Glasgow VC voices support for PSW in the UK

Published 16/03/2018

The Vice Chancellor of top-tier University of Glasgow has voiced his support for a liberalising of post-study work policy for international students – citing the imperative of the UK maintaining its reputation as a global education hub as the country negotiates its secession from the EU.

“If we are serious about wanting to make Britain ‘Global Britain’, successful Britain, then part of that is also saying ‘we want the best talent here’,” said Sir Anton Muscatelli, in an exclusive interview with The PIE News.

University of Glasgow is one of the universities that has been selected to be in a fast-track visa pilot which also means master’s graduates can benefit from a six-month period post-graduation to find work.

“This is the first year, we’ve just joined [the scheme],” explained Muscatelli, “so we will see what happens. But we know from the universities that began the pilot scheme that it seems to have had quite an impact.”

He added that based on the period when the UK did offer a two-year post-study work opportunity, some students subsequently returned home and accelerated their careers: “we know from our own alumni there’s some really fantastic narratives”.

Muscatelli also talked about what the Russell Group has been doing to promote an internationalisation agenda, given his position as chair of the Russell Group.

“One of the things we’ve been doing over the last year or two is to make sure that we also maintain strong relationships with similar groupings across the world, for instance we had a summit between the Russell Group and the C9 – we had a summit in Shanghai,” he revealed.

“[It] was the first time there had been a summit between the best Chinese universities and the top UK universities.”

The Russell Group represents 24 research-intensive universities in the UK; Muscatelli also shared his views on the research funding landscape, the UK’s significant benefit of EU-funding schemes is in question during current Brexit negotiations.

The video interview can be accessed here. Muscatelli was speaking at an event to mark the tenth anniversary of Glasgow International College, a partnership with Kaplan.

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