APPENDIX 2
Memorandum from the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC)
1. ESRC'S REMIT
ESRC covers a wide and disparate range of disciplines
and topics, perhaps more than any other research council, ranging
from economics through psychology to anthropology, and including
management and education, and from issues such as environmental
sustainability and international security to youth crime and family
welfare. The ESRC has the largest research community of all the
councils, accounting for some 25% of those staff returned in the
last Research Assessment Exercise and our work is relevant to
a diverse body of research users across all areas of government,
business and the voluntary sector.
2. THE VALUE
OF SOCIAL
SCIENCE RESEARCH
The work supported by the ESRC contributes to
the social, political, economic and intellectual life of the UK
and beyond in a number of ways. It directly informs public policy
and professional practice across all sectors of the economy. It
strengthens our knowledge of and our ability to address a wide
range of complex issues central to our development as an advanced
and civilised society. It contributes to the teaching of large
numbers of undergraduate and postgraduate students. And, it enhances
the wider public's understanding of the world in which we all
live. Some examples of recent achievements and impacts, funded
by ESRC, that have contributed towards these in the last few years
are:
— World-class research on the application
of evolutionary and learning approaches to economic game theory
at the Centre for Economic Learning and Social Evolution based
at University College London. A recent ESRC evaluation confirmed
that this research team has few peers in Europe and rivals the
best in the US.
— Work over a number of years on the
psychology of face recognition which has influenced the ways in
which images are used in police investigations and how identification
evidence is used in court.
— The major independent evaluation
and report on the public's attitudes to GM food by a research
team led by Professor Nick Pidgeon which informed the House of
Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report on,
and Government Response to, the GM Nation?
— Work on families and social change,
including the influential report "Rethinking Families"
which was welcomed by the Minister for Women at its launch in
June this year as a major influence on government thinking in
this area.
— The Review of Government Social Classifications
as the basis for major government datasets, including the census.
This has had widespread international impact such that the EU
has accepted it as the basis of socio-economic classification
across Europe.
— The work led by Professor Harvey
Goldstein on the development of multi-level modelling as a tool
for handling complex data involving multiple variables which has
led to a major shift in the practice of social science data analysis.
— Groundbreaking work by Professor
David Hendry at the University of Oxford to develop a new general
theory of economic forecasting, which is already influencing work
in government departments and central banks.
— The core funding that sustains the
analytical base for the regular analyses and briefings provided
for MPs and policy makers by the Institute for Fiscal Studies,
such as the annual budget briefings.
— Work in our Innovative Health Technologies
Programme on the role of technology in medical practice leading,
amongst other things, to the development of a CD ROM for NHS training
purposes.
— The central role played by ESRC-funded
Research Centres in the DTI's recent Innovation Review and the
Government's Productivity Initiative as reflected in the subsequent
reports in both areas.
3. MAIN ACTIVITIES
Our total expenditure in 2003-04 was £100
million of which £67 million was spent on research, £26
million on postgraduate training and the remainder on communications
activities, evaluation and administration. The Council's budget
is set to increase further over the next few years following the
overall increase in the science budget announced in the 2002 spending
review and is £119 million this year rising to £130
million in 2005-06. At any one time, we are supporting about 2,000
doctoral students, 700 grants and fellowships, 350 projects within
our 20-30 managed programmes, and 30 large-scale research and
resource centres. Approximately 1,500 researchers are employed
on these awards in addition to the members of staff leading the
research. The balance between directive and responsive mode funding
is approximately 2:1. Annex 1 provides a breakdown of our funding
across these main areas of activity over the last five years.
Overall strategy and policy is the responsibility
of the Council. The commissioning, management and oversight of
the scientific output of our work is taken forward by four advisory
Boards that report to Council. These Boards comprise senior social
scientists and research users and are chaired by members of Council.
They are:
— Research Grants Board—responsible
for responsive mode funding ie in response to ideas from the social
science community.
— Strategic Research Board—responsible
for the pro-active, or directive, mode of funding primarily through
programmes and centres.
— Research Resources Board—responsible
for infrastructure, data resources, large-scale surveys and research
methods.
