Examination of Witnesses (Questions 111-119)
BARONESS WARWICK
OF UNDERCLIFFE
AND PROFESSOR
GLYNIS BREAKWELL
WEDNESDAY 3 JULY 2002
Mr McWalter
111. The Bett Report was published in June 1999
and it made various recommendations which might have been able
to address some of the issues that we have been talking about
this afternoon. Why do you think it is that it is only the Robert
Gordon University which has really put all of its contract researchers
on these open-ended contracts and why do you think so little progress
has been made on the Bett Report by universities?
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) The
reason I think why there has been so little progress overall on
the Bett Report is lack of resources and the ability to be able
to move to the restructured scales, the restructured system, that
we are all agreed we need. We have been negotiating with the unions
in that area, as indeed we have in relation to contract research
staff. We all recognise that there have been considerable disadvantages
in the role of contract research staff. It is why we, with other
stakeholders, established the Research Careers Initiative and
have been monitoring progress on that initiative every year. The
point about Robert Gordon's is that it is in a sense one of size.
If one is talking about the prospect of and the risk associated
with changing the contracts of a relatively small number of staff
as opposed to the financial risk associated with changing the
contract to what might be possibly a thousand staff in a research
intensive university, we think different considerations have to
come to mind. In the end the issue of the change in contract and
the associated conditions that go with that, particularly redundancy,
is one of cost.
112. Have you costed exactly how much it would
take to implement this part of the recommendations in the Bett
Report and have you made that submission to the Chancellor?
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) I do not think we
have separated that out. What we have said in our submission under
the SR2002 umbrella is the need for proper funding for research.
That includes the element that has already been referred to by
other witnesses, the full funding of the recent research assessment
exercise, which has placed in jeopardy a very large number of
departments in universities who have done well in research. These
are not departments that are doing badly in research; these are
departments that have done well, so what is needed is full funding
for the research assessment exercise and full funding for the
infrastructure of research. You will appreciate, I think, that
one of the big changes in university funding has been the huge
increase in the amount of money coming from non-funding council
sources. It has doubled in less than ten years and within that
the amount of money from the charities has trebled, so that the
amount of money with strings attached which is then associated
with judgements that have to be made about contract research staff
has increased dramatically as a countervailing balance to the
reduction in public funding.
113. When you talked about universities that
have got a very large number of researchers, a thousand or whatever,
clearly it would be extraordinary if those researchers were able
to submit a significant number of bids in order to get a significant
continuation of their funding base, so in a sense, although there
can be ebbs and flows in the funding, depending on whether they
are successful in applying for particular contracts or not, clearly
there is pretty much an assurance that the quantum of funding
that is going to be made available to them is as permanent as
many of the other sources of funding that they receive. Why in
that case do contract researchers feel abused by universities
who look at each particular project and say, "That is five
years; that is what you are getting. That is three years; that
is what you are getting", rather than looking at the totality
of the research work and treating that group of staff in a much
more appropriate way?
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) I think they certainly
are able to do that with the committed funding that comes through
the funding councils. They are not able to do that with the project-associated
funding because they have to deliver to the funders. The researchers
themselves are answerable to the funders, so you have no flexibility
in the way in which you use that money. The only flexibility the
universities have is the resources that they are able to provide
from within departments from core funding. Many universities now
are using that to provide bridging loans, for example, where a
researcher or a team of researchers has not found it possible
in time to establish a new research grant and they are using some
of that money to provide a means of keeping those researchers
in place. The amount of flexibility, as you will appreciate, in
universities where their overall funds are decreasing is very
limited indeed.
114. So if we give you the money you will stop
it?
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) No, I do not think
we can entirely stop the problem associated with uncertain funding
and the risks for an institution of seeking to use monies not
for that purpose in order to try to shore up research teams or
to provide resources for research teams where there is no prospect
of future funding for them. Universities would have to look at
to whom they are responsible for that money and whether or not
it could be used in that way. But in principle universities, through
the Research Careers Initiative, have been looking for all sorts
of different ways in order both to try to improve the situation,
including the training available for the contract researchers
and indeed, a point again made by one of your other witnesses,
the training made available to and required of managers of research
staff.
115. Surely in the very unusual case of someone
who is a research scientist, they have got a very strong track
record, they have submitted on various projects and have been
successful, the chances of them having "no prospect of continuing
funding" must be relatively low, taken in the round, and
in addition, if that were the case, then there would be a ground
for making that person redundant, but the current system just
has the funding constraint thrown at the people immediately as
a desperately bad condition of their work rather than saying,
"You are here; you are part of the university; you are a
researcher. Assuming things go as normally as they do, we would
hope to be able to keep you in post." That should the way
round it is and you are telling me that even if we give you the
money you are not going to treat these people properly.
