APPENDIX 29
Memorandum submitted by The Royal Society
CONTINUING TO DEVELOP THE EXCELLENCE OF UK
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
1. A healthy research base in our universities
is crucial to the future of the UK, most obviously in providing
new ideas for exploitation by our companies and by the health
and other public services. However, it is in the maintenance of
a dynamic knowledge system across all major areas that is arguably
more important as it is impossible to know what areas of expertise
will be required in future. Most recently the importance of university
expertise was exemplified by the need to call on experts in depleted
uranium, bioterrorism and on Afghanistan, Middle East and Islamic
studies. The Royal Society believes that the overall international
standing of UK research is higher than it has been for many years,
but that this position can easily and all too quickly be lost
if steps are not taken to put the present funding arrangements
on a sustainable basis. Once lost, it would be difficult and expensive
to regain the present position.
2. In considering the health of university
research it is important to recognise and take account of its
unique structure involving the symbiosis of researchers and their
home university, with each side having their own aspirations and
long and short term objectives:
— the researcher's main aim is to take
forward the frontiers of knowledge and to be recognised by their
peers. In pursuit of this, the researchers often receive only
modest financial rewards, especially considering the amount of
time that they devote to their research, but the best of them
will look for an institution that can provide them with appropriate
facilities in terms of physical and human infrastructure and an
intellectually challenging environment. Researchers will seek
access to a pool of bright postgraduate students and increasingly
they have also been seeking opportunities for exploiting their
research, which can also require suitable infrastructure within
the institution.
— The universities wish to retain the
services of researchers in appropriate disciplines, if possible
ones with an international reputation, in order to maintain the
institution's standing as a centre of learning, to teach undergraduates
and post-graduate students, and of increasing importance, to provide
appropriate expertise for delivering in-house and distance-learning
based continuing professional development.
3. This relationship between researcher
and institution can be traced back to the formation of medieval
universities and it can be questioned whether it is still appropriate
at the start of the twenty first century, especially when in many
areas where there is a requirement for very expensive technology
and the involvement of larger research teams than hitherto. Furthermore,
the massive increase in participation in higher education, coupled
with the necessary decrease in the cost per student that has occurred
over the past 20 years, has also impacted on the structure of
universities and on the balance of time that academic staff can
spend on various activities including research. Nevertheless,
the Royal Society believes that none of these changes has diminished
need for the structure of universities to take account of the
special position of university researchers.
THE DUAL
SUPPORT SYSTEM
4. A balanced pluralistic funding system
is necessary both to provide stability for long-term developments
and to recognise needs of the various components of the system.
The dual support system for public funding of university research
in the UK—many features of which are unique to the UK—seeks
to recognise the requirements and needs both of universities as
institutions and of researchers as individuals.
5. As far as the university is concerned,
the funding arrangements need to provide flexibility to local
management to develop their institution's strengths, with a clear
understanding of how success or failure will impact on the institution's
future funding. The block funding from the Funding Councils allows
an institution to develop its research capabilities within the
context of its overall mission by providing the resources for
it to develop the key basic facilities and the "pump priming"
funding packages required to attract and retain world class researchers.
It is a great strength of the system that the funds provided are
both unhypothecated and transparent in the way that they have
been calculated by the Funding Councils.
6. In the UK funding arrangements, it is
important for the support through the two arms of the dual support
system to be balanced. During the 1980s and early 1990s the proportion
of funds distributed through the Funding Councils decreased and
this led amongst other things to the run-down of research facilities.
The additional capital funding provided through the last spending
review, including a significant contribution from the Wellcome
Trust, has redressed the situation to some extent, but there remains
some way to go.
7. Research Councils provide researchers
with the necessary grants and access to national and international
facilities to enable them to develop their research and in appropriate
cases build up teams of postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate
research students.
FUNDING COUNCIL
FUNDING AND
THE RESEARCH
ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
8. It is important that both Research Council
and Funding Council grants be distributed competitively to support
the best quality research and to provide both institutional and
personal incentives to strive for the best. This inevitably means
that there will be a high degree of selectivity in the system,
but this should result from the system of funding, not imposed
top-down. A rigid institutionalised system of selectivity runs
a severe danger of fossilising the system at a particular point
in time, whereas it is essential for our university system to
be dynamic and to enable new centres of expertise to develop,
possibly at the expense of more established ones that have lost
their edge.
