Examination of Witnesses (Questions 320
- 339)
WEDNESDAY 21 MAY 2008
MR KEITH
ELLIOTT, PROFESSOR
BARRY CLARKE,
DR LESLEY
THOMPSON AND
MS LYNN
TOMKINS
Q320 Dr Harris: And you charge them
over the odds?
Professor Clarke: No, we charge
them the standard rate, the standard fees.
Q321 Dr Harris: But, if you are getting
40 per cent less standard fees from the others and then you charge
the standard fees to these, then surely you are still short?
Professor Clarke: No, we increase
the number of overseas students to make up the shortfall.
Q322 Dr Harris: So you are making
a profit, and I am not criticising you, but I am just saying that
you make your margin on the overseas students in order to subsidise
the own-funded?
Professor Clarke: Yes. The other
form of funding which comes into universities of course is through
industry, so that is also used, but you do have to realise that
the funding that is allocated for students by the Funding Council,
HEFCE or the Scottish Funding Council, if they have so much for
an engineering student and so much for an art student, that does
not necessarily go to engineering or art because within the universities
they distribute it under their own formula.
Q323 Dr Harris: Can I just probe
that because we have had this from science generally about the
formula and there is an issue around the closure of chemistry
departments. Are you saying that you can show evidence that the
increased funding you get per student compared to other subjects
is inadequate and then there is a further problem of some universities
firing the money into areas where they can attract more students,
I guess? What bridges the divide?
Professor Clarke: We can demonstrate
that the engineering departments are under-funded for teaching,
absolutely. We have that evidence and it has been published.
Q324 Dr Harris: What have the Government
and HEFCE said? Do they disagree or fine?
Professor Clarke: Well, this was
published a few months ago, so people are digesting this information
at the moment. That is the response we have had from HEFCE.
Q325 Dr Harris: Sounds of digestion?
Professor Clarke: Yes.
Q326 Chairman: Has the Committee
got that evidence?
Professor Clarke: We can make
sure you have got that evidence.
Chairman: It would probably be useful
and also because we can then ask the Department for a response
to that.
Q327 Dr Harris: Approximately what
is the quantum across the sector where you feel there is a shortfall?
Professor Clarke: Well, the 14
per cent is just to get us to stand still.
Q328 Dr Harris: What is that in millions
of pounds?
Professor Clarke: I would have
to give you that in the report.
Q329 Dr Harris: But 14 per cent to
stand still?
Professor Clarke: Yes.
Q330 Dr Turner: I would like to ask
both Dr Thompson and Professor Clarke about their feelings about
engineering research in the UK. What do you think are its strengths
and weaknesses?
Dr Thompson: The UK has some real
strengths in engineering and, increasingly, in engineering linked
to other disciplines, so breaking out of traditional mechanical,
chemical and civil into application domains, so, if we look at
where we stand on transport studies, for instance, a great strength
in the UK, if we look at where we stand on elements of materials
engineering, huge strengths, control engineering, so we have some
great strengths. I think a real problem in the UK is actually
brigading the different groups together to look at how they work
together on problems, so, if you look at the great strides which
have been made forward in nanoscience, actually bringing the engineers
in alongside the nanoscientists so that you make sure you can
produce more than one of these structures or devices, multiple
devices, is a real key challenge. That is about the engineering
research community looking to the global challenges and opportunities
rather than staying where maybe their traditional undergraduate
teaching was, which tends to be in their core disciplines of chemical,
civil and mechanical. We are seeing those changes happening in
an awful lot of universities around the country. The breakdown
of the boundaries between engineering disciplines has moved faster,
I would contend, than the breakdown of the boundaries between
some science disciplines, so a great strength is increasing opportunities,
and a lot of those opportunities come from industry bringing problems
into the universities where actually a structural engineer working
on their own would not provide the full solution, so I think the
UK engineering base is strong, but you can always do more to strengthen
it.
Professor Clarke: There are two
things on strengths. One is the international provision of our
engineering research, it is truly international, and we are held
in esteem by our peers in America, Australia and other leading
countries. The second thing is that much of our research is applied
research and that is a strength. In the current research assessment
exercise where peer assessment was key, that is recognised and
one of the concerns we have is that in the future we still need
to recognise that and I gather that is going to happen, so the
applied research and the link with industry is actually very important.
When we bid for research council funds or funds from industry,
we can demonstrate the beneficiaries as being industry and society.
Also, we not only have contributions in kind, but we have a direct
input from industry into our engineering research, so the strong
links with industry and the strong international focus, and we
do not have a regional focus, it is international.
Q331 Dr Turner: Overall in science,
the UK is second only to the US in the world in the number of
citations, but in engineering we are fifth. Should we be concerned
about this? Is there a difference between engineering research
and the rest of scientific research that there is less pressure
to publish or what? Can you explain?
Professor Clarke: I looked at
this yesterday when I was on an editorial board. When you list
engineering publications, for example, let us take civil engineering,
there were 5,800 publications in civil engineering last year,
but actually many civil engineers publish under the banner of
the environment, earth sciences and other disciplines, so engineering
does not just fit into little boxes called `civil', `electrical'
and `mechanical', they fit in different boxes depending on what
they are doing, so our research is diverse. In terms of citations,
all that is referring to is other people and usually academics
referring to other engineers as well, but what they do not do
is the citation by industry, and we are still conducting research
into this now, but the fact is that industry uses the output from
the universities because a lot of that is fed into codes of practice,
for example, for design for manufacturing, so our work is cited,
but it is not publicly quoted and it is used by people, so a lot
of our work is used by others, but not necessarily publicly.
