APPENDIX 28
Memorandum from the 1994 Group
The 1994 Group comprises the Vice-Chancellors
and Principals of the Universities of Bath, Birkbeck College London,
Durham, East Anglia, Essex, Exeter, Goldsmith's College London,
Lancaster, London School of Economics & Political Science,
Reading, Royal Holloway College London, St Andrews, Surrey, Sussex,
Warwick and York.
1. This is the response to the invitation
to submit evidence to the Inquiry into Strategic Science Provision
in English Universities. This is an important subject, which is
indeed of relevance across the UK, and the 1994 Group welcomes
this opportunity to contribute. Throughout this response we have
used the phrase "science" to refer to the specific subjects
referred to by the Committee.
2. At the outset, we feel that the Inquiry
should recognise that the matters it is seeking to review are
being shaped by four primary considerations operating at the national
or international level and as set out below, which have come together
to create an environment where some further concentration of provision
in science is both inevitable and indeed desirable.
2.1 Dynamic Changes to the Scale of Research
Capability: In its Science and Innovation Investment Framework
2004-2014, Government itself has recognised that research has
become intensely competitive at the global level. To be competitive,
research needs to be of the highest quality and at the cutting-edge.
This in turn requires increasingly sophisticated and diverse staff
expertise and facilities, and often also the constructive interaction
of cognate disciplines, each capable of performing at the highest
level. Success in the face of such international competition requires
therefore a proper depth of research expertise and capability,
particularly in science subjects. For the UK, these considerations
require a continued concentration of research resources.
2.2 The Relationship Between Research and
Teaching: Research concentration also has relevance for teaching
provision and for higher-level training in science. Postgraduate
research students have always been a very important component
of a dynamic research environment in science and it has long been
recognised that their successful training can only be assured
where vibrant communities of such students can be supported and
sustained in sufficient numbers. At the undergraduate level, high
quality and up to date teaching also requires access to a range
of staff expertise and of facilities which can only be sustained
by a successful research community. There is therefore an essential
and close link between the sustainability of high quality teaching
and the successful prosecution of research activity.
2.3 Student Demand: In this symbiotic relationship
between teaching and research, there is of course an equivalent
reliance upon an adequate supply of students. It is almost impossible
to sustain a successful research department that does not also
include a healthy range and scale of teaching. However, the demand
for teaching in science has shown considerable adverse change
over a number of years, with a marked reduction in the proportion
of students wishing to pursue undergraduate courses in science.
This is particularly so for the State sector, which in recent
years has seen a substantial decline in the number of students
leaving secondary education with what might be regarded as the
minimum of qualification of two science A levels. To counter this
trend, universities and the professional bodies have been working
very hard to generate interest and aspiration. But the dynamics
are such that student demand in these areas is ultimately an issue
of national significance which will have to be addressed at the
Secondary Education level, and any significant improvements will
necessarily have long lead times. In this regard, we look forward
to the Government's response to the Tomlinson Report as an opportunity
to begin to address these matters substantively.
2.4 Strategic Planning and Competition:
It is now clear that universities in the United Kingdom are working
in competition at both home and abroad. As autonomous bodies,
this has required them to think carefully about their strategies,
about their priorities and about their strengths and weaknesses.
The need to maximise performance and to sustain provision in areas
of strength or strategic priority necessarily involves also a
careful assessment of the resources that can be directed elsewhere,
and in particular the extent to which chronically under-performing
or lower-priority activities can or should be sustained.
3. Having set out what we consider to be
the primary drivers in the matters under review, we should like
to make the following comments about the policy implications for
science provision:
3.1 Rationalisation and Collaboration: The
fall in student demand and the requirements of research competitiveness
and concentration together require a policy environment which
manages rather than obstructs necessary change. In circumstances
where a university considers that its provision in a science subject
is weak and no longer properly sustainable or part of its strategic
priorities, it should be able to work with HEFCE and with other
universities to transfer that funded provision more appropriately
elsewhere, while being enabled to retain equivalent resources
to reapply to its strategic strengths and priorities. Through
such an arrangement, the consequences of large-scale processes
can be properly mediated and directed to the benefit of the HE
system and to the country as a whole. Only in a very limited number
of highly specialised and small-scale subject areas might any
greater intervention be required to protect the national interest.
3.2 National Levels of Provision: Although
of course there are wider societal benefits from ensuring that
a good proportion of our HE students graduating from our Universities
are educated in scientific subjects, there can be no absolute
or "right" figure for the number of students in science
subjects that the country needs to meet its skilled manpower requirements.
This is in part because some of those manpower requirements will
continue to be met by the import of skilled staff from abroad.
Although some evidence may be beginning to emerge about skill
shortages in some particular subject areas, this of course may
be as much the product of the number of graduating students choosing
to enter postgraduate or postdoctoral training than a reflection
of the absolute members in science education and training. For
it will of course be recognised that many graduates in science,
and not least in Chemistry, presently choose to go straight into
well-remunerated careers outwith science, and career salaries
within science show little sign of the upward movement that would
reflect any general skill shortage. Furthermore, as set out in
paragraph 2.3 above, the right way to address concerns about the
number of students coming into science is not by encouraging the
provision of unfilled university places but to encourage more
students to take relevant subjects at A level or equivalent, by
improving the quality of mathematics teaching in schools and by
making experimental science in schools more exciting.
3.3 Patterns of Access: The factors influencing
science provision are national or international in scale. Nevertheless,
it does need to be recognised that the overall pattern nationally
of that provision will need to be monitored and kept under review.
We believe that these considerations can be properly met within
the policy processes identified in paragraph 3.1 above and indeed
would not envisage that the outcome of such processes would denude
any one region of access to one or more sources of high quality
expertise and training in the relevant sciences. However, equally
we see no merit whatsoever in seeking to preserve uncompetitive
and lower quality provision merely to enable its continued availability
at the sub-regional or indeed regional level.
3.4 Resource Allocation: The Committee has
raised in its call for evidence questions concerning the possible
impact of various aspects of resource allocation. It is our view
that the issues being addressed by the Committee go far beyond
the product of any particular aspects of HEFCE's funding arrangements
and are therefore generally unsusceptible to tactical readjustment
of those arrangements. Nevertheless, some adjustments to resource
allocation might help to smooth and mediate the outcomes of the
processes we have described. For example, we feel there would
be value in reviewing the resources associated with the award
of a grade 4 in the last RAE. Following that RAE, the first priority
was to provide resources to departments rated 5* and 5 to enable
them to continue to compete internationally. However, the overall
level of resources available was such that it proved necessary
consequently to reduce the resources attributable to grade 4,
and that has led to a very steep funding gradient indeed between
grades 4 and 5. Yet grade 4 is intended to represent research
work of national importance. The new RAE grading system which
will apply in RAE 2008 may come to address this issue if it is
properly resourced, but in the meantime a review of the resourcing
of grade 4, without detriment to grade 5 and 5* through the allocation
of additional resources as necessary, would be of value.
4. In summary, we would contend that the
principal issues raised by this Inquiry reflect much wider and
longer-term considerations of research competitiveness and student
demand. These are primarily matters of national relevance and
significance, in some cases mainly requiring attention out with
Higher Education. In response to these changes, processes and
policies need to be reinforced in order to permit universities
working together and in collaboration with HEFCE to shape science
provision constructively and efficiently. The pattern of provision
nationally might need to be kept under review, but this cannot
justify or sustain the preservation of uncompetitive and lower
quality provision at the sub-regional or indeed regional level.
January 2005
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