— Training and Development Board—responsible
for doctoral training, postdoctoral fellowships and researcher
career development.
These activities are all discussed in more detail
in the sections that follow.
4. PLANNING,
PRIORITY SETTING
AND DECISION
MAKING
This year ESRC has adopted a new mechanism for
making major, long-term strategic decisions. Hitherto we had used
our seven thematic priorities to shape our research agenda. However,
it had become increasingly apparent that a more broadly based
approach was required in order to embrace fully the range of activities
to which we wish to give priority, to facilitate more focused
and transparent decision making, and to allow for more radical
shifts in our portfolio where this was judged to be appropriate.
The themes will remain as a useful description of the work we
support across broad topic areas but future funding decisions
will instead be driven by the four priority categories of Capacity,
Research, Engagement and Performance.
The main features of the new approach are:
— A more explicit recognition of the
importance of building future research capacity through the recruitment,
retention and professional development of top class researchers
and the development of the social science infrastructure in terms
of facilities and resources.
— Greater enabling of activities addressing
cross-disciplinary collaboration, user engagement, knowledge transfer
and science and society.
— More frequent consultation with our
key stakeholders both within and beyond the social science research
community.
— Greater integration between the Council
and its Boards and Committees throughout the planning cycle to
develop a shared agenda and set of priorities.
— Greater flexibility to respond quickly
to opportunities for collaboration and co-funding through the
creation of a new Research Venture Fund. We have already used
this fund to support a new initiative on demographic change in
Scotland with the Scottish Executive and to become a co-funder
of the National Preventative Research Initiative.
How does this work in practice?
We are now in the first year of implementing
this strategic framework. A major consultation exercise on what
our future priorities should be was launched in the spring involving
universities, learned societies, government departments, organisations
in the business, public and voluntary sectors and other key stakeholders.
In October, Council will consider the responses
to our consultation exercise alongside proposals for new or additional
activities. The ESRC Boards and office will then submit strategic
plans to the Council meeting in April 2005 for final decisions.
It is already clear that strong proposals will be put forward
for substantially more new work than can be afforded. The Council
will therefore have to take a carefully considered long-term view
on the key priorities for ESRC in the coming years before deciding
which of these should be supported. This will include feeding
into RCUK-level discussions about new initiatives, the allocation
of SR2004 funding over the next few months and implementation
of the government's 10 year framework for science and innovation.
5. THE RESEARCH
AND TRAINING
PORTFOLIO
ESRC's approach to the funding of research is
based on two key principles:
(i) That we should fund the highest quality
research wherever it is found, underpinned by independent peer
review. There is no policy in favour of either institutional dispersal
or concentration. ESRC currently funds research at over 120 different
institutions. However, 44% of ESRC funding goes to 10 institutions
as illustrated in the table below.
|
| Overall Expenditure Research and Training 2003-04 (£K)%
|
|
| 1. |
University of Essex | 6,806 | 7.3
|
| 2. |
London: School of Economics and Political Science | 5,204 | 5.6
|
| 3. |
University of Oxford | 4,553 | 4.9
|
| 4. |
University of York | 4,111 | 4.4
|
| 5. |
University of Manchester | 4,076 | 4.4
|
| 6. |
University of Cambridge | 4,023 | 4.3
|
| 7. |
University of London: University College | 3,423 | 3.7
|
| 8. |
University of Sheffield | 2,965 | 3.2
|
| 9. |
Cardiff University | 2,903 | 3.1
|
| 10. |
University of Warwick | 2,816 | 3.0
|
|
|
Total |
40,880 |
43.9 |
|
| NB These figures include major centres and surveys.
|
(ii) A balanced research portfolio. This will include
a combination of directive funding to support research in areas
of strategic importance and to develop capacity in important emerging
areas and a strong responsive mode, providing opportunities for
the best ideas to emerge from the research community. The portfolio
also needs to allow sufficient support for the development of
world class researchers, resources and infrastructure to underpin
future social science research.