9. It is also important not to take too
simplistic a view of selectivity when for example comparing the
UK universities with those in other countries, where differences
in the type of institution and their size can result in a distorted
picture. There have in the past been wild claims of the US being
much more selective than the UK, whereas a more sophisticated
analysis indicates that the two systems were much more comparable
with respect to selectivity.
10. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)
has been a successful way of determining by peer review the quality
of university research departments, and there can be little doubt
that this, coupled with the related funding formula, has been
a major factor in the increased standing of UK university research.
THE RESEARCH
ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
11. The RAE assesses university research
on the basis of 69 units of assessment (UoA), and university departments
or major research units have to map themselves onto one or more
of these UoA. In 2001 the Funding Councils took note of previous
criticisms levelled at the assessment exercise and in particular
paid particular attention to the following:
— wider representation on the assessment
panels including people from outside the university research;
— the use of international referees
to confirm or otherwise the 5 and 5* ratings decisions;
— particular attention to possible
problems with inter-disciplinary and multidisciplinary research;
— a wider definition of research output
to include many other outputs beyond peer reviewed articles;
— taking into account movement of staff
between universities.
12. Under the RAE, a university specifies
those academic staff that it wishes to be considered as part of
the assessment exercise. This has led to criticisms that certain
universities have been game-playing, and manipulating their returns
to gain higher ratings by excluding some staff from the exercise.
However, it is right to recognise that some academic staff within
departments may no longer wish or be able to continue at the cutting
edge of research, but yet more than earn their salary through
concentrating on teaching, including the preparation of course
material, undergraduate text books or distance learning material,
and/or take on a significant administration load including the
annual recruitment of students. The cost of such staff should
not be borne from research funds, and should be excluded both
from the RAE and from any volume measure used for determining
the research block grant. Nevertheless, there are some worrying
trends in the submissions from some universities to the 2001 RAE,
where some research-intensive universities offered less than 80
per cent of their academic staff for assessment. This needs further
study and consideration as to whether there should be a minimum
percentage of staff who should be included to achieve a 5 or 5*
rating.
13. On a related issue, the Society believes
that it is important for the RAE to remain strictly an assessment
of research quality across the spectrum from applied to blue sky
research. It should not to try and include recognition of other
desirable, but non-research activities. The Society supports the
Funding Councils' and OST's policy of supporting other activities
through different streams of funding, such as those made available
to support exploitation and contact with the user communities.
However, it has to be recognised that with severe pressure on
resources some other activities that are not so easy to accommodate
may be squeezed. For example, there have been claims that pressures
on academic staff time have resulted in a reluctance to become
engaged in peer review activities such as serving on grant and
other committees, and acting as referees for grant proposals or
for publications.
14. Perhaps the major practical problem
with the RAE is its cost, not only to the Higher Education Funding
Councils and the peer review panels, but also the work required
of each individual member of staff, heads of department and the
administrative staff of the institution. Set against this the
exercise is only undertaken once every five years and thus probably
represents a significantly smaller overhead than that for the
research councils' peer review system. Nevertheless, the combination
of administrative work associated with the RAE, preparation of
grant proposals, coupled with demands of the QAA, are a significant
and growing burden on academic staff. The Society therefore believes
that the Funding and Research Councils should consider over the
next 12 months how they could reduce these burdens while retaining
robust systems for determining quality.
15. The results of the 2001 RAE has shown
a greater increase in the rated quality of departments compared
to the outcome from 1996 than between any previous adjacent pairs
of assessments. The number of departments with at least a 4 rating
(research of national or international standing) increased from
43 per cent to 65 per cent and, because of the generally larger
size of the higher rated departments, the number of researchers
in these departments has gone up from 59 per cent to 80 per cent.
It is important to check that this is a real increase in quality
of the UK's overall research standing and not due to "grade
drift". Evidence for a real increase in quality comes from
the international referees, by a study of some of the departments
that have increased their rating where significant efforts have
been made to recharge their research complement, or where the
rating can be compared with other departments in the same UoA
that have not increased their standing, and by a study of the
relative citations received by the UK. An initial analysis is
set out in the next section.
