’d like to highlight a number of factors that would help.
The first is to continue to work to improve the learning experience that international undergraduates have while they’re here. No fewer than a third of the overseas research students here had already studied in the UK before choosing to do their research here. And studies have shown that their previous experience of British university teaching is often a key influence in their choice.
We know, too, that readily-available information on what’s available here, especially through the web, is also important. I’m not talking about giving prospective research students the hard sell, but merely helping them to make the right decisions. In that context, I particularly welcome the work that the sector has been doing with UCAS to improve both access to information and applications procedures.
The third thing I’d highlight is perhaps the least important in terms of overall numbers, and that’s the financial support for overseas postgraduates available from scholarship programmes.
It’s true that most overseas researchers support themselves. But for some, notably from the developing world, scholarships are what allow them to come here. And there are a range available, many of which are supported by the Government.
I’m thinking here not only of the Chevening programme, but also of things like the Dorothy Hodgkin Studentships and the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, in which my own Department is closely involved.
For those who already have doctorates, we have the Newton International Fellowships. Overseen by the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society they provide researchers with funding so they can work for two years with a UK research institution, establishing long- term international collaborations in the fields of humanities, engineering, natural and social sciences.
The final factor is not the most comfortable one to mention.
There are a lot of scare stories around about what impact the new points-based immigration system will have on universities’ ability to recruit both undergraduates and postgraduates from overseas.
So let me say this for the record. The new migration system is designed to be clearer and simpler for those we want to come to the UK such as students whilst being robust against abuse.
In implementing the system, the government has been responsive to the needs of the HE sector. For example we have simplified the visa arrangements for sponsored researchers and only last week we announced that visas would be awarded for the full length of students' courses.
But universities have responsibilities too. It can only be right that sponsors are responsible for those migrants they bring into the country and this must include the reporting of enrolment, non- attendance and discontinuation of courses by students.
However, I'm aware of the additional burdens that this may place on the higher education sector and that is why it will not be introduced until Autumn of this year in the line of the implementation plans agreed with the education sector through the Joint Education Taskforce.
Our universities and colleges are able to offer an excellent education to international students and together with the additional benefits and protections that the points-based system offers the UK remains an attractive destination for international students.
I want to end by mentioning the work that Drummond Bone has been doing on the internationalisation of higher education.
This reaches the interesting conclusion that future development will see more universities entering into collaborative partnerships with overseas universities to provide education for students, research and knowledge transfer through a range of delivery models.
Such partnerships would certainly augment the benefits that we already derive from the physical mobility of researchers.
In fact, research partnerships are already being formed, some with Government support. Through the Prime Minister’s Initiative on international education, we have funded 95 research co-operation projects to develop high-quality research networks between UK institutions and other countries. We have also provided 47 development grants to support international strategic partnerships; and supported research co-operation with the Gulf States specifically.
These are all issues on which there will be more to say as our new higher education framework is developed.
Thank you for listening. Enjoy the rest of the day.