STRATEGIC DIRECTED
FUNDING
Programmes and Networks
Programmes and priority networks are co-ordinated mechanisms
that draw on and bring together expertise from across the UK science
base, wherever it is located. They address key research challenges
ranging from devolution to innovative health technologies. An
increasing number of our programmes have been funded through specific
spending review allocations and many of these entail cross-disciplinary
collaboration with our RCUK partners. The work of these programmes
is discussed further below.
Research Centres
Research Centres, usually funded for ten years at a single
location, foster the development of international centres of excellence
in partnership with host institutions; the development of longer
term research agendas beyond the period of ESRC funding; inter-disciplinary
teams; capacity building; and, the development of partnerships
with stakeholders. New Centres established in recent years include
the Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability
and Society (BRASS) at Cardiff University, the Centre for Competition
Policy (University of East Anglia) and the Centre for Public Organisation
(Bristol University). Current centres have the potential to reapply
for continued funding for further five year periods in competition
with other proposals. In the last year the Institute for Fiscal
Studies, the Centre for Economic Performance and the Centre for
Micro-Social Change have been given continuing support on this
basis.
A full list of current programmes and centres is provided
at Annex 2.
RESPONSIVE MODE
FUNDING
Our responsive mode mechanisms are open and flexible. Applications
are invited in any area within our remit. We have no fixed closing
dates and provide support for research grants up to £750k
and for research fellowships. Small grants provide a particular
route for supporting new researchers. In addition, the Training
and Development Board supports one-year postdoctoral fellowships
for those who have just completed their doctorates.
We also introduced last year a new Professorial Fellowship
scheme to provide up to five years of funding for the UK's best
social scientists in order to pursue innovative and creative agendas
that will make a major contribution to the development of social
science in the UK. The first fellows include Professor Gerry Stoker,
whose recent book "Transforming Local Government" was
cited as "recommended reading" in a recent House of
Commons debate on Local Government Finance and Professor Tony
Barnett, co-author of the world's first research-based account
of the social and economic effects of the AIDS epidemic in Africa,
lead author of the UNDP report on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and
recently awarded the Royal Anthropology Institute's Lucy Mair
Medal for contributions to practical anthropology.
Success rates
Demand for ESRC funding is high and there has been a substantial
increase in grant applications (from 595 in 2000-01 to 831 in
2003-04). The overall success rate in 2003-04 was 35%. However,
the success rate for large grants (over £45k) was only 23%
and for fellowships 27% and a substantial proportion of applications
with high alpha (ie fundable) ratings remain unsupported. An additional
£20 million a year would be required to enable us to support
all the proposals in the top half of the alpha range. Data on
responsive mode applications and awards over the last five years
by discipline are provided at Annex 3.
Peer Review
Our assessment mechanisms are based on peer review. We select
reviewers from the whole research community in order to access
specialist expertise and spread the responsibilities and learning
opportunities involved in peer review. The Research Grants Board
then provides expert comparative assessments and a virtual College
of assessors supports the streamlined assessment of small grant
applications. We are keen to encourage openness and transparency
in our decision-making processes. We therefore discourage the
submission of confidential comments so that referees' and panel
members' comments can be fed back to applicants and other reviewers.
We have just introduced the opportunity for applicants to respond
to referees' comments on very large grant applications before
a decision is made and if this proves successful it will be extended
to other schemes.
Dual Support Reform
ESRC is working closely with the other research councils,
the OST and the funding councils in implementing the impending
changes to the dual support system. We welcome the greater transparency
the introduction of full economic costs will bring. However, it
is possible that this will lead to a considerable increase in
the number and costs of grant applications received by ESRC, given
the size of our community and the likelihood that a research council
award will cover a greater proportion of costs than funding from
some other sources. We will need to keep this under constant review
to ensure that our success rates do not fall to an unacceptable
level.
RESEARCH RESOURCES
High quality data resources are the very lifeblood of economic
and social research. The ESRC has thus made a fundamental commitment
to building and maintaining a comprehensive data infrastructure
for the UK social science community. The effective exploitation
of this data infrastructure is equally essential and the Council
has played a leading role in developing innovative methodological
approaches to analyse increasingly complex data resources.
