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Universities: Research Funding

rose to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether current methods of funding for research infrastructure are sufficient to allow all universities to engage in basic, innovative and applied research. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I have raised this Question on research funding because I believe that an anomaly has crept into the current system which, while all the attention has been focused on the question of metrics in the research assessment exercise, has been overlooked. If it were to persist, it would raise questions as to whether the basic aims of the dual funding system, endorsed by successive Governments and seen by many as the key element underlying Britain’s research excellence, are being met. Let me start by talking about the dual support system and the division of government funding of university research between project-based funding from the research councils, currently some £2.8 billion a year, and the research element of the Higher Education Funding Council for England grants to universities, known as quality-related funding, which amounts to £1.3 billion a year. The purpose of QR funding has long been acknowledged as providing money for universities to meet basic infrastructure requirements. It used to be called, "““providing the well-found laboratory””," but that terminology now seems to have been lost. In the 2004 White Paper Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014 the Government define the purpose of QR funding as follows: "““Quality related funding … funds the basic research infrastructure—including the salary costs of permanent academic researchers, support staff, equipment and libraries—that gives institutions the base from which to undertake research commissioned by other funding sources; the flexibility to react quickly to emerging priorities and new fields of inquiry; and the capacity to undertake blue skies research””." The key question for this debate is how that statement can be reconciled with a situation in which quite a few universities have during the past five years received little or no funding from the QR settlement. That situation has arisen because, after the 2001 research assessment exercise, so many departments had improved their research rating that HEFCE decided to fund only departments undertaking research judged excellent and of national—a 4 rating—or international—a 5 or 5* rating—significance. Under the formula, those rated 5 received three times and those rated 5* four times the amount received by a department of equivalent size with a 4 rating. The result has been, as intended, a concentration of funding on research-intensive universities. In 2005-06, 109 higher education institutions, approximately four-fifths of the total number, received some QR funding. However, the top 25 institutions received 84 per cent of the funding, some £900 million, while the top 10 institutions received over 50 per cent, around £650 million. For research-intensive universities the result has been good and is judged fair: high-quality research has been rewarded with extra funding. But the other side of the coin has been the loss of funding for other institutions, particularly the post-1992 universities, where many departments, although showing improvement, still have a relatively low rating. This raises three important questions. First, many of these universities have considerable research activity, often in the more applied areas, and have built up relationships with national and international companies. They also work a good deal with locally based SMEs, where personal contacts and local access are important. A recent AD Little study looking at the outcomes of research in relation to 35 post-1992 universities found that, for every £1 of public funding, over £3 worth of business-funded research was attracted, considerably more than is achieved by the older universities. Yet if QR is to, "““give institutions the base from which to undertake research commissioned by other funding sources””," is it right to deny this base to so many institutions? The Minister may well reply that these funding arrangements are going to change. A letter from HEFCE sent in March this year about the new arrangements for the research assessment exercise stated that, "““the approach for science-based disciplines will be based on quantitative indicators, including bibliometric indicators of research quality and impact, external research income and postgraduate student activity””." It also said that these indicators would, "““begin to influence funding allocations from 2010-11””," but not come fully into play until 2014. What about the period between now and 2010? Will the post-2001 distribution formula hold for the next five years? The second issue relates to the emerging areas of research. The RAE provides a review of research completed in the previous five years. The 2001 RAE, which dictates the current distribution formula, reflects the pattern of research from 1995 to 2000. Under this system, new areas of growth in the economy—for example, the creative industries, in which many of the post-92 universities run courses—receive virtually no QR funding yet contribute 8 per cent to the GDP. The same is true of nursing, the professions allied to medicine and research underpinning conservation for museums and galleries, an area with which I am particularly concerned at present. Again, the Minister may respond that in 2003 the Government introduced the Research Capability Fund aimed at supporting research in ““emerging subject areas where the research base is currently not as strong as in more established areas””. The problem is that that fund totalled only £22 million in 2006-07, so it is very small in relation to the £1.3 billion allocated under QR and, in any case, it is not clear whether it is to be continued. Is it envisaged that the Research Capability Fund will be continued post-2008 and, if so, will it be increased to meet the growing importance of these sectors in the economy? The third question relates to teaching. The distinction between university and other post-18 teaching institutions used to be that the staff teaching students in universities were either themselves engaged actively in research or rubbing shoulders on a daily basis with those engaged in research, read the academic journals and were au fait with the latest developments in these areas. That distinction has gradually been eroded, with university status granted recently to former teacher training colleges and the proposal to grant FE colleges degree-awarding powers. Is this deliberate policy on the part of the Government? Do they want to create a new binary divide in higher education between research-active and teaching-only institutions? Do they recognise the difficulty that that creates for courses that involve a third-year project, where students are required to undertake research for themselves? If no staff are involved in research, it is often difficult to find suitable projects and people capable of supervising them. This issue was raised with me by a member of the engineering staff at London Metropolitan University. He pointed out that universities such as his have many students who are the first generation in their family to go to university, who are from schools without a track record of university entrance, and who would never dream of applying to Oxford, Cambridge or most of the Russell Group universities. Is it fair to deny these students the chance of understanding what research is about or moving into the world of research themselves? Are these institutions to have no postgraduate facilities or just a limited number of faculties with them? If we are to expect third-year students to undertake realistic third-year projects in science and engineering subjects, what about the ““well-found”” laboratory? Has that concept got completely lost? In conclusion, as things stand there is an innate inconsistency in current policy on funding research, an inconsistency that has got lost in the debate about metrics: while preaching support for the dual-support system of funding research and defining that system as providing, through QR funding, resources to support ““a base from which to undertake research””, the distribution formula used to allocate QR provides little or no QR funding for many universities. I have raised three issues. First, as many of these universities are engaged in research of immediate interest to business, are they to be denied the resources to help create and maintain this base? The second issue is about new and emerging areas of the economy and how research for such areas is to be supported. The third issue relates to teaching and the need for research-active staff and a well-found laboratory to support undergraduate and graduate teaching. These are important questions for the future of our universities. I am delighted that so many noble Lords are joining me in this short debate although sorry that it means so little time for them to make their points. I look forward to hearing what is said and to the Minister’s response.