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) Perhaps Glynis can
respond to this as well but I think in a way you are describing
the cleft stick that departments and research managers find themselves
in because on the one hand, if they indicate that they would like
to keep individual members of staff on, they are then accused
of dangling a carrot in front of a contract researcher and almost
implying that there is likely to be continuation, and if that
continuation is then not fulfilled because a research grant is
not found there are problems there of bad faith. The whole purpose
in trying to reach an understanding with the funders and within
universities through the research councils' initiative has been
to try to get over some of these major drawbacks that you have
heard about today in short-term contracts. They involve support
for training, in trying to find additional posts that might be
available for those whose contracts are coming to an end, a whole
range of initiatives within the RCI which the universities themselves
as institutions have been party to.
(Professor Breakwell) I only wanted to add one thing,
which is in relation to this issue of ensuring that we move to
a situation where research contracts and grants are fully funded.
We have shown through the work that we have done in the Transparency
Review recently that there is massive under-funding of research
contracts going through universities. I think we need to have
a different culture in the way in which we deal with the pricing
of our research activity. If we shift from a low cost culture
to one which is appropriately costed I think some of the things
that we need to do, and it is recognised that we need to do these
things, can then be done more effectively. At the moment what
we are trying to do is squash everything too tightly into too
small a time frame for many researchers and at too low a cost.
Dr Iddon
116. Why are women 32 per cent more likely to
be employed on these contracts than men?
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) It is a very good
question and we do not have any data that enables me to answer
you properly except that, through projects like the Athena Project,
for example, there has been a move to involve more women and to
encourage more women to come into posts in science, engineering
and technology, so there has been active encouragement for more
women to come into this area. What we do not know, and I think
it is something that we indicated in our evidence to you, is what
happens to those people who move from contract research positions
into permanent positions. I do not think I can say any more than
that because I think the figures speak for themselves. There has
been a very considerable increase overall in the numbers of contract
research staff which has to do I think with the point I made earlier
about the huge increase in the amount of project-based money,
but within that there has been a very considerable emphasis on
encouraging women to come into the area.
(Professor Breakwell) I do not think anyone knows
the answer to your question but one can put a series of facts
together to come to some conclusions. We have had a massive expansion
of the number of people who are on research contracts in this
category. In my own university in the last 15 years there has
been a tripling of the number of people in that category. We are
finding that of course more women are going through science and
engineering courses now than previously. We are also finding that
our research jobs in universities are less attractive to people
who can find employment elsewhere. If it is the case that we have
a greater supply of women in science and engineering than we previously
did and there are more jobs available at the lower grades within
the career structure, then I would expect that you would find
an imbalance initially. What we should be looking for though I
think are the sorts of figures that Diana has mentioned where
we look to see what is the trajectory of women who are coming
into these jobs now and are they differentially prevented from
moving into other types of jobs within universities. I do not
think we have the evidence.
117. The Committee have been told that when
women move from one contract to another they lose maternity entitlement.
Is that the case and, if so, what are you at UK Universities going
to do about that?
(Professor Breakwell) All I can say is that it is
not the case within my own university. Typically, staff on continuous
contracts will be treated on the same basis as permanent staff.
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) We do not have any
data to hand on this. Clearly, from what has been said to you,
the situation varies. It will be about length of service presumably.
118. I have presented two questions to you there
on women on these contracts. The answers that you have given are
a bit nebulous, if I may say so. Can I suggest to you that we
need some accurate data on this? Would Universities UK promote
finding out what is happening with respect to the two questions
I have asked?
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) Yes indeed. We are
extremely conscious of the areas where we do have limited data,
particularly about the way in which people progress. We have certainly
done a lot of work to find out from universities through the RCI
co-ordinators, of which there are now about a hundred in the sector,
where the problems lie and what we can do to address those problems.
I concur entirely that we need better data and certainly I would
like to see a proper project assessing that data and finding out
where things, if they are going wrong, are going wrong.
Chairman
119. Up until now I have always thought you
were the employers of people in universities. You have identified
all the problems but you do not seem to be taking responsibility
for sorting the damn things out. All your answers have been that
it is somebody else's fault, blame the Government, but you can
always find ways in industry to solve problems when you recognise
them. You have not come up with anything yet to say how you are
tackling these issues.
(Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe) But I do not accept
that at all because I think that, having described the problem
way back in 1995/96, we did set up with other partners the Research
Careers Initiative. That has meant that we now have RCI co-ordinators
in the vast majority of institutions. We set out a series of aims
for the RCI which have been picked up subsequently by various
other initiatives, I am very pleased to say, so a lot more work
is being done in this area. We have been monitoring the outputs
of the RCI aims every year and we publish a report every year.
We have produced a very substantial amount of good practice. We
have seen appraisal systems introduced for contract research staff.
We have seen training, not in every institution, I know that,
but if you look at the statistics, because the research councils
are now also monitoring some of the outputs of the RCI, you can
see the statistics improve year on year. I am not at all complacent
about that. I can see, and you have heard from so many people
who are either involved currently in short term contract research
or who have been, that there remain a large number of problems.
The universities themselves are committed to do what we can through
the conditions over which we have control to try to improve that
situation.
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