Meeting of the Parliament 04 October 2016
One of the things that I have enjoyed most since becoming an MSP is the amazing visits that we get to go on. It is a huge pleasure and privilege for me to have King’s buildings—the home of science and engineering for the University of Edinburgh—in the heart of the Edinburgh Southern constituency. In fact, I am such a self-confessed geek that over the past two weeks I have made not just one visit to King’s buildings, but two. Part of the reason why is that there is such amazing work going on there.
I will describe two projects that are happening there at the moment. The first is the li-fi—light fidelity—project, which involves wi-fi replacement technology that uses ordinary LED lamps connected to a router. It allows the equivalent of wi-fi but uses light, and is 20 times faster than cable. Because it is cable free, applications for getting broadband into remote areas are incredibly promising and exciting. Likewise, I got to see the Edinburgh genome foundry, which is an automated robotic genetics laboratory where robots are able to undertake genetic sequencing and engineering round the clock. That means that while researchers are sleeping, their work is carrying on in the lab.
What struck me was that not only is that work at King’s buildings innovative and creating the future, but is, above all else, highly international. The research teams do not have just one or two people from other countries; they are full of many people from all over the world.
Universities are important to Scotland and have a history of groundbreaking discoveries, but they also shape our future. As we know, the spin-outs from Scottish universities are highly successful and are a very real part of building our future industries. However, universities are international because—as Shirley-Anne Somerville pointed out—knowledge does not recognise borders. Clearly, collaboration builds progress: the broader that collaboration, the stronger the academic base.
I have to challenge Jeremy Balfour’s comments. I understand, and agree, that there are various programmes that we can renegotiate our position in and get access to. However, trying to doublethink our way into describing those renegotiations somehow as benefits or upsides to Brexit is perverse, because they are about things that we do already and are already part of. Any renegotiation would be an additional cost that we do not need.