Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-101)
ALAN JOHNSON,
MP
3 DECEMBER 2003
Q100 Chairman: You have given us a lot
of time, Minister, but we would be really remiss if we did not
ask you one last question, and that is about research funding.
One of the strongest resonances we picked up during our inquiry
into the Higher Education White Paper was people were much more
interested and much more concerned about research funding than
they were about anything to do with flexible fees and the real
feeling of injustice in the higher education community of this
Government's fashion for believing that further increase on the
focus and concentration of research funding in fewer institutions
was going to benefit universities and our research capacity as
a nation. So much of the evidence came back time and time again
that that was not the case. A recent survey conducted for the
Universities UK seemed to back this up. Sometimes we would like
to see some response to Select Committee inquiry reports and we
are really disappointed that you do not seem to have moved at
all in this area.
Alan Johnson: We debated this,
as you remember, in July. We have not put the 21 million back
from the five's to the four's, which I think you specifically
asked for, we thought that was unrealistic. It was only 2% of
the research budget. What we tried to do was separate myth from
reality, the myth that we only wanted to focus on four universities
round the South East. There were over 40 different higher education
institutions that got more than £5 million in the latest
round and there was one in every region. We want to concentrate
on excellent research wherever it is. We do not intend to concentrate
all research funding into a tiny group, 75% has always been allocated
to 25 institutions, that is just the nature of how research operates.
We want to reward emerging research and innovative research, the
Higher Education Innovation Fund, which is £90 million against
the £20 odd million we moved round—2% of the budget
that causes a great deal of consternation—is a third arm
of funding. Since you have written your report you would have
seen that HEFCE said they will retain four rated departments at
their current rate of funding, round £138 million for the
entire RAE period, so over the next three years. That has settled
down lots of concerns. Having said the movement of that 21 million
was a shock, it was meant to be a shock to the system, it ended
up as just a shock in terms of people misconstruing that. There
was also legitimate criticism from you and others that if you
read the OSTs consultation document on Research Council funding
alongside Gareth Roberts' report on the RAE you could have thought
they came from different governments—I am going to say something
controversial here—they did not seem entirely joined-up,
and that has been recognised by myself, David Sainsbury and Charles
Clarke, et cetera. There was a real concern, the third bit of
self-criticism of Government, because it was a shock to the system
and universities were not expecting it, we had not consulted them
enough on where we wanted to go with research. Our view was with
Government putting an extra £1.25 billion into research we
wanted to be absolutely sure it was not just going to be business
as usual, because it is not business as usual in India, China
or America and elsewhere, we have to keep up to scratch. Mea culpa
in terms of some of those messages. What we have done since is
to set up the Research Forum, which has a wide cross-section,
the unions are represented, including the NUS, UUK are represented,
modern universities, ancient universities, Scotland, they all
have a place there and that will look at some of these thorny
questions like, is there an integral link between research and
teaching? It will also help us, it will act as a sounding board
for how we go forward with those three pieces of consultation
on research which will be taken through a Committee with me and
David Sainsbury so we are linked up with the OST and we will use
this group as a sounding board. I hope we can get some shared
analysis. I have not heard anybody say it should be business as
usual, they all accept the challenges we face. A bit more dialogue
about how we address those challenges should lead to a far more
productive atmosphere over this whole question of research.
Q101 Chairman: Minister, you have given
us a lot of time, thank very much for the session. We look forward
to seeing you again.
Alan Johnson: Thank you very much.
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