I think the "one thing that's not like the others" in the article are the crazy-high rankings of Britain's top schools. Universities are a bit of a self-perpetuating reputation scheme, and the UK has been punching well above its weight in that department.
Having worked with all Europeans, I can't say that I found the British to be skill or preparation outliers. Maybe just a little above the mean? Speaking English natively helps too.
That said, the UK was probably on its way to becoming the EU's tech hub, much to the chagrin of the French and Germans. Then 2016 happened.
Furthermore, the planetary economy has transformed itself, and has been consolidating around competitive advantage. Much of tech has massive scale economies. There's probably not enough 21st-century Britain to make it alone the way it used to in the 19th century. Its competitive advantage probably does not involve large-scale tech.
If you're a world-class tech graduate facing these realities, maybe you don't want to get marooned on an island.
>> are the crazy-high rankings of Britain's top schools
The problem(in general) with University rankings is that the ranking is done almost entirely on the number of publications.....in English. So it's no wonder that British universities take a lot of the top spots. I've had these conversations many many many times with people - it's not like the Universities of Warsaw or Milan or Prague are not as good as Oxford - but that's not what you're going to see in rankings because a lot of research doesn't get published in English, so somehow it doesn't "count".
As a completely separate point - British universities got absolutely decimated by Brexit in ways that are not immediately apparent, but I work with couple professors at Russel Group universities and they all say the same thing - the number of PhD and research positions applicants from the EU has gone from hundreds a year to literally a handful a year. Some of those were replaced by British applicants or non-EU applicants, but the number of people who want to be researchers in Britan and further the scientific fields has dropped drastically.
I have several friends that are 30+ years as lecturers, also at Russell Group universities, and their view is very different to yours. They're generally of the opinion that UK universities have now turned into visa-mills and poorly run money machines, with lots of students signing up, but far fewer turning up in person and completing the courses.
Essentially the Blair-era of 'expand the universities' (and cynically get the 18-21 yr olds out of the unemployment figures) has lowered standards across the board. They don't, however, see anything like the "drastic" drop in numbers you report.
As an employer in finance, I've seen our criteria in the early 90s go from a first or 2:1 from anywhere, to a first from Oxford/Cambridge/Bristol/Durham/Imperial only, and now our criteria is an MSc from a list, or a PhD from anywhere. Yes, a PhD. And we still get dozens of applicants for a single job.
> British universities got absolutely decimated by Brexit
It's likely heading for another cliff dive, as the UK government is constricting the supply of student visas (because immigration), and application numbers are nosediving.
I got a great education in the UK and think back on it very fondly, but these days I'd advise people to apply to the US instead. It might even be cheaper.
And also don't forget the student fees for international students have absolutely exploded. 10 years ago the fees for international students were £6k/year, now it's £30k/year. Like honestly, who can afford this, when you can study at most other EU universities completely free(or even get a stipend in fact).
>>as they UK government is constricting the supply of student visas (because immigration)
Can't stop myself thinking that it's probably at least partially because of scaremongering you see in newspapers about those lazy immigrants who pretend to be students but are actually coming to work here. Which ok, I'm sure is happening in places, but it can't be even remotely significant on any kind of scale, but the reaction now is to even further constraint our own supply of well educated people, it's madness.
It's extraordinary how determined the current UK government is to destroy its university sector. The economic and geopolitical advantages of having one of the world's best university systems are not only incalculable but also blindingly obvious. And yet apparently not too obvious to be missed by the caliber of person that currently makes up the cabinet.
There has been a precipitous drop in overseas university applications for the coming academic year. It was reported today that Cameron has warned Sunak that his visa reforms are likely to lead to university closures. The cabinet is aware of the problem but I don't think there is any limit to the damage Sunak is prepared to do when he believes it will improve Tory election chances.
We’re at 170 or so universities up from 90 or so pre-2000. I’m struggling to see the value in those universities and why the tax payer should be funding almost twice as many. Any other failing business would be allowed to go bankrupt and be wound up. Does any other country have such a massive increase in universities?
