APPENDIX 25
Memorandum from Professor Tony Magee,
University of Manchester
I have read the MRC's Forward Investment Strategy
document and most if not all the documentation relating to the
move of NIMR from Mill Hill to a central London site, as well
as the responses of NIMR staff. I recognise that the MRC has to
make sometimes difficult decisions about long-term funding and
that it has pressure on it from many stake-holders trying to influence
the direction of MRC research and funding. Nevertheless, in this
case I fully endorse and support the negative responses of the
NIMR staff to the move. Having been both a staff member at NIMR
and in the University sector since 2001 I am of the opinion that
the arguments for closing NIMR at Mill Hill and moving it to are
erroneous and poorly justified by the MRC Task Force. The manner
in which the process has been carried out is also highly questionable.
The "consultation" process that the MRC carried out,
which was very substantially against the move, seems to have been
completely ignored by the Task Force. These concerns are shared
by many of my colleagues and by The Biosciences Federation, although
I don't speak for them.
There are a number of issues. Firstly, NIMR
is internationally acknowledged as a world class medical research
institute. There is little if anything to gain from moving it
to central London and a lot to lose. Having said that, there no
doubt could be improvements to the way the Institute is run but
these should be evolutionary and not involve the "nuclear
option" proposed. The MRC already has two large institutes
embedded in University/Medical School environments (the Laboratory
of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and the Clinical Sciences Centre
at Hammersmith Hospital/Imperial College London). Both of these
are recognised as being very good basic science institutes but
neither has a strong reputation for clinical research, despite
their location (and the latter's name!). Historically, the MRC
also had its hands burned in an earlier attempt to set up a clinical
research institute, the Clinical Research Centre at Northwick
Hospital, which was a white elephant and closed in the 80s.
It is essential that the MRC continues to fund
basic research. MRC appears to be putting too much emphasis on
clinical research at the expense of basic research. That's not
to say that clinical research shouldn't be encouraged, but it
should be driven by scientific and clinical need, bottom-up. In
my view the major problem with stimulating clinical research in
the UK is getting good young medics to consider getting involved
in serious research—their present career structure does
not encourage this and actually mediates against it, and this
is only getting worse with changes to the NHS and medical school
teaching. This issue needs to be addressed by Government and the
NHS—the MRC cannot seriously make an impact in this area.
Why are the MRC doing this—for ideological
reasons or are they being driven by government? Or is the real
rationale to close NIMR via the back door by a process of creeping
emasculation. The proposed move of NIMR is likely to be poor value
for money. The decision to exclude Mill Hill as the status quo
option appears to have been made without comparing the relative
costs and benefits of staying at Mill Hill with those of moving
to central London. In the academic community there is a common
misconception that moving NIMR will free up large amounts of money
for response-mode funding but this is an illusion—it will
actually cost money to move NIMR and put more pressure on MRC
funding. The idea that the partner Colleges can make a large contribution
to this seems unlikely. One of the major costs will be re-establishing
an adequate animal facility at the new site and, given recent
problems with animal rights activism in Cambridge and Oxford,
this is likely to be a logistical nightmare also. If Government
is going to provide extra money to the MRC (which would be needed
to fund the proposed move of NIMR) it would be better used to
improve the funding rate for MRC grants which has been very low
for the last few years due to poor financial planning, as the
Science and Technology Committee has previously investigated.
The potential catastrophic loss of outstanding
scientific staff at all levels (many leaving to take up appointments
abroad) would be very damaging to UK biological science at a time
when we are in a position to make a major international impact
in a number of key areas. I strongly urge Council to reconsider
these proposals in an open and rigorous manner.
12 November 2004
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