The number of UK academic staff from the European Union (EU) has fallen for the second year in a row, new figures show.
It has been warned that such a fall – which has been linked to Brexit – could leave a “lasting imprint” on the country’s research environment.
The Higher Education Statistics Authority figures also show the proportion of black professors remains “appallingly low”.
A total of 233,930 academic staff were employed in the UK at the start of December last year – 37,995 of whom came from the EU, according to the first release of HESA staff data for 2021-22. This was down 1 per cent from 38,230 in 2020-21, and below the peak of 38,410 recorded in 2019-20.