Building a data infrastructure
The United Kingdom has led the world in the creation of major
social science data resources. For example, we have funded the
collection of a unique suite of internationally renowned longitudinal
studies, including the National Child Development Study, British
Household Panel Study and Millennium Cohort. Through repeated
periodic sampling of the same people over many years, these studies
are charting the life histories of thousands of individuals from
birth into old age. The resulting data offer enormous opportunities
to study social and economic change over time. They also provide
a robust evidence base upon which to formulate public policy in
areas ranging from deprivation and social exclusion through to
labour market dynamics and income distribution.
Building and maintaining a world class data infrastructure
requires very substantial investment given the pace of technological
change in this area. The cost of maintaining the ESRC's major
longitudinal studies alone will be £20 million over the next
six years. However, if the UK is to maintain its position at the
leading international edge, then it needs to do more than simply
commit to the long term support of existing datasets. It must
also find the resources to create bigger and more complex datasets
to radically open out the opportunity for more in depth analysis
of major social and economic issues. These include, for example,
developing a deeper understanding of the dynamics of ethnic diversity
and of wealth and asset distribution across the UK's population.
It would also greatly improve our capacity to undertake comparative
analysis internationally and across devolved administrations and
the different regions within the UK.
The Council recognises that this can be best achieved by
working in close partnership with other key stakeholders. We are
therefore working in close co-operation with such bodies as the
Office for National Statistics, government departments, charitable
foundations and other Research Councils. These efforts are now
culminating in a major new ESRC-led initiative to create a National
Datasets Strategy. This will provide stable and long term access
to an increasing range of key social science data resources through
co-ordinating future funding and data delivery arrangements
Exploiting the data infrastructure
It is of vital importance that the most advanced tools and
techniques are available to the social science community to both
collect and effectively analyse increasingly multi-layered and
multi-textured social science data resources. For example, the
opportunities for greater data integration and improved data mining
techniques are immense and offer the potential to truly revolutionise
social science research. The Council has a role as the steward
of methodological development, providing a fundamental and enduring
commitment to improving the methodological skills base of the
UK social science community through a number of initiatives. This
has produced groundbreaking new methodological advances, including,
for instance, work on Multi-Level Modelling which has helped researchers
distinguish the influence of family from neighbourhood and school
setting in assessing individual child educational attainment.
This programme of support continues with the Council investing
over £12 million in a Research Methods Programme and National
Research Methods Centre over the last three years.
POSTGRADUATE TRAINING
One of the Council's principal aims is that of building the
next generation of social scientists by supporting high quality
research training.
Quality Assurance
The Council operates rigorous quality assurance procedures
to ensure that training provision is of the highest standards,
setting out both generic and subject specific training requirements.
Any Department or Faculty that wishes to be eligible for ESRC
postgraduate funding must first apply to the Council describing
how its training provision meets these requirements. There are
over 550 eligible Departments or Faculties currently "recognised"
for ESRC studentship funding.
The impact of our approach has been far reaching with a significant
number of students not funded by the Council also benefitting
from the training standards required by the ESRC. In this way
the Council has had a positive impact on raising the general standard
of postgraduate training provision in the social sciences and
not only for ESRC funded students.
The "1+3" Model
The ESRC believes that a minimum of four years of training
are required to develop the necessary skills to prepare postgraduate
students for a longer term research career. In 2001 we introduced
the "1+3" model which provides integrated training and
research over a four year period. This is normally based upon
an initial year of research based Masters training followed by
three years PhD support and training in more advanced research
skills, although variants of this model such as "2+2"
can also be supported. By providing an integrated and secure four
year funding package, the ESRC believes it is more likely to attract
high quality candidates to apply for its studentships.
Allocation of Studentships
The Council's capacity to fund the most talented students
has been further strengthened by the recent introduction of a
quota system with the intention that by 2006 the vast majority
of studentships will be allocated in this way. This devolved process
of decision making has greatly improved the ability of HEIs to
identify the highest calibre candidates and guarantee them a studentship
at an early date. The quota system also means that institutions
know in advance how many studentships they will receive in the
future, which greatly assists in the planning of institutional
and departmental research strategies. It will also bring us more
closely in line with the postgraduate allocation procedures used
by other Research Councils.
