Britain should be "rolling out the red carpet for the best and brightest foreign students", writes Professor Alice Gast in The Economist.

Professor Gast’s letter comes in response to an Economist leader urging the UK and US governments to consider the “huge rewards” that come from welcoming high quality international students.

Professor Gast said that Britain’s “global status in science and innovation is built on the creativity that is sparked when people from different cultures collaborate.

She asks, “What do Ernst Chain, Andre Geim and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan have in common, apart from their Nobel prizes? They were all welcomed to Britain from abroad: a world without their pioneering work at British universities on penicillin, graphene and ribosomes would be a much poorer one.

“Foreign students propelled Silicon Valley and now they drive innovation and entrepreneurship in Britain. If we turned our backs on international students, Britain’s economy and society would lose. The cost to the world would be incalculable.”

President Gast's full letter can be viewed in The Economist.