Post-Brexit, strengthening ties with British universities is more important than ever.

In this Brexit series, professionals discuss how the business community should navigate the UK's departure from the EU. See the stories here, then write your own (use #Article50 in the body of the piece).

In an uncertain and complex world, the university is an obvious factor of openness and dialogue. At the heart of our universal academic values is indeed the idea, inherited from the Middle Ages and brought to life again in the 20th century with the Erasmus programme, that student and researcher mobility, and the encounter with alterity that it provides, constitutes a powerful means of learning and self-enrichment. We all know: Knowledge and innovation are born from meeting others, debate, and the friction caused by difference.

Firmly anchored in a humanist model of research and teaching based on the coming together of disciplines, cultures and people, ESSEC Business School and the University of Cergy-Pontoise, as well as all the Community of Universities and Establishments of the Université Paris-Seine, wish to open their Paris-west campus to international partners. 

Today, our gaze turns towards the United Kingdom, a country steeped in a distinguished university tradition and which is home to several establishments of world renown and reference.

At a time when Brexit brings uncertainty over the durability of the links patiently tied with our British colleagues, we deem it essential to strengthen the international area of exchange and knowledge sharing. The academic field can and must constitute a formidable ground for experimentation to invent the future of relations between the United Kingdom and the European continent, a relationship founded on openness, respect and trust.

British universities share this attachment to the flow of people and knowledge and today seek to preserve the relations built with their partners in Europe as well as with the European institutions. For this reason, we make the choice today to act very concretely by launching a call for expression of interest to welcome a British higher education establishment to the Cergy area in France. 

At a time when the Cergy-Pontoise academic area is in full development – with the creation underway of a large international campus at the heart of the new town and on the banks of the River Oise, 35 minutes from Paris and Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport, close to the Vexin natural reserve, the historical gateway to the Anglo-Normandy of old, the lakes of Ile de France, and on a land which inspired Van Gogh and numerous Impressionists – we offer British institutions the possibility to pursue their development by our side, at the heart of an area which will gain international reach and recognition over the next decade. 

By proposing exceptional working and living conditions in order for science and its transmission to flourish, and by building bridges when others strive to build walls, we wish to develop with our British partners a new model for the university of the 21st century, a model founded on the coming together of cultures, respect and cooperation: think beyond borders!  

Anne-Sophie Barthez

President, ComUE of the Université Paris-Seine

Jean-Michel Blanquer

Dean and President, ESSEC Business School

Fran?ois Germinet

President, University of Cergy-Pontoise