THE STANDING
OF UNIVERSITY
RESEARCH
16. Over the history of the RAE there has
been a general improvement in the research ratings as universities
have strived to improve the standing of their key departments,
and it is important to recognise that there has been some major
restructuring within the system.
17. As funding contributions for departments
rated 1, and then 2, were withdrawn, universities were faced with
the choice of investing to improve the standing of the department
or taking more radical action, such as closing the department,
merging with one or more other departments within the university
or rationalisation with a neighbouring university. This has resulted
in the reduction in the number of lower rated departments and
some spectacular rises in rating, some from very modest beginnings.
18. There have also been cases over the
past decade where some previously high standing departments at
major research universities have lost the cutting edge, and this
has been reflected in reduced RAE ratings. In most cases, the
universities concerned have taken action to replace poor research
performing staff with new blood, often starting at the top, and
the departments have recovered their previously high RAE rating.
19. Evidence for the overall improvements
in the peer reviewed assessments of university research departments
comes from an examination of the citations received by UK researchers
relative to the average citations received by researchers throughout
the world. An analysis undertaken by Evidence Ltd of the detailed
Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) data has shown that
not only have the relative citations of papers in science and
social sciences produced by departments rated 5 and 5* in the
1996 RAE increased significantly between 1991 and 2000, this is
also true of the citations of papers produced by departments rated
3b, 3a and 4[8].
Furthermore, and added indication of the genuine improvement in
quality at these levels, is that the papers from 1996 3b to 4
rated departments took an increased share of the UK total.
20. Finally, it is important to recognise
that research excellence stretches well beyond the powerhouses
of Cambridge, Oxford, University College London, Imperial College
and Edinburgh. There are 76 universities (ie excluding specialist
institutes and free standing medical schools) with one or more
5 rated departments and 53 with one or more 5* departments. Further
evidence can be found from a consideration of the top 10 institutions
for citations in the various disciplines. An initial study, of
8 groups of science and social science UoAs (Clinical Research,
Biological Sciences, Environment, Mathematics, Physical Sciences,
Engineering, Social Sciences, and Business and Economics) includes
37 universities. This confirmed an earlier study of 21 subject
areas where only considering the top three UK universities within
each area resulted in a total of 26 universities being included
in the list (ISI Science Watch 1997 January/February 1-2). A similarly
wide range of institutions is obtained from a consideration of
the top ten institutions in terms of total grant income from each
of the six Research Councils. Of course this demonstrates the
heterogeneity of quality within universities; but this is healthy.
All this argues for continuing to treat the university system
as a continuum, allowing for the growth of research excellence
where it is best established within the system, with possible
contraction elsewhere, rather than trying to determine the structure
top down. It is essential to allow for the development of both
significant research universities, like Warwick, and for individual
high quality centres of expertise throughout the system wherever
they develop.
FUNDING COUNCIL
BLOCK GRANTS
21. The increased number of higher rated
departments in RAE 2002 clearly causes funding problems. In its
submissions to the three funding Councils on their 2000-2001 consultations
over university funding policy, the Society expressed the view
that it was important to continue to provide some recognition
for 3b and 3a rated departments, as this allowed entry routes
for up and coming departments and also research capability in
some subjects across the country. While the latter will be of
lesser importance with the smaller number of 3-rated departments,
the Society believes that flexibility is still a compelling reason
for continuing to recognise these departments, albeit possibly
at a lower level of funding.
22. Without increased total funding, but
taking into account the new ratings, distribution of the funds
in 2002 on the same basis as those for 2001, would result in significant
reductions in the block funding for research at the top four English
institutions Cambridge, Oxford, University College and Imperial
College, possibly amounting to £40 million.
23. The Society would urge the DfEE and
the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland authorities to establish
increased support for university research in the current spending
review. It cautions against the optimistic view, which has been
expressed by some, that the universities have been able to raise
their performance within the existing resources and so should
be able to maintain them within current resources. Satisfactory
performance under the current funding level is not sustainable
and it is essential to put university research and other activities
on a realistic long-term basis. International comparisons confirm
that UK funding of university research is still lower than our
major competitors, despite the high private sector component.
24. The efforts of the OST, the Funding
Councils and the universities to take forward a major improvement
in university accounting procedures should ensure that universities
are better able to organise their investments in capital facilities
and human resources.
