Mr. Jim Miley:

Yes. We will do a two-hander, if that is okay. I thank the Chair and Senators for the invitation to address them today. We provided a more detailed submission and I will give a very brief summary in the next four minutes or so of the key points from that.

As the committee may be aware, the IUA represents eight universities which, together, account for over two thirds of undergraduate students, approximately 80% of postgraduates and 90% of research expenditure in higher education. Today, we will address four key issues of relevance to universities as regards Brexit, student mobility, which Mr. O'Sullivan spoke about, costs and revenue, research and alliance building or partnerships.

To start with student mobility, Brexit is disrupting patterns of mobility in Ireland and across Europe. Mr. O'Sullivan gave a detailed outline of mobility within the Erasmus programme, but there are many other students who move to and from the UK outside of any particular UK programmes. We are seeing an increase of approximately 26% in Irish students who want to study in the UK-based on current estimates, on a base of approximately 10,000 per year at the moment. It remains to be seen whether those applications will translate into offers or places taken up in the autumn. Conversely, we have seen a 40% or so fall-off in applications from students from other EU countries who want to study in the UK. Of course, we need to put a caveat on all of this in that there is a Covid pandemic effect at present, so getting a true picture from which to draw conclusions is somewhat dangerous at this stage. We are seeing some increases in student applications from the UK, including Northern Ireland, but that is from a relatively low base, with an average of approximately 2,500 UK and Northern Ireland students overall coming to study in Ireland each year.

Initial data shows an increase in applications to study in Ireland from other EU countries. It appears that some students who may previously have opted for the UK are now looking to Ireland. Capacity constraints may result in limited potential to absorb those students, however. Irish student numbers, as we know, have increased and will grow by at least 20% over the next decade. This has placed additional pressure on an already strained system in which, as a result of underinvestment, student-staff ratios have risen significantly and facilities require urgent upgrading.

Brexit has also given rise to challenges for universities from a cost perspective. As we know from the rest of the economy, the cost of building materials has risen by in the region of 15%, which means a potentially significant impact on university building projects that are already under way. It remains to be seen how this will play out.

Export earnings from international students in the IUA universities alone is worth close to €500 million per year. That represents export earnings in total. It is crucial that we invest in continuing to support and develop this important source of earnings for the country.

It is suggested that, as an English-speaking country, we have the capacity to attract many more international students who might previously have gone to the United Kingdom, but this will be hard won. The UK is competing aggressively for international non-EU students. Mr. O'Sullivan has referenced the Turing scheme. Most students evaluate their options based on international rankings and quality and cost, factors on which the UK universities score highly. We are going to have a fight on our hands if we want to attract more of those students. I will hand over to my colleague, Ms Trench Bowles, who will briefly address research and partnership issues.