Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
2 FEBRUARY 2005
PROFESSOR IAN
DIAMOND AND
MS HELEN
THORNE
Q40 Mr Key: Nine plus or minus five—a
ballpark figure there. But it is a serious issue. You do not have
any administrative clout for a start. You cannot do the job very
well if you have that minimalist administrative core.
Professor Diamond: I will be absolutely
frank. You can only do the job well if there is commitment across
the Research Councils to do that.
Q41 Mr Key: Can you be independent though?
Professor Diamond: Absolutely
right you can.
Q42 Mr Key: You can? If you can be independent
how is it that the RCUK Administration Strategy Programme Management
Office has a staff of five and an annual budget of £2 million,
as opposed to your core budget of £400,000, and a million
of that comes straight from the government, from the Office of
Science and Technology?
Professor Diamond: Helen will
answer that. Nine plus five equals 14.
Q43 Chairman: She is the only woman in
the country that knows the facts! Come on, Helen!
Professor Diamond: I am happy
too, but I just feel I have been hogging the ball for too long,
so I will pass it back.
Ms Thorne: To answer your question
about us being a small team, we were very deliberately set up
that way. I think the Chief Executives were very sensible in that
they said they did not want a large, centralised bureaucracy for
RCUK. So the job of my team and the Programme Management Office
is to do all that we can to help the Research Councils work together.
We are not there to do that work but we are there to help them
in any way that we can. So our budget is necessarily small and
what we fund is workshops, meetings, events and publications.
The Administration Strategy Programme is different. There was
a very clear recommendation in the Quinquennial Review that the
Research Councils needed to do more to harmonise and convert their
administrative functions and services. There was also a recommendation
from the Quinquennial Review that some additional funding should
be made available from the Office of Science and Technology to
help that along, and that is what the additional £1 million
is, for the Administration Programme, and it is provided solely
on the basis that it matches funds that the Research Councils
put in themselves from their own administrative budgets.
Q44 Mr Key: I am still struggling with
what you are for and how independent you are because you have
just described a situation where half your budget for this particular
strategy programme comes straight from the main paymaster, the
government; the government decides in the end on what your science
research strategy is going to be and it sounds to me as if you
have excluded from this process all the other partners in UK science
research. There is no voice here for any industrial science research,
private sector research, the whole of the university sector does
not get a look in to the formulation of research policy, according
to this, because it is always going to be decided in the end by
the government.
Professor Diamond: Can I respond
very quickly to your point about the £1 million? A decision
was made—rightly in my view, and I am hugely supportive—that
there was a real long-term advantage to the efficient strategy
of the Research Councils to have some harmonisation of the administration.
The administration programme is part of RCUK. My experience—and
I do not know whether it is yours, Robert—is that if you
wish to bring things together you have initially to spend some
money to do that; you do not start saving money overnight, and
you have to spend some money to set up the computer systems and
so that is why you need a budget.
Q45 Mr Key: Okay, but let us get to the
big idea.
Professor Diamond: So let us get
to the big picture, which is, okay, where does industry come in,
where do the Funding Councils come in, where do our stakeholders
come in? I have already said to you that we meet with Dave King,
we meet with Keith Peters, we also meet with Howard Newby to be
in touch with the Funding Councils; we have met the Technology
Strategy Board. I met last year with the CBI. It is absolutely
critical for RCUK to have a real engagement with our stakeholders,
and Helen, I am sure, will now give you a few more examples of
the sort of things we are doing to make sure that when we bring
on board something from Research Councils then there is consultation
with stakeholders. I think you must also remember the massive
amount that goes on in individual Councils.
Q46 Mr Key: Before Helen does that, can
I just say that I really do want to look at the big picture here
because I am not convinced that science is being best served by
this very inward looking structure, and I put it to you that British
science would be much better served if we had an American style
National Science Foundation, which was a truly independent partnership,
federally funded, but you took the government out of it and the
scientists and the end users decided where the priorities should
be.
