More than 200 Cambridge University professors, dames, knights and Nobel prize winners have expressed their “grave concern” at the impact on British universities of leaving the European Union.

In a letter published in Tuesday's Daily Telegraph, the academics warn that the funding black hole created from a Brexit could not be filled by the UK government alone.

They also suggest that Britain’s border security and economy are better served inside the EU because most “issues of our time” take “no account of national borders”.

Some of the university's most well-known names including Lord Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Richard Evans, the historian, have signed up.