Why Brexit Matters for the Humanities and Social Sciences

AUTUMN 2017 BRITISH ACADEMY REVIEW

Why Brexit matters for the humanities and social sciences

Ash Amin and Philip Lewis explain the issues – and what the British Academy advocates

A fundamental mission of the British states, and the UK requires this to retain its excellence. Academy is to deliver global leadership Sixty per cent of the UK’s internationally co-authored for the humanities and social sciences, research papers are with EU partners. Seven of the UK’s and support the global republic of let- top 10 – and 13 of our top 20 – most collaborated with ters. The Academy was established over nations are other EU member states. As Colin Crouch a century ago for the express purpose illuminates in his article (page 20), knowledge knows no of ensuring that UK academic engage- boundaries, and the particular dense network the EU Professor Ash Amin is ment in what were then referred to as provides is of exceptional value and, if lost, it would not Head of Geography the ‘philosophico-historical sciences’ was be offset elsewhere. EU research collaboration has also at the University of represented in international forums – helped develop UK leadership in a number of fields, such Cambridge. He was particularly, at that time, in Europe. as the European Social Survey headquartered at City elected a Fellow of Many things have changed since the University London which Ian Diamond refers to in this the British Academy in 2007, and is the Academy’s foundation, but our profound issue (page 14). British Academy’s commitment to international endeavour, British Academy engagement Foreign Secretary. to European co-operation, to furthering international and European research Over many years prior to the referendum, the British collaboration, international relations Academy has diligently built up a track record of working and to pursuing evidence-based inter- with sister European academies to inform and influence national policy-making remain essential EU research and innovation Framework Programmes, to our raison d’être. This always will be under a series of British Academy Foreign Secretaries, the case, because exchange, discussion, including Duncan Gallie and Helen Wallace, as well as debate, co-operation and partnership John Bell, the Academy’s Europe Working Group Chair. in the humanities and social sciences For example, through the All European Academies and are by their very essence collaborative, our chairmanship of its Social Sciences & Humanities curiosity-seeking enterprises that flow Working Group, when ‘Horizon 2020’ was being devel- wherever the mind takes you. oped we brought Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn to Philip Lewis is Head of The referendum outcome in June the Academy, where she announced that a sixth societal International Research 2016 is undoubtedly a challenge for the challenge focused strongly on the humanities and and Policy at the humanities and social sciences. UK re- social sciences would be put forward in Horizon 2020 British Academy. search excellence draws on collaboration in order to respond to our concerns at their absence in 1 with colleagues in other EU member initial proposals.

1. The text of Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s address at the British Academy on 10 November 2011, on ‘The future of social sciences and humanities in Horizon 2020’, can be read in British Academy Review, 19 (January 2012), 20–23.

