King's College London planning post-Brexit campus in Germany

'It’s a nice solution to get around this very stupid Brexit idea,' says Professor Stefan Bornstein

Kings College London (iStock)

Kings College London is planning to become the first British university to open a campus in Europe in the wake of the Brexit vote.

The institution is hoping the new site in eastern German city of Dresden will attract international students and academics.

King's College and TU Dresden have run collaborative research projects together called since 2015 and already offer shared professorships and PhD programmes.

The British university has now confirmed it was considering future collaborations with the German institution.

Professor Stefan Bornstein, who leads the "Transcampus" initiative, told Times Higher Education that the new campus was planned before the Brexit vote.

The director and chair of the department of medicine at TU Dresden, said the new campus would allow the university to maintain its presence in Europe and keep European funding.

“We cannot allow things that have developed for so many years in a positive way [to be] hampered or impaired by political decisions that actually nobody really wanted,” he added. “It’s a nice way to have a solution to get around this very stupid Brexit idea.”

A King’s spokeswoman said: “King’s values the Transcampus initiative with TU Dresden, which demonstrates the success of cross-national and institutional links. We will continue to work together in various fields on research and exchange, and discuss potential further collaborations.”

A number of UK colleges are thought to be making similar plans for campuses on the continent. It was reported that The University of Oxford was considering a new site in Paris, but it has since denied this.