ONE of Scotland's top universities has been accused of making a "completely inappropriate" intervention in the EU referendum after it encouraged its students and staff to consider the "many benefits" it gained from the UK's membership.
An email from the University of Edinburgh's General Council, sent out yesterday, asked students to consider an open letter signed by Principal Timothy O’Shea and the president of the student association before deciding how to vote next month.
Under the heading 'being in the EU brings benefits to the University of Edinburgh and its students,' it states that £45 million of annual EU research funding enabled it to attract 'the best minds from across Europe' to teach and to collaborate with other world-class institutions on pioneering research.
It argued that EU membership had helped it build a 'truly diverse student community' as well as tolerance and cultural awareness on its campus, while also citing the Erasmus programme, which provides funds for undergraduates to travel to European countries to study as part of their degree.
However, it failed to mention any of the potential benefits for universities and students that Leave campaigners believe could come as a result of quitting the EU, such as freeing up more places for UK undergraduates or the potential to avoid burdensome regulations.
The letter from the university stated that in the event of the UK leaving the EU "it may not be the case" that it would lose all of the benefits which came with membership. However, it said only continued participation in the union would guarantee the perks and in the event of a leave vote, "keeping them would depend upon very favourable results from a renegotiation process with very uncertain outcomes."
Tom Harris, the former Labour MP who is director of the Scottish Vote Leave campaign, said: "It is completely inappropriate for leaders of a university to attempt to influence their students in this way. Obviously, they do not have any faith at all in the judgement of their students to make up their own minds about something this important.
"They are completely wrong about university funding depending on a negotiation. None of the money coming to Scottish Universities is EU money - it is all UK money filtered back through the EU. If we leave, it would just go straight to universities. It seems they don't understand that, which is a pity."
The letter means the University of Edinburgh, thought to be the first higher education institution in Scotland to publicly back a Remain vote, has taken a different approach from its stance during the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, when it maintained a "strictly neutral position" on the question.
It became one of a series of universities to quit the CBI in the run-up to the vote, after the business lobby group registered with the Electoral Commission as a backer of the pro-Union campaign.
Then, the university said: "While the University of Edinburgh hosts debate from all sides in the discussion around Scottish independence, we have a strictly neutral position on the issue as an institution."
The university, which has 50,000 students and staff, is currently offering a free online course on the issue of the EU referendum. It claimed that it had not recommended which way people should vote, despite the general council asking that students "consider the contents as you make your own decision" in the email that directed them to the open letter.
A university spokesman said: "The letter, written jointly with the Edinburgh University Student Association, is intended to encourage students and alumni to engage with the debate and to vote in the referendum.
"It does not recommend which way people should vote. Indeed, we recognise that staff, students and alumni will hold different views on the matter.
"But as people consider the many issues that might inform how they vote, we think it important to highlight the demonstrable benefits that the UK’s membership of the EU brings to the university. This approach was approved by the University Court, its governing body, in June last year."
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