Academics have spoken out about the risks that Brexit poses to university-business collaboration with the potential loss of research-dependent companies to other countries, reduced access to European funding and falling out of business networks being top concerns. Links between UK universities and European firms received a boost in early February after the announcement that Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant, was investing £115 million (Rs.966 crore) in a new research centre at Oxford University despite the prospect of Brexit.

However, reports have suggested that major companies important to the strength of some sectors of British industry, and others that have strong ties with universities, are reconsidering their presence in the country. According to industry insiders, among firms carefully considering their future is Airbus, which has a base in Filton, near Bristol, in the south-west aerospace cluster. Airbus is reportedly under pressure to move its operations to other European countries because of the UK leaving the European Union. Likewise, Nissan, the car-maker, said in January it will review the case for any future investment in the UK once the terms of departure from the EU become clear, despite private reassurances on trade from the government. 

David Docherty, chief executive of the National Centre for Universities and Business, says that it’s “completely uncharted territory” if major companies such as Airbus were to leave the UK but that universities are “thinking through the challenges” this would present. “No one is complacent about this. These are significant challenges and we clearly need this to be a top priority for the government,” says Docherty.

Nishan Canagarajah, Bristol’s pro vice chancellor for research and enterprise, told Times Higher Education he got the impression that there isn’t a “real risk” that Airbus will leave the UK. But he adds that it’s not yet clear exactly how their relationship will pan out in the future.“Clearly (Airbus) are concerned and they cannot say for definite what their plans are because that depends on what the government decides to do. So far, the impression we are getting is that they will continue to engage with us, but the level of activity is difficult to predict,” he says.

Jonathan Knight, pro vice chancellor for research at the University of Bath, says funding is “extremely important” and without it “research would suffer enormously”. But he says universities are not expecting all this research funding to be lost as they hope they will be able to establish other funding streams that can, at least to a certain extent, replace it. “However, believing that we can replace relationships that we may have in Europe with similar relationships elsewhere in the world is naive,” he adds.