25. The Society notes that over the last
two spending reviews significant resources have been made available
to renew university facilities. As the Cabinet Minister for Science
and Lord Sainsbury both said in their oral evidence to the Committee
on 19 December, there is some distance to go to make up the shortfall
of the previous decade or so of under-funding of university research.
The Society hopes that the total increased expenditure on university
research, including this capital element can be consolidated and
indeed increased in the forthcoming Spending Review, in order
to ensure that we can maintain and indeed continue to enhance
the standing of our research base.
26. There remains a problem for the forthcoming
year, but provided that some additional funds can be made available,
a combination of this and some transitional arrangements should
provide a way forward so long as the longer term funding is secured.
THE FUTURE
DEVELOPMENT OF
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH
27. Building on the basic underpinning support
provided by the HE Funding Councils, the Research Councils, including
the Arts and Humanities Research Board, have an important role
in signalling the way that research should develop into the future.
However, it is important for them not to lose sight of the importance
of some unfashionable but underpinning fields, exemplified by
systematic and whole animal biology. Furthermore, a danger of
project based funding systems is that under financial pressure
they can become risk averse. One other issue is whether the 3-year
basis of many grants is such that it results in projects being
artificially constrained by unnatural timetables and also to hinder
the planning of longer-term projects.
28. Our major charities, largely in the
biomedical field, have a significant role to play in the development
of research capability. This is also true of our innovative firms
and public service authorities, which should seek out the most
appropriate university research partners, both for the support
of longer term underpinning projects of mutual interest and also,
where appropriate, more directed research contracts.
29. The Society also believes that there
is an important continuing role for the National Academies in
selecting and supporting high quality researchers, irrespective
of their area of work. The Royal Society, for example, makes use
of its grant-in-aid from the Science Budget, supplemented with
£6.1 million from its own funds and a range of other sources,
to support the highest quality researchers across the career range.
It also uses these schemes to encourage and develop excellent
women researchers with outstanding potential, and it takes particular
care to ensure that its schemes include flexible family-friendly
best practice.
30. The main schemes are:
— 17 Royal Society Professorships,
of which 2 are held by women (33 per cent of the last round or
awards): allowing distinguished researchers to concentrate on
their research.
— 20 Research Merit Awards, jointly
funded with the Wolfson Foundation: to date to enable UK universities
to attract and retain the best scientists through paying enhanced
salaries and research expenses; So far, these awards have enabled
UK universities to attract five top scientists from overseas universities.
— 320 University Research Fellowships,
of which 77 (24 per cent) are held by women: these fellowships
allow promising senior postdoctoral fellows to concentrate on
their research for up to 10 years rather than having to undertake
extensive teaching loads, although many do contribute to the teaching
of their home institution.
— 55 Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowships, of
which 52 (95 per cent) are held by women, specifically directed
at promising young scientists, particularly women, at the early
stages of their research careers. These research fellows receive
high levels of support including a mentor to offer individual
career and research advice.
— 19 Industry Fellowships promoting
innovation, collaboration and knowledge transfer between academic
scientists and industrialists.
— Up to 20 Laboratory Refurbishment
grants per year of up to £250,000, funded though support
from the Wolfson Foundation, to enable departments to renew their
research facilities in key areas such as informatics and nanotechnology.
— A research grants scheme supporting
the research programmes of around 300 UK based scientists each
year through awards of up to £10,000 for equipment, consumables
and field work costs.
— 3 Mercer Innovation Awards each year
to enable scientists to develop their inventions through the commercialisation
stage.
— A conference grant scheme enabling
up to 1250 UK based scientists each year to present their work
at international events.
— A range of post-doctoral exchange
schemes.
31. The Society believes that, in particular,
the research chairs, research merit awards and fellowships have
made a significant contribution towards attracting outstanding
researchers from abroad and retaining our best researchers in
the UK.
January 2002
8 As an illustration of the increase in impact as
indicated by relative citation analysis, the citation impact relative
to the world average for papers in the science and social sciences
from departments rated 3b, 3a, 4 and 5/5* in the 1996 RAE over
the period 1991-92 to 2000 is shown at annex A. This information
was commissioned by the HEFCE from Evidence Ltd, and further information
can be provided. Back
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