Universities at their best are places for informed debate and open minds. We have world-class institutions in the UK. When I return to academia, I look forward to meeting expertise, knowledge, longer-term, more balanced views and new ways of seeing things. I also look forward to the UK developing a more positive, outward-looking universities policy as we leave the EU, recognising the global nature of modern scholarship.

Our universities have much to offer and many excellent scholars. As we earn more of our livings from the knowledge economy, they will become ever more important.

In referendum debates I attended in universities, I hoped the Remain disputants would be well versed in the grand project...