Cross-council collaboration
We have been working closely with the other Research Councils
in other studentship schemes. For example, we currently have two
jointly funded studentship schemes aimed at building vital new
interdisciplinary research capacity. The first of these is with
NERC and is concerned with new approaches to the study of environmental
issues. It has been running for five years and has supported about
100 students over this period. The second scheme, launched this
year, is with MRC and is seeking to encourage innovative approaches
at the interface between medicine and social science, particularly
in the field of health behaviour.
6. CURRENT PRIORITIES
FOR RESEARCH
AND TRAINING
(i) Spending Review initiatives
Many of the largest and most high profile investments within
our current research portfolio are those funded through targeted
spending review (SR) allocations. Most of these are in partnership
with other research councils. These are priorities for the Council
not least because of the intrinsic importance of the areas covered,
the amount of funding involved and the opportunities they provide
for cross-disciplinary, cross-council collaboration. A summary
of all our current SR funded initiatives is provided at Annex
4. Amongst the principal issues being addressed are:
Genomics—the effective contribution of social
science to a better understanding of the social, legal and ethical
issues surrounding current advances in biotechnology and genomics
and analysing UK public attitudes towards a range of applications
of genomics including GM foods, cloning and genetic testing.
Stem Cells—the global regulation of embryonic
stem cells; innovation processes in relation to stem cells; the
role of standards; and public engagement in stem cell research.
Management—UK productivity and other performance
indicators for the 21st century; sustaining innovation while meeting
competitive pressure; adapting promising management practices
to new circumstances; and, developing an agenda for public service
innovation and effectiveness.
Rural Economy and Land Use—successful and sustainable
food products and food chains; integration of land and water use;
the environmental basis of rural development; and, economic and
social interactions with the rural environment.
Energy—how to access a secure, safe, diverse
and reliable energy supply at competitive prices while meeting
the challenge of global warming. "Managing the New Uncertainties"
with a focus on energy markets and regulatory, social and economic
drivers.
Research Methods—the creation of a National Centre
for Research Methods to provide a national research and training
programme for improving the quality and range of methodological
skills and techniques used by the UK social science community.
E-Social Science—the use of new grid technologies
to look at such key areas as financial forecasting and macro-economics,
Human Systems Modelling and life-course analysis.
(ii) Education research
ESRC is leading a major initiative in the area of Teaching
and Learning funded by a number of key stakeholders including
the funding councils, the DfES and the Welsh and Scottish devolved
administrations. The programme originated from concerns over the
need for better co-ordinated high-quality research in this area
and HEFCE initially provided the majority of the funding. The
overall budget is some £27 million. The programme's overarching
purpose is to support research leading to improvements in outcomes
for learners of all ages and in all contexts of education and
learning. For example, research on incentives to workplace learning
has developed the powerful new concept and diagnostic tool of
"expansive and restrictive learning environments" and
has fed into the 2003 White Paper 21st Century Skills and
the work of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education
(NIACE) and the Modern Apprenticeship Task Force.
(iii) Commissioning of new work
In addition to the continuing commissioning work on cross-council
programmes such as Energy and the Rural Economy, we are also commissioning
four new programmes on Public Services; World Economy & Finance;
the New Dynamics of Ageing; and Non Governmental Public Action.
We are also finalising plans for two new programmes in the areas
of ethnicity and mobility and are in the process of running a
further Research Centres competition from which we will consider
support for a number of new centres in April 2005.
(iv) Maintenance of the research base
There is much concern at present over the severe recruitment
and retention difficulties in areas such as mathematics, physics
and chemistry. In the social sciences there are similar concerns
in terms of the renewal of the research base not least in areas
such as economics and management where people with the necessary
quantitative skills are in short supply and where alternative
career options are generally rather more lucrative than a career
in academia. We also have significant concerns relating to social
statistics, research methods and related areas such as demography/population
studies where the community has always been relatively small but
where there are very few new people coming through. In addition,
across the social sciences as a whole the academic workforce is
ageing to the extent that we face major problems over the next
ten years as illustrated by the table below. This is particularly
the case in subjects such as education and social work. We are
of course implementing the substantial increase in the postgraduate
stipend, rising to £12k in October 2005, and will be providing
higher salaries for research staff in the areas identified above.