17 EUROPEAN RESEARCH COLLABORATION AND FUNDING

This expertise and ex- Our top priority for the negotiations is to ensure that perience is essential now as the excellence and value of UK-based research, researchers the British Academy navi- and students in the humanities and social sciences are gates the post-referendum recognised and supported in the various agreements that landscape. John Bell will be required during and after the Article 50 process. chairs the All European The UK is currently a world-leading research player in Academies’ Framework the humanities and social sciences. These disciplines Programme 9 Working are vital for our future; and the academic communities Group, which just this working in these disciplines deserve the government’s summer set out a vision for recognition and support. The government should bear the next EU research and in mind the contribution of the humanities and social innovation programme in sciences in an economy that is more than three-quarters 2 2021. The Academy in- services-, professions- and crafts-oriented. tends to play as full as part as it is able to do so in the Research years ahead, working with UK-based researchers in the humanities and social counterparts elsewhere in sciences, who include many colleagues from other EU the EU and the UK, to countries and further afield, have been exceptionally suc- continue to raise the im- cessful in competitive EU research programmes which portance of EU research have no current counterparts here in the UK. These re- In May 2017, the British Academy collaboration and mobility searchers have won more than 33 per cent of all funding published a set of essays on European Union and Disunion: Reflections on in the humanities and so- in the humanities and social sciences granted by the European Identity, edited by Ash Amin cial sciences. European Research Council (ERC) – the flagship Eu- and Philip Lewis. More on this project, The British Academy, ropean fundamental research funder. In comparison, the which the British Academy is pursuing of course, must also attend life sciences and physical sciences have won less than with sister European academies, can be found via www.britishacademy.ac.uk/ to the challenges that the 20 per cent. This record shows that the humanities and european-union-and-disunion UK’s withdrawal from the social sciences are an area of strength for the UK. ERC EU poses for the human- funding won by UK-based researchers in the humanities and social sciences ities and social sciences is equivalent to 24 per cent of – for our research collaboration, for researcher mobility, the average combined budgets of the UK’s Economic and for the excellent staff and students from all nations and Social Research Council and the Arts and Human- who come to and already study and work in our cosmo- ities Research Council. As Simon Goldhill (page 22), politan universities. The Academy has been advocating Simon Keay (page 28) and Rachel Griffith (page 32) that the result of the referendum puts at risk the UK’s illustrate in different ways, the fundamental research world-leading research excellence in the humanities and funding of the ERC has proven transformational to 3 social sciences. Scholarship and research flourish in UK-based researchers in building cross-disciplinary long-term stable and interconnected frameworks that and cross-national research teams in a way that is not support people, collaboration, resources and regulation. currently replicable in the UK. Its loss would be deeply EU membership has provided such frameworks for the problematic for the continued success for the humanities humanities and social sciences in the UK, based on: and social sciences in the UK, and the British Academy has called for the UK’s full participation to be sustained. • our ability to attract an international talent pool More broadly, 13 out of the top 15 disciplines with through our open labour market; the highest amount of funding from ‘EU government • working and competing with the best in the EU; bodies’ as a total proportion of that discipline’s funding • having a single regulatory framework that we have are in the arts, humanities and social sciences. This indi- helped shape in the EU; and cates the success of these disciplines in winning diverse 4 • winning increasing EU funding – through models sources of internationally competitive funding. It is vital of funding not available in the UK. that comparable funding with comparable characteris-

2. ‘Developing a Vision for Framework Programme 9: A Position Paper by the ALLEA Working Group Framework Programme 9’ (All European Academies, July 2017).

3. A collection of the Academy’s statements and submissions on EU research in recent months can be found via www.britishacademy.ac.uk/ eu-statements

4. More on EU research funding can be found in The role of EU funding in UK research and innovation, a report commissioned by the Academy of Medical Sciences, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society (Technopolis, 10 May 2017). An appendix includes case studies on archaeology and the European Social Survey.

18 AUTUMN 2017 BRITISH ACADEMY REVIEW

tics be continued, in order to sustain the world-leading October 2017 that have focused on the land border, the role of the UK’s researchers in the humanities and social Common Travel Area, and the Good Friday Agreement 6 sciences. Simon Keay clearly exemplifies the concerns and rights. The British Academy has also focused at- of those in archaeology about any disruption to EU tention on the European Convention on Human Rights, research funding and the forms of such funding with publishing in 2016 a series of papers on the implications their inherent collaborative nature and mobility – in of any change in the UK’s relationship with that Con- which respect Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions have vention for the devolved nations and the UK’s interna- 7 been especially important – and in which the Academy tional obligations. has pressed for continued full UK participation. New report Mobility The British Academy has frequently been making the 5 As regards mobility, the humanities and social sciences case for the humanities and social sciences in public and attract a broad range of academics and students inter- in private. We have just set out in a new report what is nationally, including from the EU. Six out of the top 10 at stake for the humanities and social sciences as the UK disciplines with the highest proportions of non-UK EU withdraws from the EU in a more fulsome way than we 8 staff are in the humanities and social sciences. Six out of can do here. To be clear, there is action required by the the top seven disciplines with the highest proportion of government still, and we have set non-UK EU undergraduates are in the humanities and out a series of priorities for the

