British and American universities should cooperate “at a far higher level” than they currently do, Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in an op-ed article published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.

Citing the Rhodes, Marshall, and Fulbright scholarships as examples of programs that “have been bringing U.S. and U.K. students into each other’s countries for decades,” Mr. Brown wrote that he wanted to encourage “many more British and American university students to have the chance to study across the Atlantic.”

A study group headed by the principal of King’s College, in London, and the president of New York University will “examine how cooperation between U.K. and U.S. institutions can be intensified, starting with the potential for expanding faculty and research exchanges,” Mr. Brown wrote.

Academics at the two institutions are already among the first to receive money from a new grant awarded jointly by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities and the Joint Information Systems Committee, a British advisory body that promotes information technology in higher education.

The British prime minister’s op-ed, timed to coincide with his arrival in the United States on an official visit, outlined several broad areas in which cooperation between British and American institutions could be expanded, but was short on specifics about how the initiatives would proceed. —Aisha Labi