Professor Diamond: Frankly, I
think we have the best of both worlds here because we have the
effective regular communication which enables the proper lobbying
to tale place and the proper advice to take place, whilst at the
same time ensuring the independence of decision making—which
I can assure you is there within the Research Councils—about
how the money is spent. I will reiterate what I said five minutes
ago; that the current management of the current allocation process
is the most independent we have seen in some time.
Ms Thorne: Would you like me to
elaborate on the interactions?
Q47 Mr Key: Yes, but piccolo because
my colleagues have lots of questions.
Ms Thorne: Okay. I think really
to echo very much what Ian has said, in that the individual Research
Councils quite rightly and properly have very strong bilateral
relationships with their academic communities and with a whole
range of stakeholders, with users, with industry, with the Regional
Development Agencies, for example. The whole idea about Research
Councils UK is that we look to where we can add value by working
with those bodies on a collective basis, and our focus has very
much therefore been to work with other funders particularly. So
working with the Funding Councils, for example, and the charities;
we work through the Research Base Funders Forum, which was set
up at the end of 2003. And also to work where the sorts of people
where it is valuable for them to have a collective view of what
the Research Councils are doing and the Research Councils' priorities,
so very much, as Ian has said, the CBI and the Regional Development
Agencies.
Dr Iddon: Ian, do you feel that the hands
of the Treasury are on your shoulders, pressing you to deliver
more economic returns for the increasing investment in the Ten-Year
Strategy?
Q48 Chairman: More around your throat,
I should say?
Professor Diamond: On my throat?
No, no, no. I will be absolutely clear, Brian, what I do feel
is that there is a request to justify the way we put to use the
public money we get. Not, I stress, only for the economic development
of this country, but also for quality of life. I do feel a real
thrust for quality of life as well as economic performance and
economic development. But, yes, we have been asked to start to
develop performance management systems across the Councils and
we will have one for RCUK as well. I actually do not have a problem
with that and I do not have a problem with it because I think
it is right and proper to justify how we are spending the public
pound. The other reason I do not have a problem with it is that
it has not been something that has been imposed on us so much
as it has been something that we are having an interaction with
about how that would be done, and I am very relaxed and comfortable
about the indicators that are being used and will be used over
the next few years, to really justify how we are helping the UK
to take forward science for the benefit of the economic development
and quality of life in this country.
Q49 Dr Iddon: As you know, we have had
nearly all the Research Councils in front of us and have written
reports on them and we have found that there are considerable
differences in the way that they operate—and perhaps that
is right and proper, I do not know—but one of the significant
things that sticks out in my memory is that there are big differences
in the way that people manage research in terms of responsive
mode funding and managed mode funding. The MRC, for example, has
lots of research institutes so there is quite a lot of centrally
managed money going into the institutes. The EPSRC seems to do
more responsive management. Bearing in mind the question I have
just asked you, are we not moving in the direction of more centrally
managed mode research rather than responsive mode research?
Professor Diamond: No, I think
what I am hearing very much, Brian, is much more move towards
responsive mode research but joined with that a valuation of how
well that goes. So that we are able to have some reasonable indicators
of the success over time of our research both in terms of its
interaction, its benefit in quality of life in economic terms;
in other words the economic outputs as well as the academic outputs
and academic approach. So I actually feel that we are moving much
more towards responsive mode at the moment.
Q50 Dr Iddon: You say that British science
has been rather critical of you. You have published two "glossies"
as they call them, a Vision for Research and a Synthesis of Strategies
on Medium and Long-Term Research Strategies, but the individual
Research Councils publish glossies on strategies as well. Why
do you see it as your role to produce strategy documents when
the individual Research Councils are already doing that?
Ms Thorne: I think it is helpful
to think back to why Research Councils UK was set up in the first
place. There was a very clear direction that we need to do more
to influence policy and we should be providing collective leadership
and a collective voice for the Councils, and also making it easier
for people to come and talk with us. So, for example, if you had
a group of academics or funders from overseas and they are coming
to visit the UK, it is very difficult and time consuming for them
to sit down with eight different Research Councils and plough
through eight different strategies. So the whole idea of producing
the Synthesis was to be able to give them, as an entry document,
as it is, to say that this is collectively what we are doing,
these are where we think some of the exciting challenges and opportunities
are, and then to build on that and to find out where they are
particularly interested and then to be able to fix up for them
to talk to the individual Council or Councils that best fit their
needs. So it is making it easier for people to come and work with
us.
