Examination of Witness (Questions 620-640)
MONDAY 17 MARCH 2003
RICHARD LAMBERT
620. Have you any thoughts on why that may be,
and the profile is different in Britain from some of the other
European countries?
(Mr Lambert) It is clear that over the last 30 or
40 years Britain has had world-class pharmaceutical businesses,
and that they have succeeded in building a strong domestic base,
and from that have prospered mightily around the globe, and there
are not really any other industries with a UK base which have
that record. So they have been enormously successful, and they
are science-based, and they are profitable.
621. I guess the metallurgical industries, over
the last half century, had quite a proud record?
(Mr Lambert) That is true; but they have not in the
last 30 years so much.
622. So why have we lost the edge there, do
you think?
(Mr Lambert) I do not know. One issue, clearly, is
that they have been much less profitable than the pharmaceutical
sector, so it is harder for them, they run on much lower returns,
much lower margins, and, presumably, feel it harder to invest
in research in this way.
Chairman
623. Richard, part of your remit is looking
at quality of management, and how do you deal with those who are,
what I call, on the right of the academic world, the critics on
the right of the academic world, who say, "Well these institutions
are all very comfortable, a bit like the former Soviet Union's
industries, they have no great challenges, they have no profits
to make, they're rather shambling organisations"?
(Mr Lambert) I have not come across that yet.
624. Which is rather negative, really, where
you get, "these are always unmanageable institutions, and
they're totally dependent on the state." And we have had
witnesses here, indeed, the Association of University Teachers
and NATFE, and, as I said to them, as I had been a member of the
AUT for many years, they were the least successful union in the
history of trade unionism, and they had had the same salaries
in real terms for the last 30 years, and yet they still do not
want any diversity of income, they want to remain totally dependent
on not only the taxpayer but income tax as their sole source of
revenue. And is not part of what you will be looking at diversification
of income streams into higher education?
(Mr Lambert) I have not been asked to look into that.
625. Is not that part of the problem? As long
as Imperial are always dependent on the taxpayers' money, or Greenwich,
or any of our fine institutions, there is a relationship, is there
not, in all classic institutions, just to depend on the taxpayer
to fund them, there is a little less drive for imagination; and
we have seen the American example, where there is a diversity
of income streams?
(Mr Lambert) My impression is, and I have seen data
that supports this, that over the last 20 years there has become
a noticeably increased entrepreneurial drive in the British university
sector, and there are data produced, for instance, by Nottingham,
where I was last week, which tracks, I cannot remember the name
of the report, I am afraid, but you know it, the commercial success
of the British university institutions, the growth of technology
transfer, and the trends are strongly upwards. So the starting-point
is, my impression is, there is more entrepreneurial vigour in
the sector than there was; also it is my impression that the universities
that I have spoken to so far, which have been only a very small
number, have decided that it is important to them to diversify
their income streams and to get revenues from business, where
sensibly they can. One issue which they all talk about, which
I have not yet formed a view on but they talk about a lot, and
I bet you have people here talking about it, is the basis on which
they do research for business and for charities, in other words,
the amount of their overhead that they can properly recover under
those things; that seems to be a big issue for the university
side, that they feel particularly the big charities, who refuse
to cover overheads, are distorting the picture somewhat. But I
have not yet come across anybody who says, "We're simply
not interested in business revenues;" the opposite seems
to me to be the case.
626. Is there not though a danger that universities
very often look at the world as though there were still lots of
Glaxos and ICIs and major companies as potential partners, where
the reality is a great deal of innovation and new business comes
from very small start-ups, they have spin-offs; if you look, for
example, at the Cambridge Innovation Centre, that is now the partnerships
of big businesses coming along, and it is a different sort of
challenge, is it not?
(Mr Lambert) Yes, I am sure it is, actually, and I
am sure it is going to be important to get a clear distinction
in this project between the BPs and the Glaxos, and that lot,
and Rolls-Royces, and the very companies that you are talking
about. I think there are different sets of issues and different
drivers.
627. But this will be part of your remit?
(Mr Lambert) Yes, it is.
Jeff Ennis
628. Turning to the Government's target to increase
HE participation rates to 50% by 2010, Mr Lambert, are there any
economic arguments against trying to meet this target?
(Mr Lambert) I have not given it any thought. I do
not think that is part of my remit, to be honest.
629. Why not?
(Mr Lambert) Because I am asked to look at the relationships
between business and the universities and try to find barriers,
if they exist, and find examples of best practice, where they
exist.
630. Are you getting any feedback from business
on the increase in HE participation up to 50%?
(Mr Lambert) I have not asked the question, actually.
Do you think I should?
Chairman
631. If we are getting up from 43% to 50%, mainly
through foundation degrees, these are supposed to be degrees particularly
demanded by the business world; and, in a sense, what some of
our witnesses have suggested is that it may be a very good aspiration,
but is there the demand there from business for that kind of recruit,
after a two-year course?
(Mr Lambert) I am afraid I do not know.
Jeff Ennis
632. So you do not know whether it would have
been better actually to conclude your research and find out the
ideas of businesses on the foundation degree principle before
the Government announced the launch of it; is it not a bit like
putting the cart before the horse?
(Mr Lambert) I am afraid, honestly, I do not know.
I do not know what research the Government did do, in preparing
the foundation course. I should make it clear that I am a kind
of independent reviewer, I do not have to make the case for government
policy.
