Memorandum submitted by Professor Susan
Cooper (FC 32)
IMPACT
1. There is a wide range of science from
very abstract to applied. Impact is more immediate and direct
for applied science so it is more feasible to give evidence of
it. But it is abstract research that is more likely to lead to
entirely new ideas which later lead to completely new and unexpected
applications with a much larger impact. Since the time lag is
long and the path can be indirect, this impact is much harder
to demonstrate. Too much emphasis on demonstrating impact is therefore
liable to favour applied over abstract research and be detrimental
in the long term.
2. Since all universities are feeling significant
financial stress, universities and individuals feel a lot of pressure
to concentrate their research in areas that "tick all the
boxes" in order to maximise funding. The 25% of funding to
be allocated according to "impact" in the REF is extremely
important when we are all on the edge financially. The resulting
pressure can therefore be felt much more strongly than the explicit
25%.
3. A more balanced way to encourage applied
research without discouraging abstract research would be to allow
the peer review of research outputs in the REF (or of a research
proposal for Research Council funding) to give an output the top
rating either for its abstract research quality OR for its impact
as applied research, without requiring elements of both to get
the top rating.
4. In principle the separate profiles in
the REF could allow separate rewards for research excellence and
impact, but we all know that great emphasis is put on the reputational
reward based on the combined score. This generates pressure for
every university to try to do everything rather than to play to
its strengths. Even worse, the REF consultation paper (paragraph
72) says a unit can only get the highest score for impact if it
has "achieved impact across the full range of activities
and contexts appropriate to its field of activity". If we
are each required to do everything, we will do nothing well and
the effort will be inefficient. Government has said that it wants
to support diversity in HEI, but requiring that a HEI excel in
both initial research and application in order to get a top overall
grade perversely punishes diversity rather than supporting it.
5. The path from initial research breakthrough
to eventual impact can be long and complicated. There is no reason
to assume the process is more efficient if the whole path is travelled
by people within the same institution. However the REF consultation
paper (paragraph 68) does not allow an institution to earn impact
credit for research it has initially done but which is exploited
by another institution, nor apparently for the reverse. The research
which eventually has the largest impact may take the longest to
do so because it requires a total paradigm shift and may be excluded
by the proposed 10-15 year window. These issues cause perverse
incentives against developing applications of research initiated
in another HEI, never mind in another country, or long ago, and
thus reduces the UK's capacity for gaining economic and other
benefit from research wherever, whenever and by whoever it was
initially performed. This problem would disappear if work to get
impact from research were allowed to gain credit on its own merits.
FUNDING LEVELS
6. Building up a high-quality research activity
takes time and is very difficult to do with unreliable funding.
Once experienced staff are lost their expertise cannot quickly
be developed again. "Boom and bust" funding is therefore
very inefficient. It is also devastating to young people whose
careers are cut off if their project is terminated before they
can get the results they need to move on to the next step in their
career.
7. The UK needs to develop a long-term vision
of its level of research funding and to try to hold it there.
8. A research "ring fence" is
therefore very welcome but the desired effect of constancy has
not been apparent in PPARC and STFC—it has felt more like
a series of short periods of hope dashed by new crises. Besides
the ongoing problem of the cost of the international subscriptions,
this boom/bust may have been partly due to the strategy followed
by the leaders of PPARC who felt they needed to emphasise a catchy
new project in each CSR in order to maximise the funding it received
from the government. When the new project was approved it wasn't
at a sufficient level, so strong cuts were required in other projects
on a time scale much shorter than their natural project lifetime,
while the new project needed to try to build up at an unrealistic
rate. Both the `boom' and the `bust' were inefficient. (STFC has
been so much worse it just doesn't bear talking about.) A ring
fence of the total is therefore not sufficient—we also need
an understanding on the part of the government and its agencies
that repeated short-term shifts of research priorities are unproductive.
That certainly doesn't mean new priorities should never be introduced
but that they need to come with an appropriately long-term vision.
DECLARATION OF
INTERESTS
9. I am an academic employed at a UK university
and involved in particle physics (STFC funding).
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