Q332 Dr Turner: So that metric can
be misleading?
Professor Clarke: Absolutely.
Dr Thompson: It is only one measure.
Q333 Dr Turner: The most important
thing is this relationship between engineering research and innovation,
and how strong, how effective, how productive is it in the UK?
Professor Clarke: Innovation in
terms of?
Q334 Dr Turner: In terms of exploiting
engineering research.
Professor Clarke: To commercialise
it?
Q335 Dr Turner: Yes.
Professor Clarke: Having set up
two spin-out companies myself, I can suggest that there are many
entrepreneurial academics. Academics are entrepreneurial by nature
and they will generate research output, some of which may not
be used, some of which is used, as I say, in
spinout companies. There has been an increase
partly driven by government funding, by HIEF funding to encourage
innovation and to encourage entrepreneurship, so there has been
an increase in activity. In terms of universities receiving funds
from industry to support this, I think there is still a gap, there
is some way to go, and I think that what you find is that a lot
of academic research is driven by people wanting to investigate
something, not necessarily because there is an industrial need,
and I think that we need to strengthen that component.
Q336 Dr Turner: That of course is
perfectly normal in research, it is a perfectly proper drive.
How would you suggest that we measure the contribution of engineering
research to the innovation process? Are there any measures that
you can get a handle on, do you think?
Professor Clarke: One of the most
successful areas, and I am very pleased to hear that TSB are going
to double the number of KTPs and the RDAs are running as many
KTPs, which is very successful as a means of linking industry
to research output and also allowing industrial needs to be fed
into universities and universities' knowledge being fed into industry,
so KTPs have been a huge success. The doubling of the KTPs in
the next three years plus the mini-KTPs, I think, will enhance
that. I think there are other schemes going on. For example, we
are developing, a number of universities are developing with ECUK
and HEFCE a proposal to have research-led MSc programmes, so we
are looking for innovative ways to create those links.
Dr Thompson: Every country in
the world is trying to find the right metrics to better innovation
and the conversion from pure basic and applied research to innovation.
There are all sorts of measures you can use and one of the most
important things is actually the people you produce from investing
in research and training, and we very much underestimate that.
Case studies provide some really interesting examples, but they
can never be a complete set, so you have got the case example
of what has happened with Polymer Electronics and you have also
got to look at areas like the whole investment in doping fibre
optics in Southampton which happened 25 years ago and you just
look at how that has revolutionised telecoms with fibre optics
and band widths, so there are lots of examples. I think one of
the pieces of work we could do is that all of the universities
have recently had to cite the impacts of their research in their
return to the RAE. If we analyse what sort of evidence universities
put forward systematically to say, "Well, does that give
you a shopping basket of the types of things that really measure
innovation?", a systematic analysis of the types of things
universities themselves identify as a measure of impact they are
having would be a real step forward rather than people designing
from a blank sheet of paper. We can check the patents, we can
check licensing, but that is not really what it is about. There
has to be a really good two-way flow of knowledge and, if you
have got that natural two-way flow of knowledge from universities
into business and back again, the UK economy would be very vibrant.
Actually the UK economy, despite where we are at the moment, is
very vibrant.
Q337 Dr Turner: That brings me straight
to the question I was going to pursue because the very process
that you have eloquently described does not actually sit very
well with the research assessment exercise as it is being carried
out. The research assessment exercise does not give you enough
credits, so firstly, do you think that that is a disadvantage
to the attractiveness of engineering departments because, if it
did, there might be more five-star engineering departments than
there are which is an attraction for students and, secondly, what
changes would you want to see in the methods of measuring research
excellence so that it properly reflects the relationships that
you have described?
Professor Clarke: The EPC would
welcome, do welcome, the move that HEFCE are proposing to go to
a peer assessment. What we would like to see is that peer assessment
look at the impact that the engineering output and research has
upon industry, because much of our work is applied and does not
necessarily lead to scientific papers which are cited. It leads
to commercial reports which are then used by industry; it leads
to products which are used by industry; it leads to design activities
which are used by industry. What we would like to see is that
captured in the incoming research assessment.
Q338 Dr Turner: It is clearly not
too easy.
Professor Clarke: No.
Q339 Dr Turner: Dr Thompson, your
research council has expressed concern that the number of PhD
graduates has remained static over several years. You would obviously
like to see a larger number of PhDs graduating in the UK. How
important do you think it is to have more engineering PhDs, engineering
doctorates, and how can we do that?
Dr Thompson: I think it goes back
to an earlier discussion we had on the flow of people coming through.
It is a real concern when certain university departments, despite
having funding for bright, young people to do PhDs from us, have
difficulty recruiting the bright, young things and when increasingly
you are asked: could we not make overseas students eligible to
do EPSRC PhDs because we can get high quality or stronger candidates
internationally than we can from the home base. That is a real
concern for us, and it means that we have to work together to
think about how we make sure we exploit the whole talent pool
in the UK to get them doing the right subjects at school, and
I do not think just engineering but seeing the whole of science,
of which engineering is one possible route, as something they
value and want to do and then carry that through to the universities
and on. I just think at the moment there are far too few people
who really understand the excitement of engineering. It is really
exciting, but you do not see the excitement of engineering explicitly
stated in many things. I think it is fascinating. I love my job.
Chairman: I think that is a pretty good
note on which to finish this first section. Can we thank Keith
Elliott, Professor Barry Clarke, Dr Lesley Thompson and Lynn Tomkins.
Thank you all very much indeed. I am sure that is a very quick
canter round the course, but we are very grateful to you for your
contribution.
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