Today sees the launch of Cambridge for Europe, a grassroots organisation to promote the benefits of EU membership in and around Cambridge.

I don’t think we’ll have too hard a task: the good people of Cambridge are strongly in favour of continued membership of the EU. About a year ago, I debated this against a UKIP MEP and the result was clear. 300 or so for in, and 6 for out. Hardly a fair fight.

Why is it that Cambridge is so pro-European? Different people give different reasons. For some of us, the fact that the EU has brought peace to Europe, in contrast to centuries of brutal conflict, is reason enough. For others, it is about environmental concerns; the challenges we face in relation to health, food stocks, biodiversity and climate change. We can solve these far more effectively when we work together.

Some highlight that our security requires us to work closely with other European countries; if criminals can move across borders, we need something like the European Arrest Warrant so they can be returned to face justice. For others, the opportunities the EU brings for them to live and work freely in any members state is valuable, for them, their parents and their children. And for others, it’s about the pride of seeing the UK at the top table, part of a powerful EU team in world affairs, rather than sat in a corner, free to say what we like but with no one listening, or forced to follow rules that we had no say in developing.

Peace, environment, security, opportunity, national pride – these reasons apply across the country. So why is Cambridge so extremely pro-European?

The answer I think lies in another special feature of Cambridge: its world leadership in science and technology. We see this in the huge number of Nobel Prizes amassed here, 92 and rising; biomedical success, such as Humira, the Cambridge-developed anti-inflammatory drug that is currently the highest-selling prescription drug in the world; and technology leadership, such as the silicon chips designed by ARM, which now power almost every mobile device in the world. Last year there was as many ARM chips shipped, as there are human arms in the world.

All of this success, from pure research to the most applied technology, from huge global companies to tiny start-ups, benefits from our international connections, and particularly our role in the EU. We get large amounts of funding from the European Research Council – well above our expected share. Overall, about a quarter of the University of Cambridge’s research funding comes from the EU. Our students go on Erasmus exchanges, experiencing life and study elsewhere, and we get many students coming here from around the EU, benefiting from the free movement of people, enriching our cultural, academic and social lives – and spending their money in our city.

As MP for this wonderful city from 2010 to 2015, I spoke to many people working for companies large and small, our universities and research facilities. Time after time, when I asked what they were concerned about, they would highlight the fear that we might leave the EU. Most were incredulous that such an idea was even being contemplated. No one thinks the EU is perfect – it can and should be reformed. But they talked about how leaving the EU would harm their ability to export, their ability to attract investment, their ability to recruit the people they most needed. They were clear about the massive harm leaving the EU would cause to us and our prosperity.

But actually, Cambridge isn’t that special. If we left the EU, the same factors that would hurt Cambridge science, technology and prosperity, would hit the rest of the country too. We are more directly affected here than some – but leaving the EU would have damaging effects across the country. Less support for science and innovation, tougher markets to try to sell to, more trouble getting the right skilled people for key jobs. None of this is good news for businesses of any size here in the UK. The risk of leaving is huge.

I said at the start that I debated a UKIP MEP in Cambridge. Well, I then did a second debate with the same MEP, at an event organised by UKIP in Peterborough, and largely attended by UKIP members and supporters. We very clearly lost, although not quite as massively – 16 votes to 6, in a smaller crowd. A repeated pattern was that facts and reality were denounced by the UKIP campaigners as lies if they didn’t like them – even the suggestion that Churchill was pro-European was described as a lie. (He was, verifiably, founding Honorary President of the European Movement). Science is founded on listening to evidence, not just dismissing things you don’t like, and it was clear that the UKIP approach was diametrically opposed to that principle.

But the most chilling part of the debate happened at the end. In summing up, I asked rhetorically what the audience would put at risk to leave the EU. They shouted back ‘Everything’.

Science needs people who won’t risk everything on a dogmatic ideology. Britain needs that too, and Britain needs to stay in the EU.

Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert) is the former Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, and was one of only two MPs with a science PhD. He now works at the University of Cambridge, and is on the Advisory Board of Scientists For EU.