633. What do you think the implications are
for established HNCs and HNDs, by bringing in what is perceived
to be quite an expansion on the foundation degree course principle?
(Mr Lambert) Again, I am sorry to say, I have not
thought about it.
Chairman
634. I think what we are trying to tease out
of you, Richard, is that here is the Government, the Minister,
and Charles Clarke will be sitting where you are this coming Wednesday,
will be coming before us and say, "We're a Government, New
Labour, actually we don't want the old stuff of, you know, if
you're in the shower and suddenly you think of a good idea as
a policy, that evidence-based policy is the watchword of this
Government." In other words, you do not say suddenly, "Well,
what a good idea, to do expansion of higher education on the cheap,
we'll have these foundation degrees;" of course no-one would
think of that in the present Government. The present Government
would say, "We've done the research, very careful research,"
probably done by some of our research institutions, "and
now we're going to move to this policy, because we've done the
research, this is research-based policy, evidence-based policy."
In a sense, if we are going to see some major changes in the relationship
between the private sector and universities, one would hope it
is based on evidence and research; would that be right?
(Mr Lambert) One would, yes, and that is what I am
doing. But, to be frank, the areas that I am looking at are rather
different, and perhaps if you think I should be broadening my
remit, it is already pretty broad. But what I am looking at are
things like management and ownership of the intellectual property,
as I said, financial incentives, I am trying to get a handle on
the benefits and disbenefits of spin-outs, as against licensing
income, I am trying to understand a whole host of things in that
area, and I am not actually standing back and saying does the
whole policy make sense, I had not thought that that was my job.
635. No; but what we are saying to you is, and
this is interesting for us, if it is the case that the Government
wants to improve the management of universities because, what
you are saying is, you are the shock troops, you are going in
to see if there is the case, you are the evidence-based policy,
you are going to make a policy based on you and your core civil
servants telling them, "This is the problem"?
(Mr Lambert) I hope that is right, yes.
636. This is really on the cheap, is it not?
We used to have Royal Commissions and it took three years; now
they have got Richard Lambert, three civil servants and six months?
(Mr Lambert) And they are astonishingly fortunate
to have us. I think that, if we were going for that wide remit
and taking in everything, that would be a fair comment, but we
are not trying to do that.
637. Richard, you are not trying to do that,
but if you are going to make a major policy, in a sense, what
we are trying to get at is, the Chancellor has set you running;
immediately behind that you have a major change in the funding
of research in this country, which is going to have profound implications
for anything you say. The fact of the matter is, here you are,
you are following on, a reassessment of the Research Assessment
Exercise by Sir Gareth Roberts, there is a look at bureaucracy
in higher education, and also you have got this fundamental change
already in place, in some parts, a profound change. Is that not
annoying to you, because almost, in a sense, before you have come
up with any considered opinions at all, the Government has said,
"Oh, well, we're getting rid of research, the way that Richard
Lambert understood it when he took the job, and we're changing
it"?
(Mr Lambert) I have not thought of it that way at
all. What I have thought is, here is an interesting and worthwhile
issue with some broad ramifications, I have got the incredible
privilege of being an outsider, asked to distill all this, within
my terms of reference, rather narrow terms of reference. I think
I will have done a good job if at the end I can come up with a
report which says, here are things which work well and this is
what we can learn from them, here are things which I can identify
within this space that people need to think about a bit, and that
could include the workings of technology transfer offices, for
instance, or the ownership of IPR, or whatever, here are some
examples of things that are not working well and why they do not
seem to be working well, and here is the data, here is accurate
data which helps you understand what is going on here, and would
help to answer your questions. If I have done all that, I will
think I have done a good job.
638. I suppose we are teasing you into looking
at a slightly broader remit. We know you cannot do everything,
but there are fundamental decisions being made, and have been
made, in higher education that will have absolutely severe implications.
Let me give you one, just to finish this session. Many of us are
unsure about this cut between big science, relevant to the large
companies, partnerships you can see are obvious, the big science
area, and this different world, which seems to be about regional
regeneration, transfer technology; and some of us, who have been
in this business for some time, are worried about where one ends
and the other begins, whether it is easy to cut it in that way.
Would you agree with that?
(Mr Lambert) Yes, I think that would be an issue.
But I feel instinctively that it would be good if there were some—a
pompous phrase coming up—diversity of mission for British
universities, that some were asked to do one thing, and were rewarded
for doing it, and some were asked to do something slightly different
and were rewarded for it, and that they should not all be asked
to do the same thing.
639. There are a lot of Yorkshire-linked Members
of Parliament on this Committee, for some strange reason, which
actually is quite an accident, but we would look at our major
universities, great city universities, Sheffield and Leeds, and
say we had always thought there was a major research role for
those two fine institutions, and yet people out there are talking
of only four or six universities doing the big science. Would
that not be a concern?
(Mr Lambert) That would be a concern, if one were
talking of those sorts of numbers, that would be a concern; from
everything I have read and seen so far, I do not think that would
be wise.
640. Richard, thank you very much for your evidence.
And, as you progress, perhaps we will have you back again?
(Mr Lambert) I would love that, yes. And if you had,
collectively or individually, any thoughts about lines we should
be pursuing, I would welcome that as well.
Chairman: Thank you.
|