Q51 Dr Iddon: So, Helen, is what you
are saying that you are taking over the role of producing these
glossies away from the individual Research Councils because there
is advice from those individual Research Councils, or is this
two-tier research strategy document going to continue?
Ms Thorne: I think the idea always
was in producing the Synthesis, the Strategies and the Vision
that they would be very much living documents, that we would regularly
update them. We are certainly not about taking over individual
Councils' research strategies; those are quite rightly the responsibility
of the individual Councils themselves.
Q52 Dr Iddon: But what is the big difference
between the individual research strategy documents and your research
strategy documents? Why do we need two layers of documents?
Ms Thorne: It is really to make
it easier for people to come and talk to us so that they have
one place to focus on at the start of their discussions rather
than having to go around and talk to eight different organisations
and plough through eight different documents. So it is about presenting
the information in a way that makes it easier for people to engage.
Q53 Dr Iddon: Would you not save an enormous
amount of money for the eight Research Councils by letting RCUK
doing it rather than two layers of doing it? I cannot see the
reason why you do it and the eight individual Research Councils
are doing it?
Professor Diamond: I see a benefit,
Brian, if I may? The last thing on earth most people like to be
presented with is a 300-page PhD thesis of things to read to find
out what is going on, and if you were a large industry, "Our
industry covers across the place, how do we interact with the
research councils?" you may think, "Our management processes
work with EPSRC so I am reading EPSRC's document," but if
you did that you may only get to one Council and actually what
you would like is the short, snappy, this is an overview of what
Research Councils UK are doing, and this is where Research Councils
are really making a difference for the UK, and that would enable
you to dip in and say, "Right, what I really need to do is
to talk to this person in the EPSRC and this person in the ESRC
and they will be able to help me," and that is a really nice
thing to be able to do, not only for an individual who might want
to work with us but generally to showcase and press for the other
side's case. As Helen said, the Synthesis of Strategies has to
be a living document; it has to be updated because if we believe
we know the answer to science I think we give up. So we will be
updating this and putting this forward over time. But I think
it is right that we say, "This is what is going on in the
Councils at the moment across the piece and you may now wish to
delve down to find out in more detail about some of these particular
issues."
Q54 Dr Iddon: It is still the job of
the individual Research Councils to determine their strategies
in consultation with their own research communities, is that the
fact?
Professor Diamond: It is exactly
the case that it is still the Research Councils' job to develop
their own strategies. However, in so doing they will not only
consult with their own research communities, which they will do,
but they will consult with the other Research Councils and thereby
they will consult with everybody else's research community because
some of the really exciting and important developments for UK
science over the next few years have to come in across the Councils.
Q55 Dr Turner: Would you like to see
any changes in the relationship between yourselves as the Research
Councils and HEFCE? Are you satisfied with the work they do now
or would you like to see them improved?
Professor Diamond: I think they
work pretty well. At the moment we have very good relationships
with the Funding Councils, more broadly. Howard Newby will regularly
be attending, as I say, our executive groups and an RCUK person,
one of our Chief Executives will be attending HEFCE Board a couple
of times a year to make sure that we link together. On specific
areas, for example the Health of Disciplines and for example the
Research Assessment Exercise, on Health and Disciplines we are
working closely with the Funding Councils and on the Research
Assessment Exercise we are involved in the work that is going
on at the moment as observers and our role is being discussed
and moving forward. So I think they are very good relationships
and I think that there is a real need for both sides of the dual
funding system and at the moment I think it is working pretty
well.
