Submission to the Government's Balance of Competences review - Education

30 June 2014

There are significant benefits to the UK of EU action in some areas of education and training. However, these actions are advantageous because they are in addition to (rather than instead of) national government action: the key to success is that EU programmes should complement national policies.

Russell Group universities are highly international and have a large body of students (over 52,000) and staff (over 18,500) from other EU countries. Nearly half of all students participating in the Erasmus programme in 2012/13 were from Russell Group universities and Russell Group institutions hosted 63% of the UK’s Marie Curie researchers under Framework Programme 7.

The major challenge for the UK is in sustaining and improving cooperation across Europe in mutually beneficial areas whilst maintaining our world-class universities and protecting their autonomy.

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