Select Committee on Science and Technology Second Special Report


Government response


INTRODUCTION

The Government, HEFCE and RCUK welcome the Committee's Report on Strategic Science Provision in English Universities. As the Committee notes, this is a complex subject, but one where there is a broad consensus on many of the key issues. We are pleased that the Committee's diagnosis reflects our own in many respects.

The main work of implementing policy on HE [higher education] science falls to the HE Funding Bodies (HEFCE in England) and to the Research Councils. Both RCUK and HEFCE have been active in assessing the health of "strategic disciplines" and advising on the conditions that might necessitate intervention and the form that intervention should take. The Committee will be aware that the Secretary of State for Education and Skills has recently received advice from HEFCE on the provision of strategic subjects (including, but not limited to, science subjects): the main conclusions of this advice are reported in this response and the Government will respond in due course.

We note the Committee's concerns about the funding of strategic subject provision, and especially about the distribution of funding between departments. The Government has made a substantial and sustained investment in the HE research base in recent years and is committed to continuing to do so. We are not and should not be its sole support, however, and another element of our strategy has been to increase the capacity of HE institutions to draw in funding from sources other than Government.

We welcome especially the Committee's recognition that student demand is fundamental to addressing not just the issue of departmental closures, but the underlying issue of maintaining a good supply of talent to all parts of our science base. Such a supply is indeed key to realising our ambitions for UK science, as outlined in the Science and Innovation Framework.

However, it should be noted that the overall number of young people studying for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degrees has been rising steadily. Today there are 120,000 more young people studying for STEM degrees than in 1997/98 and the percentage of the total number of students taking STEM degrees has gone up from 38% to 41%. These include large increases in those studying the biological sciences but also a 78% increase in those studying computer sciences and a welcome 38% increase in those studying mathematics. The physical sciences have remained fairly constant at 50,000 and the only area where there has been a fall in the number of students studying is engineering and technology degrees, which has gone down from 87,000 in 1997/98 to 80,000 in 1999/2000 though this figure seems to have stabilised at this level. The number of doctorates awarded in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics has also risen from 7,850 in 1997/8 to 9,865 in 2002/03, a 26% increase.


 
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