We have also given some priority to these subject areas in our
support for studentships and postdoctoral fellowships.
(v) Interdisciplinarity
ESRC funds research excellence whether within or across disciplines
and works to eradicate barriers to such excellence both within
the social sciences and with those areas covered by the other
Research Councils. Nearly all of our programmes and centres depend
upon the involvement of researchers from a range of disciplines
and an increasing proportion of our activities now involve collaboration
with researchers in the physical, natural and life sciences. All
of our Boards and Panels are multi-disciplinary—there are
no "subject" Committees. Close collaboration with other
councils regarding the assessment of responsive mode applications
at the boundaries between us ensures that cross-disciplinary applications
are not disadvantaged.
(vi) International collaboration
The ESRC's role in developing social science in the UK involves
a strong commitment to work across national boundaries, taking
advantage of the intellectual opportunities to be gained from
co-operative and comparative research, as well as maintaining
and developing the high standing of UK researchers within international
social science research networks. Such collaboration includes:
— International co-funding of response mode research
such as the European Science Foundation's ECRP (European Collaborative
Research Projects) Scheme. We are now planning to introduce such
co-funding with sister organisations beyond the EU.
— Building effective platforms of co-operation via
inter-country and inter-agency agreements. This extends beyond
our European partners including, for example, a collaboration
with the Social Science Research Council for US academics to visit
ESRC Research Centres and Programmes in 2004-05 and agreements
with a number of partner Academies in China to offer grants for
research visits and joint projects in areas such as Chinese economic
policy and foreign direct investment in China.
— Participation in EU Framework Programmes, particularly
the theme on Citizens and Governance in a Knowledge-based Society
and the horizontal programme on Science and Society. We also co-fund
pan-European research infrastructures such as the European Social
Survey.
— Training initiatives through the new Dorothy Hodgkin
Postgraduate Awards scheme. This is a new cross-Council scheme
(initiated by the Office of Science and Technology) to fund PhD
students from the developing world. Each award is jointly sponsored
by both a Research Council and an industrial sponsor.
7. KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
AND COLLABORATIVE
PARTNERSHIPS
A key element of the Council's approach to knowledge transfer
is its commitment to effective user engagement at all stages of
the research process, from the setting of research agendas and
priorities and the conduct of research through to the communication
and dissemination of research outcomes.
In relation to public sector bodies, our approach is underpinned
by concordat agreements and strategic partnerships with government
departments and devolved administrations. A list of current concordat
partners is provided at Annex 5. In particular, we provide syntheses
and briefings on research findings in relevant policy areas such
as taxation; fiscal planning; climate change; and employment patterns.
We have introduced a policy seminar series and seminars have been
held on factors affecting school leaving decisions, population
trends in Scotland, UK productivity and obesity.
In relation to business, there are close links between specific
programmes and the business community. The Financial Markets Group
based at LSE has attracted significant corporate sponsorship from
a range of investors such as UBS Global Asset Management, Lehmann
Brothers and International Asset Management Ltd. The CEP (Centre
for Economic Performance) Business Club has also attracted similar
support. ESRC's Innovation Research Centres work closely with
business. For example, the Centre for Complex Product Systems
(COPS) has run training courses for organisations such as Samsung
and Boots, while BAe Systems has adopted its "human centred"
approach to improving software processes and practices. The Centre
for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC) has worked closely
with Rolls Royce, Unilever and BNFL.
All ESRC programmes and centres are required to engage with
a range of users and programmes, for example, commit 5% of their
budget for dissemination and engagement activities. Key performance
indicators for engagement activities and published output have
been introduced to set levels of achievement for this activity.
In addition to workshops and other events, training opportunities
are also provided by the ESRC for the directors of our major investments
on understanding Government processes to maximise policy impact
and engaging effectively with the media. Senior social scientists
are engaged in a wide variety of advisory roles in Government
and many academics, particularly in the areas of economics and
management and business studies, also engage in consultancy work.
