Annex 4
Memorandum from the Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC)
SUMMARY
1. The ESRC's portfolio is incredibly broad
and in some of the areas within its remit it would be true to
say that interest and demand at undergraduate and postgraduate
levels is buoyant and that there are no significant problems with
the recruitment of researchers and academic staff. ESRC recognise
that the expansion in student numbers in recent years has had
a direct effect on staff numbers in popular areas. There are however
other areas where there are significant difficulties with the
recruitment and retention of high quality people; where the quality
of research is not as high as we would wish or where the size
and/or age profile of the existing research community is such
that there are likely to be significant problems in the years
ahead.
2. There are a number of systemic problems:
it is now extremely difficult to recruit to posts in quantitative
areas of social science. This stems from the lack of quantitative
skills at undergraduate and school level and the fact that in
some areas, the alternative career options are far more lucrative.
A further generic area is the lack of social science researchers
with language skills, particularly in non-European languages.
There are also significant concerns relating to social statistics,
demography, social work and empirical research in law, where the
community has always been relatively small but where there are
relatively few new people coming through. Finally while there
has been a boom in the numbers of staff in business schools this
has not been matched by the development of research capacity.
ESRC is leading a major programme under SR2000 but this will only
contribute to improving the situation, it will not solve it.
THE ISSUES
FOR SOCIAL
SCIENCE
3. The workforce is ageing. In the next
10 years 31% of social scientists are due to retire, and major
problems are likely to emerge unless urgent action is taken. As
the table below illustrates, there are very serious problems in
a number of key social science disciplines, just as there are
for physics, mathematics and chemistry where there is widely acknowledged
concern about longer term sustainability.
The pattern is not promising particularly in
Economics and Management and Business Studies. Impending capacity
problems are also clearly evident in Education, Linguistics, Social
Work, Sociology and Planning.
4. Recruitment and retention difficulties
have exacerbated these problems in key disciplines. For example,
in Economics and Management and Business Studies the prospects
of more lucrative employment opportunities in the private sector,
has meant many promising researchers have turned their backs on
academic careers. In addition, the highly competitive nature of
the global labour market in these disciplines is making it increasingly
difficult to attract top-class researchers from outside the UK.
Data on the number of UK doctoral students registered in economics
between 1994-95 and 2002-03 showed a fall of 31% from 520 to 360.
5. In some smaller disciplines recruitment
and retention problems are also threatening the sustainability
of the research base. For example, Social Statistics and Demography
are both disciplines where the general lack of quantitative skills
is posing serious challenges for future research capabilities.
It is critical that we have the capacity in the UK to collect,
understand and analyse complex data in relation to a range of
social and economic issues. Moreover, there already exist a large
number of datasets, many of them held by ESRC funded investments
or in central government, which are under-utilised in terms of
the secondary work that could be carried out on them. It is also
critical that non-academic employers, especially government, can
attract people with the necessary skills to work with these data.
The early findings arising from the current Inquiry on Empirical
Research in Law demonstrate similar problems. In Languages, capacity
problems are particularly pronounced in small sub-specialisms
such as Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and Asian Studies. This is seriously
blunting the ability to understand these vast and important regions
of the world and to position the UK to exploit future economic
opportunities.
6. The one area we have reviewed recently
on a more detailed basis is the field of education research where
we are aware of a number of different concerns. These include:
the high average age (54) of education researchers, with two thirds
of the current academic community over 50 years old; difficulty
in recruiting high quality research staff; the overall quality
and impact of educational research, including the outcomes of
the 2001 RAE under which only two 5* Units were identified; the
relative shortage of large-scale quantitative research and of
research in particular areas (eg lifelong learning and widening
participation); and, career pathways and training, particularly
for individuals moving from practice into research. As an applied
area, education researchers need both rigorous research training
and experience of teaching/professional work within an appropriate
educational environment. The target group is therefore the early/mid-career
practitioner rather than the newly qualified undergraduate. Recent
increases in teachers' salaries are compounding this problem.
To give two recent examples, a salary of over £25k was agreed
for an unnamed RA on an ESRC grant to allow for the recruitment
of someone with classroom experience and, in our Teaching and
Learning Research Programme, we have allowed an appointment at
£30,660 in order to recruit someone with credibility in both
research and practice.
MEASURES BEING
TAKEN
7. The ESRC is taking steps to address a
number of these issues. For example, Economics has been identified
as a priority area for the allocation of studentships. Similarly,
additional awards have been allocated to Social Statistics and
the development of quantitative methods. The Council is currently
administering a scheme with the ODPM to build capacity in planning
by providing 144 new one year housing and planning bursaries per
annum for the next three years. Major capacity building elements
have also been included under the Teaching and Learning Programme
and AIM initiative to strengthen the research base in Education
and Management respectively.
8. ESRC will, however, need to commit more
funds to training and development over the next few years if we
are to attempt to reverse the long term sustainability problems.
This new funding will be targeted on a priority set of disciplines,
where current evidence suggests the need for functional renewal
is most pressing. These are: Economics, Management and Business
Studies, Linguistics, Socio-Legal Studies, advanced quantitative
methods, Demography and Social Work.
9. It is essential that we work closely
with other bodies, such as the Funding Councils and other Research
Councils, to address these issues. ESRC are starting to do this.
For example, as noted in paragraph 20 of the RCUK submission,
the Council are developing with AHRB and the Funding Councils
an initiative to build capacity in Chinese, Japanese, Arabic,
Asian and East European studies.
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