Henry Lovett
Policy and Public Affairs Officer, The Physiological Society

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.107.9

Members’ views on Brexit

Brexit could be called the elephant in the room, but it is dominating political attention even more than the average pachyderm. It is the elephant, bedecked in flashing lights and wailing klaxons, in the room. The Society recognises that Brexit could have significant effects on the life and work of scientists, and so sought to understand our Members’ opinions on the critical elements of any Brexit process. The 350 responses to our survey conducted earlier this year give a detailed picture of the issues that matter. Key points included:

• Fundamentally, physiologists voted heavily to remain in the EU (85%).
• Movement of people was seen as the most important single issue of the campaign (34%).
• Free movement for scientists and students (42% combined) is seen as a bigger key goal for Brexit negotiations than EU funding access (33%).
• That said, there are significant concerns about funding, with 61% of respondents thinking their research funding will be reduced by Brexit.
• Of those respondents whose opinion on the outlook for science after Brexit has changed since the result, 78% think it has got worse.
• Large numbers of respondents (approx. 20% across different issues) have already experienced problems related to international collaborators or EU staff, and even more expect problems in the future.

The science sector has been vocal in communicating its concerns around Brexit to policymakers. However, it seems our efforts must be redoubled, because 52% say there has not been enough activity from the sector in response to the leave vote.

View the full results of the survey as an infographic here:  bit.ly/brexitsciencesurvey

Higher Education & Research Bill becomes law in parliament’s last-minute rush

With the unexpected announcement by Theresa May of a snap election, a hard deadline was slammed down in front of all legislation going through parliament. If it could not be passed before dissolution for the campaigning period, it would cease to exist. This frantic period of trying to pass outstanding legislation is known as the ‘wash-up’. It tends to require significant compromises from the government in order to prevent Bills being blocked until it is too late. This was the case for the Higher Education and Research Bill, which had been due to have significant Lords’ amendments return to the Commons chamber.

The final form, now the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, mostly follows the government’s agenda as planned, with the formation of UK Research and Innovation as an umbrella body overseeing the Research Councils, the Office for Students replacing Hefce, and the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) rating universities’ teaching quality. However, significant concessions mean the TEF will not be linked to differential fee increases until at least 2021 (with across-the-board increases with inflation allowed instead). Additionally, the opening of the higher education market to new ‘alternative providers’ will now require additional quality assurance stages. With a few other small changes, the Bill was deemed acceptable by the Commons and Lords and has received royal assent.