MEMORANDUM 19
Submission from the University and College
Union (UCU)
1. The University and College Union (UCU)
represents nearly 120,000 further and higher education lecturers,
managers, researchers and many academic-related staff such as
librarians, administrators and computing professionals across
the UK. We welcome the opportunity to respond to the select committee
inquiry into the international policies and activities of the
Research Councils.
INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION
2. International academic collaboration
is an important activity because it helps to enhance the quality
and vitality of UK research. In recent years there has been a
greater emphasis on the international role of the seven UK research
councils.[17]
Most research councils offer overseas travel grants and workshops
to enable researchers to exchange ideas and develop future partnerships.
Some research councils now fund postgraduate students from overseas
to work on projects. We welcome these initiatives, though awareness
of them remains fairly low amongst the academic and research community.
We also believe that the research councils could do more to encourage
greater participation from new academics, from individuals in
"less research intensive" institutions and from staff
based in geographically remote parts of the UK.[18]
3. Research council partnerships with international
agencies and institutions remain heavily focussed on countries
within the European Union. Within the EU research collaboration
is not only actively encouraged by national government agencies
but also via the EU-funded European Framework Programme. The newly-established
European Research Council will promote further collaboration between
EU higher education institutions.
4. Outside the EU, formal collaboration
schemes involving the UK research councils are much less developed.
A recent report for the Gatsby Charitable Foundation shows that
this is true even in relation to "research strong" countries
such as the United States.[19]
We welcome the fact that a number of research councils are now
looking to strengthen their links with reciprocal US funding agencies
such as the National Science Foundation. There is also a push
by the UK Government to encourage partnerships with university
communities that are rapidly expanding their research capacities.
The UCU welcomes these broader non-EU partnerships as an opportunity
to establish new links with academic staff in countries such as
China and India. However, we believe that these new global partnerships
must be driven by genuine intellectual exchanges rather than simply
economic motivations.
5. The UCU would like to see more research
council funding for collaborative projects with developing country
institutions. We welcome the joint research council poverty reduction
projects with the Department for International Development (DfID)
but believe that more could be done in this area—both in
terms of levels of funding and research council working methods.
For example, the current rules on eligibility for grant holders
sometimes leads to UK researchers working in developing countries
when local researchers could be gaining the experience and, in
some cases, might be doing a better job. We feel that when projects
are funded to conduct research in developing countries it should
be expected that local researchers are employed whenever possible.
EU FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME
6. The UCU believes that EU-funded research
brings considerable benefits to UK higher education. We, therefore,
are concerned about possible cutbacks in the 7th Framework Programme
(FP7) as a result of the establishment of the new European Institute
of Technology (EIT). We believe that the whole concept of the
EIT is wrong-headed and has been put forward for political reasons
without having been thought through in detail. Now that detail
is put in place it becomes clear that the EIT project will be
a drain on higher education activity elsewhere, and may well be
supported at a cost to other research activities, including Framework
7 funded-programmes. As well as creaming finance from proven areas
of work, the EIT proposals pose other problems including governance,
academic freedom and intellectual property rights. On the other
hand, so far there is little concrete evidence of potential added
value from the EIT proposals as they stand. The UCU calls on the
European Commission to abandon their EIT proposals and to use
the resources to fully fund the 7th Framework Programme.
INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY
7. The genuine mobility of academic and
academic-related staff is a key issue for UCU members. International
mobility is not only a tool to promote cooperation across borders
but also contributes to the personal and professional development
of staff. In order to examine this issue in more detail we recently
hosted an official "Bologna" seminar on staff and student
mobility within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). This
seminar, hosted in conjunction with Education International and
ESIB—the European students' movement, flagged up the need
for concerted institutional, national and international action
to remove the obstacles to staff mobility.[20]
8. In general, most "inward" and
"outward" mobility in UK universities takes place amongst
postdoctoral scientists and engineers working in "research
intensive" institutions.[21]
To some extent this type of international "early career"
mobility occurs irrespective of the specific policies of individual
research councils. As one of our members suggested in response
to the current inquiry:
"Scientist mobility is increasing rapidly
in Europe anyway, as young PhD students and post-docs (certainly
those from Eastern/Central Europe) no longer see national boundaries
as important, and they are willing to learn English to pursue
their careers in the UK and USA."
At the same time, the research councils can
play a role in facilitating the mobility of researchers across
borders, for example, via exchange programmes, study visits and
foreign language training, particularly in less frequently spoken
languages. We believe that the current mobility support policies
of the research councils also need to be underpinned by a stronger
equality dimension as opportunities for certain groups of staff
(eg women) and for researchers from particular parts of the world
(eg developing countries) remain unequal. As part of this process,
the research councils could do more to utilise the potential of
"virtual" mobility, including use of the internet, e-libraries
and video conferencing, as alternatives to physical relocation.
9. Making international mobility meaningful
also requires action on the part of national governments, for
example, in removing current visa and work permit restrictions.
There also needs to be greater convergence of social security
and pension arrangements across the EHEA. We realise that these
issues are extremely complex and go way beyond the remit of the
UK research councils and the current select committee inquiry.
However, if ministers, funding agencies and higher education institutions
want to make researcher mobility a reality across the EHEA and
beyond, these issues will need to be addressed.
May 2007
17 Research Councils UK (2004) International Partnerships
in Action, http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/cmsweb/downloads/rcuk/documents/roadmap.pdf Back
18
For example, the research councils might look to provide short-term
development funds to improve opportunities for international collaboration
amongst low-applicant and geographically remote departments, including
subsidising expensive travel costs incurred during the preparatory
application stage. Back
19
Sir Gareth Roberts (2006) International Partnerships of Research
Excellence-UK-USA Academic Collaboration, project supported by
the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Back
20
The papers from the Bologna mobility seminar are available on
the Education International website http://www.ei-ie.org/highereducation/en/calendarshow.php?id=68&theme=highereducation Back
21
Bahram Bekhradnia and Thomas Sastry (2005) Migration of Academic
Staff to and from the UK, Higher Education Policy Institute. Back
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