social sciences as well. These figures indicate the impor- governmentThe British Academy is theto UK’s independentachieve. national If such academy representing the humanities and social sciences. For over a century it has supported and celebrated the Brexit means…? tance of EU nationals to the humanities and the social actionbest in UKis and internationalnot researchforthcoming, and helped connect the the expertise of those working in these disciplines with the wider public. The British Academy's sciences in the UK; they show how embedded this di- reputation and excellence of the The Academy supports innovative research and outstanding Priorities for the Humanities verse academic workforce and student body is in the UK; humanitiespeople, influences policy and and seeks to raisesocial the level of publicsciences understanding of some of the biggest issues of our time, and Social Sciences in the through policy reports, publications and public events.

and they demonstrate the current attractiveness of the in theThe Academy UK represents theas UK’s researcha world-leading excellence Current Negotiations worldwide in a fast changing global environment. humanities and social sciences to researchers and stu- researchIt promotes UK researchenvironment, in international arenas, fosters destina- a global approach across UK research, and provides dents from the EU. Disruption to this attractiveness is tionleadership of in developingchoice global links for and expertise. talented re- a threat to the continued excellence of the UK in these searchers, and a top research col- disciplines, as competitor countries look to attract the laborator will be weakened. world-leading academics, and their next generation, cur- We urge the government THE BRITISH ACADEMY 10 –11 Carlton House Terrace rently based in, or considering coming to, the UK. to maintainLondon SW1Y 5AH and build the UK’s +44 (0)20 7969 5200 Providing a right to remain indefinitely and contin- researchRegistered Charity: collaboration Number 233176 in the hu- britishacademy.ac.uk

uation of the current rights of staff and their dependants manities@britac_news and social sciences with TheBritishAcademy employed in the UK at the time of UK withdrawal are our closestbritacﬁlm partners in Europe, central to preserve the competitive position of UK hu- such as through world-leading manities and social sciences. In particular it is necessary mechanisms like the European to safeguard the concerns of staff, students and their de- Research Council, which will pendants on the island of Ireland given the character- require the closest achievable association to current and istics of the border. Nearly a quarter (24.6 per cent) of future EU Framework Programmes. We look for cer- staff at Northern Ireland higher education institutions tainty and long-term stability from the government to are non-UK EU nationals (the highest proportion any- ensure the foundational frameworks of collaboration, where in the UK), and they play a vital part in sustaining people, resources and regulation for the excellence of the higher education and research there, as Anne Fuchs humanities and social sciences can be sustained. Without describes in her article (page 25). The British Academy these guarantees, the contribution of the humanities and has worked very closely with the Royal Irish Academy social sciences to the UK’s economic competitiveness, both before and after the referendum on a series of activ- social well-being, and research creativity will be placed ities, including an initial series of briefings published in at risk.

5. More on international mobility can be found in The role of international collaboration and mobility in research: Findings from a qualitative and quantitative study with Fellows and grant recipients of the Royal Society, British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Medical Sciences (March 2017).

6. Four Royal Irish Academy-British Academy Brexit Briefings have been published in October 2017: Mary E. Daly, ‘Brexit and the Irish Border: Historical Context’; Gordon Anthony, ‘Brexit and the Irish Border: Legal and Political Questions’; Imelda Maher, ‘The Common Travel Area: More Than Just Travel’; Chris McCrudden, ‘The Good Friday Agreement, Brexit, and Rights’.

7. Colin Harvey, Northern Ireland and a Bill of Rights for the United Kingdom; Christine Bell, Scotland and the British Bill of Rights Proposals; Thomas Glyn Watkin, Human Rights from the Perspective of Devolution in Wales; Tobias Lock, Human Rights and the UK’s International Human Rights Obligations.

8. Brexit means …? The British Academy’s Priorities for the Humanities and Social Sciences in the Current Negotiations (British Academy,