To the many achievements of the University of Edinburgh must be added its brilliance in extracting funds from Brussels.

According to European Union figures, Edinburgh was comfortably the biggest recipient of money from the FP7 programme (the Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development), drawing down €44 million (£36.7m) from the fund for projects worth €57.7m (£47.3m).

This is comfortably ahead of the No 2 spot (University College London at €40m) and Oxford and Cambridge (seventh and eighth respectively).

How do other Scottish universities do in mainlining this useful €50 billion stream of funding? Glasgow is the 16th biggest recipient at €13m, Heriot-Watt is 24th at €9.8m, Dundee is 32nd at €6.6m and St Andrews is at 48 with €3.4m.

To be eligible, FP7 projects must show "European added value", including transnational research projects, and be shown to strengthen the scientific and technological base and commutativity of European industry "while promoting research that supports EU policies". We guarantee these grants will not feature in Ukip's election materials.