The new universities provide exactly the same kind of value that the old ones do, so I'm not sure why it's difficult to see what that value is (unless you just think universities in general are pointless). Countries should invest heavily in their comparative strengths. By any measure the UK punches hugely above its weight in global higher education. It's short-sighted beyond belief to throw that advantage away simply because some universities (a minority in fact) do not turn a profit in the simplistic sense that, say, a lemonade stand does. Moreover, if it is money you are worried about, then the measure that Sunak is proposing will only exacerbate the problem by cutting off a major source of funding.
The newer universities are, of course, not as good on average as the older ones. However, it takes decades, or centuries even, to build a world-class university. It would be a terrible mistake to close down these newer institutions simply because they have not somehow become competitors to the Russell Group or the Ivy League overnight. The short term cost saving (if there even is one) would amount to pennies in comparison to the terrible economic and social consequences to be passed on to future generations. But what hope is there of the current cabinet thinking further than the next few months?
> a lot of research doesn't get published in English, so somehow it doesn't "count".
As it shouldn't. I am from a non-English speaking country myself, and I cannot begin to tell you how senseless it is to cling to native languages for any serious work. It's creating an arbitrary barrier to collaboration just for pride or convenience. English is the lingua-franca (lol) of the world, just embrace it and stop being proud of your weird language that you're stuck with because of random traditions and geography.
Imagine Prague universities would have top AI research published in Czech, would that actually help the scientific community? My bet is: not until someone goes and translates it to English, is it going to be read by anybody outside of the country, whether that person is native English or not.
In this thread there's a lot of talk of the EU losing competitiveness because it is a fragmented market between a group of isolationist countries, opinions like these are a big part of that. Stop putting English second place, this is a global world now, English is the language of the global world, learn it, use it, or lose.
It's not about pride - it's about the reality of the fact that most academics do not have a sufficient command of English to write research papers in that language. We can lament this fact if you wish, but somehow it seems more important to me that a mathematics or chemistry researcher is good at those categories and not necessarily at writing in English. Again, you can think this is their loss - and maybe it is, but my general point is that the quality of their research isn't any worse just because it isn't done in English.
The obvious solution to this is translation - but I'm sure you can see why not every research paper is translated, the cost of doing so would have to be carried by someone so only some papers are translated, which means that by default English-speaking universities are getting a better position in rankings because all of their research counts, no matter how bad or good it is.
>>Imagine Prague universities would have top AI research published in Czech, would that actually help the scientific community?
Well it's a bit of a catch 22 - if it was top AI research, then university of Prague would pay to have it translated and then yes it would help.
> the fact that most academics do not have a sufficient command of English to write research papers in that language.
Because the academics are not taught in English, which they should be, because they will need to command English sufficiently if they wish to participate in the global science community. Again, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
> the quality of their research isn't any worse just because it isn't done in English
No but the quality of their work as a researcher is, because communication and collaboration is a part of research.
> The obvious solution to this is translation
No its not, because translation is exactly the meaningless overhead I was talking about. It does not aid in collaboration because its still a one-way process, and its lossy.
If only these were done on publications, it would be a lot more accurate.
English is the lingua franca of science, like it used to be german, because ideas build on each other so you need to be able to communicate your ideas to others.
Having your native language be the lingua franca is helpful, but many of these universities are filled with foreigners who have learnt English. They could have stayed in their native countries, but they chose not to.
The UK is Europe's tech hub at this point (not the EU's), assuming by tech we mean the sort of tech discussed in the article. As the article notes, the VC ecosystem in the UK does actually exist and is spinning up, whereas in most of Europe it hardly exists.
If you want something a bit more objective than the article's assertions, there is an attempt to calculate a ranking here:
The Global Startup Ecosystem Index compares the countries of Europe (not EU) and the UK is at the top with a massive lead. It has a total score of 127 vs 57 for the second place (France).
Well, I suspect a lot of the UK's startup stats are still connected to its universities. The page you linked shows London with a massive index lead over the EU. When you scroll down to the lists of notable companies, only ~10% of them are UK-based. The contrast of London to the rest of Britain is also much starker than for some other EU hubs.
It's questionable whether the "startup hub seed" would have germinated had the UK not been in the EU back when. It's also questionable whether the plant will wither now that it's out. All else held equal, the exits of UK startups are probably more acquisitional and trans-oceanic. This adds to risks and costs.
Either way, my argument was not startup-centric. It's pretty clear that an island company faces more market hurdles than a continental one. The difference will widen as the EU integrates further.