ESRC commissioned research at Cambridge University has shown that
academics acting in consultant roles are one of the most significant
mechanisms of knowledge transfer in the social sciences. A number
of the senior academics within our Management Research Initiative
(AIM) are involved in such activity. We are also in discussion
with the Treasury over the development of a new scheme to facilitate
greater movement between the academic and government sectors.
In addition to our centres and programmes, we spend over
£2 million annually on collaborative studentships (CASE—Collaborative
Awards in Science and Engineering), supporting about 200 such
students at any one time. This scheme is based on partnerships
between universities and non-academic organisations and allows
doctoral students to draw upon workplace experience in a range
of settings for their research. Similarly, Knowledge Transfer
Partnerships (KTPs), managed with the DTI, bring together staff
in academic institutions and workplaces from all sectors by having
associates conducting jointly supervised projects. For example,
the partnership between Central Manchester and Manchester Children's
(CMMC) University Hospital NHS Trust and the Manchester School
of Management at UMIST was awarded the KTP annual award for the
Best Application of Social and Management Sciences in 2003. This
partnership was funded by the ESRC and NHS North Region and will
lead to an extra 700 operations being performed each year due
to more efficient scheduling, potential savings to the Trust of
over £400,000 per annum and employment by the research associate
with York NHS Trust.
Beyond these schemes the Council has also collaborated with
government departments in building research capacity in targeted
areas. It has, for instance, established a highly successful co-funded
studentship scheme with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minster
and has a jointly supported scheme with the Welsh Assembly Government,
focused around developing research capacity on key social and
economic issues within Wales. We are keen to extend these collaborations
to involve other partners. The ESRC also supports LINK programmes,
student placements in the Parliamentary Office of Science and
Technology, the Small Business Research Initiative, the Business
Plan Competition and the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme.
8. SCIENCE AND
SOCIETY
ESRC science and society activity aims to promote social
science and demonstrate its valuable contribution to the UK's
knowledge base. The ESRC's portfolio of research into science
and society topics such as public dialogue, public perceptions
of risk and science teaching, means that we have an added responsibility
to distribute evidence to the science community and encourage
evidence based science policy. ESRC reports on public understanding
of science such as "Towards a better map: science, the public
and the media" and "Who's Misunderstanding Whom?"
have made important contributions to the debate. In addition our
Science in Society research programme has addressed key issues
regarding the role of science, public engagement with science
issues and the governance of science.
We use the media, events, publications and the internet to
inform and engage the public about social science research. For
example, we issued 139 press releases related to our research
in 2003-04. Much of our public dialogue activity is channelled
through our research programmes, many of which invite relevant
user groups and communities to become involved through, for example,
programme advisory committees. Stakeholders help to shape the
overall direction of these activities throughout the lifecycle
of the research from the initial proposal through to the dissemination
of findings.
The ESRC is expanding its use of the internet and is launching
in spring 2005 a major on-line initiative. The Information Centre
will be a free-access social science research tool. Users will
be able to access a breadth of social science knowledge from both
ESRC and other UK funders. The site is aimed at both academic
and non-academic users and will focus on presenting research results
in plain English.
9. EVALUATION
The ESRC places considerable emphasis on evaluating the outcomes
and impacts of its research funding, and it uses the results to
inform its strategic development and funding decisions. Evaluations
are managed by the Research Evaluation Committee (REC), which
operates independently of the research boards and reports directly
to Council. The REC conducts project, programme, centre and policy
evaluations to provide accountability for ESRC expenditure, inform
strategic priorities, support decision-making and contribute to
improved research performance. The Committee has recently revised
its strategy to incorporate more cross-cutting reviews of aspects
of research policy in order to better inform Council's strategic
planning process.
Recent evaluations have included a policy evaluation of interdisciplinary
research support, and assessments of work at the Centre for Research
on Innovation & Competition, the Complex Products and Systems
Innovation Centre, the Centre for Social and Economic Research
on the Global Environment, and the Centre for Organisation and
Innovations; results from the centre evaluations underpinned the
Council's decision that these investments have performed sufficiently
well to justify bids (in competition with others) for continued
support. The REC's current work includes an assessment of the
effectiveness of the ESRC's Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme, a
review of the utility and performance of the Census Data Support
Units, and evaluations of a range of research investments.