Q56 Dr Turner: You have already referred
to the Research Assessment Exercise and one of major criticisms
of the Research Assessment Exercise that many people, including
yourselves, have made is its inability to deal properly with multi-disciplinary
research. RCUK and the Research Councils have a strong interest
in multi-disciplinary research; do you feel that HFCE has listened
sufficiently to you in incorporating your views in its treatment
of inter-disciplinary research of the next RAE?
Professor Diamond: Thus far the
portents are good, I would have to say. The critical statement
in the guidelines as they stand at the moment is that a priori
no piece of output will be deemed better than any other piece
of output. That says very, very clearly that inter-disciplinary
research, as well as applied research, as well as research from
related professional practice, as well as performance or whatever,
will be treated a priori as the same. The second thing
that I would say to you, which is why the portents are good at
the moment, is that two senior members of HFCE have openly said
in recent meetings that in 2008 the guidelines are more like instructions.
Because I do feel that if we look backwards to 2001 the guidelines
were not bad, but there were questions about the way in which
the guidelines were used, uniformly, I would submit, across different
Panels. At the moment I am very, very happy with the guidelines
and with the statement that the guidelines will be taken very,
very seriously and taken forward. RCUK will be providing observers
to all of the large Panels and those observers will be attending
the meetings that are upcoming, and I am meeting, together with
Stephane Goldstein from RCUK, with Ed Hughes, the RAE project
manager next Wednesday to discuss the role of the observers and
I will be reporting back to RCUK Executive Group at our next meeting.
I also wrote to Howard Newby in December and met with Howard and
received a very helpful response from him, which at the moment
makes me very comfortable with where we are. Having said that,
I must be honest, there has to be seen to be action in the guidelines
to ensure that inter-disciplinary research is properly dealt with,
and there are some very critical points in there about how that
happens.
Q57 Dr Turner: One of the critical points
that you can point to theoretically, given the nature and impact
of the Research Exercise on chemistry departments, for instance,
is that if you have a group of departments sharing a multi-disciplinary
project and one of them is unfortunate enough to have ended up
with only a four star rating and it is threatened with closure,
clearly this could threaten the whole integrity of the project.
Do you feel able to intervene in that sort of situation?
Professor Diamond: I do not think
it is the Research Council's role to intervene in a university
activity or a university's autonomous decision. Certainly it would
be the role of a Research Council to have a very clear wish that
any research projects that it is funding are able to go forward
smoothly and to ensure that there was short and medium term provision
for all the facilities and staff that were required for that research
project, and we have that provision regardless of whether there
is a closure, if people just move between institutions.
Q58 Dr Turner: You would clearly not
have direct control over such a situation, I grant you that, but
this is presumably an area where your inter-relationship with
HEFCE could be crucially important, and does HEFCE respond to
concerns such as that, if they have arisen? They probably have
not arisen yet but they always could do.
Professor Diamond: I will be absolutely
frank, they have not arisen and were there to be major concerns
then certainly I would hope that our very good relationships with
the Funding Councils would enable those discussions to take place.
To turn to something that I think is critical, which is some emerging
disciplines and, if you like, some established disciplines in
ensuring their future, then I would have to report that there
are some really, really positive consultations and discussions
going on. You will know about the EPSRC Funding Council's scheme
in some areas, such as statistics; and there are others that we
point to in our submission where there are ongoing discussions
with AHRB, ESRC, BBSRC and the Funding Councils. I stress not
the Funding Councils on one project but across, and that is a
real thrust of the way we are moving forward. And at the most
recent meeting of the Research Funders Forum I presented a paper
on behalf of a sub-group on Health of Disciplines, which was a
paper which was jointly put together by the Research Councils
and the Funding Councils and on which some very helpful comments
were made. It was about Health of Disciplines and about areas
where we really needed to work in order to be able to establish
emerging disciplines and protect established disciplines, and
that will be finally presented at the next meeting.
Q59 Dr Turner: We will watch this space.
Professor Diamond: Desmond, I
do hope you will watch this space really positively because I
think there are a number of very critical things that have to
happen, and I very much hope that we will see some really exciting
announcements in the near future about the way forward to ensure
the health of some of those areas, for example those that were
included in Charles Clarke's letter to David Young.
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