Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the financial effect on university research capacity of the potential reduction in international students studying in the UK in 2020-21.
The Government fully recognise the implications for financial sustainability of university research from potential decline in income from international students, and other sources. BEIS officials are working with colleagues in Department for Education, Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation, and with the university sector, to understand and assess the potential scale of the impacts, taking account of range of actions to encourage continued recruitment of international students, and to open up higher education institutions from September.
On June 27th we announced a support?package to sustain research capacity and capability which might otherwise be impacted. From this autumn, UK universities will be able to access a government funded package of long-term, low interest loans, supplemented by a small amount of grant, covering up to 80% of the university’s income losses from international students for the academic year 20/21, up to the value of their non-publicly funded research activity. This will help to protect research jobs, capability and ground-breaking research.