The new evaluation strategy includes a greater emphasis on
benchmarking the UK's international performance, starting with
the development of robust bibliometrics. The bibliometric data
collected by Thomson ISI is used widely but is acknowledged by
experts to present a misleading picture of performance. The ISI
takes no account of book publication, yet only 51% of submissions
to the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise Politics Panel from 4,
5, and 5* Units were journal articles. There is also very variable
coverage of important social science publications, with, for example,
only 13% of outputs submitted to the RAE Education Panel appearing
in the ISI. The REC's work is addressing these weaknesses, and
the results will provide government and funders with more accurate
measures of impact. The Committee will supplement these improved
metrics with international subject reviews to benchmark disciplinary
strengths and weaknesses in more detail.
10. ADMINISTRATIVE EFFICIENCY
AND CROSS-COUNCIL
CO-OPERATION
The Council aims to keep its administrative costs to below
4% of total expenditure although, with a relatively small budget
and a large and diverse community and portfolio of activities,
this represents a considerable challenge. The opportunities afforded
by the creation of RCUK and the increasing harmonisation of administrative
functions across the research councils will support this in the
longer-term.
The leading area of work since 2001 has been the development
of Joint Electronic Submissions (Je-S). With the onset of Dual
Support Reform and the introduction of Full Economic Costs (FEC),
it was agreed that the best time for ESRC to come into the main
system was by September 2005. As soon as the Je-S system is fully
operational we shall proceed in 2005-07 with the integration of
back office systems in areas such as research administration including
applications processing, peer review, award and payments administration
and end-of-award evaluation. These will be major steps forward
in administrative collaboration.
A major joint initiative has been the cross-Council development
of an Electronic Records Management Systems (ERMS). The MRC has
taken the lead in directing the work, and ESRC has been the first
to implement the new system, working with colleagues at CCLRC.
This became operational in April 2004.
ESRC has also established a joint Human Resources/Personnel
office with EPSRC, and last year established a common pay system
for both Councils. The joint unit saved £80,000 from our
joint EPSRC/ESRC salary costs in this area (some 25%). From January
2005 we shall also establish a common IT support unit at Polaris
House in Swindon, with all Councils working together.
Lastly we are reviewing how we bring together our financial
administration systems, given that the various Councils have quite
different businesses and therefore varying requirements.
It is intended that a strategy for administrative convergence
by 2008 will be in place by 2005. In total we believe that the
synergies and benefits will save ESRC much in future capital costs
and up to 10% (£450,000) of our recurrent costs.
11. LOOKING FORWARD:
FUTURE PLANS
AND PRIORITIES
The Council is currently engaged in developing its future
priorities, both as part of the broader process for determining
the distribution of the science budget announced in this year's
spending review and as part of its own decision-making cycle.
Over the next five to ten years there are substantial research
challenges for which high quality social science is needed and
the UK is well placed to deliver. The Council is already committed
to supporting new work in areas such as economic performance and
development, the delivery of public services and programmes on
qualitative data and the secondary analysis of existing data.
We will also wish to maintain a vibrant responsive mode that allows
us to support those applications with the highest alpha ratings
and to strengthen the infrastructure that underpins much of this
work.
In addition, ESRC will be seeking to strengthen its support
in areas such as health and lifestyle behaviours; demographic
change such as family structures and dynamics, migration and ageing;
the emerging role and influence of countries such as China and
India in the global economy; environmental and climate change;
and, international security.
We will also face a number of challenges over the next five
to ten years and would welcome the opportunity to discuss these
with the committee. These include:
— The continuing potential disjunction between the
requirements of the RAE and those of the research councils in
areas such as interdisciplinarity, applied research and research
related to professional practice and engagement with users.
— The need to increase the quantitative and linguistic
skills of social scientists. In addition to ESRC support, this
will require intervention at earlier stages in the education process
ie at school and undergraduate levels.
— The need to make a research career more attractive
to the UK's brightest young people, particularly in view of the
ageing of the current workforce as described earlier, and to provide
more integrated support throughout the academic lifecourse.
— The need to improve data access and usage.
4 October 2004
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