London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has ranked as one of the world's pre-eminent centres for global health research and education for more than a century. Today it is recognised as the most influential institution in its field in Europe. Its scientists and research-informed educators teach and work alongside students and local public health workers in resource-poor settings all over the world, collaborating with health care, research and education systems, British, European and international.

The School, and more importantly global public health here and around the world, is affected by the European Union. That is why the Council of the School has decided to participate in the debate about whether Britain should stay in that Union. We believe that, if the UK were to leave the EU, our role would be placed at risk.

From its earliest days, the School has led the fight against infectious diseases - malaria, HIV/Aids, Ebola, smallpox, and many others, often affecting the world's poorest. Disease outbreaks do not respect borders in our increasingly mobile world. Help for those diseases must cross those same borders - and others - quickly and frequently. Health workers, medicines, equipment, information - all of these resources must move urgently.

The fewer borders health care must cross the better. Barriers that interrupt or inhibit this flow increase the vulnerability of the world's population to emerging diseases. Our students and faculty, too, have to move, and they come from and return to almost every country in the world. We recruit them globally to get the best students and the best academic staff we can muster. The work we do requires efficient movement of people, ideas and information.

British membership in the EU facilitates the development of science and global public health. If the UK withdraws from the European Union:

• Mobility of researchers and students across the EU would suffer. We would be less able to attract the best students from Europe, or recruit whether within Europe or globally for the best academic talent. Our prominent role in European public health would be reduced, to the detriment of both UK and European public health research and education capacity.
• Our research funding would decrease. Science funding is flat in the UK, but the EU has invested heavily in research and innovation, and as a leading science hub the UK benefits from that. The UK contributes only 11% of the EU research budget but receives 16% of allocated funding. EU research funding accounted for around 10% of the School's research income in 2014/15.
• The value of our intellectual property, central to innovation, would suffer. It would be less secure and more expensive to pursue and maintain.
• Working outside of the EU, we would have less influence on policy developments promoting health and health research in the EU, and no voice in EU regimes that might become standard.

In sum, if the UK were to leave the EU, the work we do could have diminished impact on international public health research and education, and we would be less influential in the fight to control world health emergencies.

We respect individuals in our institution who might have a different view of this debate, but the Council of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine strongly affirms the benefits that our School and global public health receive through UK membership in the European Union.