> the exits of UK startups are probably more acquisitional and trans-oceanic.
The US tends to purchase successful New Zealand startups oi reckon. Is it the same pattern in the UK?
I suspect there's a few major reasons:
(1) NZ startups seem to get acquired so that they can sell their products/services into the US market. NZ companies often struggle to market to the US. Similarly Rocket Lab moved to the US. However our local ebay competitor (TradeMe) was bought for a few billion by the UK based Apax Partners.
(2) NZ doesn't have the capital markets to buy successful businesses so we sell the family silver to overseas buyers.
(3) NZ government taxes owner's dividends (of the most successful businesses) at 39%. NZ's capital gain tax is 0% so owners usually have a financial incentive to sell their businesses.
For startups, our taxation system demotivates founders. Building or growing a business usually does not reward enough for the risks. A shame because NZ needs the foreign income.
Are they just a self-perpetuating reputation scam, or do they actually lead to real economic activity and growth? It can be both, but it can't be entirely the former if you think the startup edge is due to the universities.
I didn't see the list of notable startups. There's a section about "noteworthy growth and decline" but it's not got a list. For the other lists it's not clear how they're ordered.
> It's questionable whether the "startup hub seed" would have germinated had the UK not been in the EU
So why didn't it germinate everywhere else in the EU to the same extent?
This seems like wishful thinking. The startup capital of the world is the USA, notably not in the EU. The EU has done many things that are clearly startup and tech-hostile, but it's hard to think of policies that help. The EU is structurally designed to make it easier for France to sell agricultural products and Germany to sell manufactured products, but one of the reasons the UK didn't benefit economically from membership is because the EU doesn't make it easier to sell services (and the UK not benefiting is under-reported but unambiguously the case, see the recent Parliamentary report on trade ratios post leaving [1]). Yet many tech startups are software-as-a-service, so lack of a single market for services really makes the EU irrelevant to the tech ecosystem.
> It's pretty clear that an island company faces more market hurdles than a continental one
It's not that clear. The British Empire was a global trade based empire long before the internet existed. It's only got easier since then.
The universities are not a scam and do count. "Self-perpetuating reputation scheme" simply means positive network externalities for good professors, researchers and students, who seek each other out. The glorious antiquated buildings don't mean much.
Similarly, a startup hub means positive network externalities for good founders, workers and investors. Much like planets clean out orbits, hubs tend to not be nearby. I don't have a good read on whether the London hub will persist or be overcome by an EU one. It will depend on which force wins out.
As for your comments about the EU's role, these seem political in nature and I just happen to mostly disagree.
> Universities are a bit of a self-perpetuating reputation scheme, and the UK has been punching well above its weight in that department.
Someone like Peter Thiel would maybe argue that the difference in risk taking in the UK and the US is actually reflected in the relatively high number of high UK university rankings? I'm far from Thiel in my general perspectives but it's worth noting that in certain circles there's sort of an ambivalent — if not outright hostile — attitude toward universities in the US and that ambivalence is only increasing. I think a Thiel-like person might think it odd to draw a direct line between some reputational rankings of universities and startup culture, and might flip the whole thing on its head and argue it's evidence of problems with universities today.
I don't necessarily agree with this perspective but do think it's maybe worth pointing out some of the implicit assumptions being made in the essay.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that these rankings are bullshit.
If you look at, e.g. universities by number of papers at neurips (ok, just one measure, but related to the AI boom), none of the UK universities crack the top 10; Oxford comes in at 12th, Cambridge at 18th, and Imperial isn't even on the list: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/185pdax/d_...
Having worked with all Europeans, I can't say that I found the British to be skill or preparation outliers. Maybe just a little above the mean? Speaking English natively helps too.
That said, the UK was probably on its way to becoming the EU's tech hub, much to the chagrin of the French and Germans. Then 2016 happened.
Furthermore, the planetary economy has transformed itself, and has been consolidating around competitive advantage. Much of tech has massive scale economies. There's probably not enough 21st-century Britain to make it alone the way it used to in the 19th century. Its competitive advantage probably does not involve large-scale tech.
If you're a world-class tech graduate facing these realities, maybe you don't want to get marooned on an island.