‘Larger, fewer grants’ could harm Burnham’s regional agenda

A “larger, fewer grants” model that concentrates research on established UK institutions would be a “huge mistake” and could risk hampering Andy Burnham’s ambition to drive prosperity across the nation, academics have warned.

The warning comes after the science minister, Chris McDonald, told vice-chancellors at the 10 September Universities UK conference that he wanted to see a “system that prioritises faster research outcomes over spending efficiency, while maintaining quality”.

McDonald said he preferred “fewer, longer awards”, with the target that UK Research and Innovation “will back a smaller number of bigger, longer-term investments”.

Sasha Roseneil, vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, told Times Higher Education that this could undermine the government’s regional agenda.

“Prioritisation and taking difficult decisions in resource-constrained environments are the business of all those charged with leadership responsibilities, especially at present.

“But if the Burnham government is serious about wanting to spread prosperity around the whole country, it is vital that funding remains available at substantial scale to excellent teams doing groundbreaking research across a wide range of research-led universities.”

There are concerns in the sector that the new model could further concentrate the nation’s research funding in established institutions, primarily those in the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge.

Roseneil warned: “It would be a huge mistake for our national research and innovation capacity to be limited by prejudgements about where the most important questions are going to be asked and the transformational discoveries of the future made.”

She said that McDonald should “think very carefully and consult widely before…concentrating funding on those already regarded as the most successful, and thereby radically foreclosing possibility and potential elsewhere”.

Stephen Curry, senior strategic adviser at the Research-on-Research Institute, told THE: “My worry with making ‘fewer, longer awards’ to reduce the burden of applying for funding is that such awards tend to favour more established researchers and those at research institutes which are not required to take on the additional and vital task of teaching undergraduates.”

McDonald also proposed to place “more power into the hands of those actually running research programmes for targeted funding”, giving programme teams “more discretion about what goes forward and how it’s commissioned, using their subject knowledge, rather than sending everything through the full [peer review] machine”.

But Curry noted that the minister had made “no mention of the importance of place, or Burnham’s ambition [to drive growth in] every postcode. UKRI might consider the health of the UK’s universities to be a matter for the Department for Education, but it would be good to see some evidence of more joined-up thinking on this.”

Meanwhile, Sally Wheeler, vice-chancellor of Birkbeck, University of London, said she believed that the proposal for greater, fewer grants “is intended to concentrate research funding. Peer reviewers can only be a check on non-concentration when they are in play. So if schemes are designed for long-term funding of the usual suspects, this is what will happen.”

However, Sarah Chaytor, director of strategy and policy at UCL Research, Innovation and Global Engagement, told THE: “I welcome the emphasis on taking a more strategic approach to research funding. The current system funds capability creation but neglects capability retention.”

She explained that “researchers are often trapped in a stop-start hamster wheel, where time-limited funding means that projects are constantly being set up and then dismantled – with a consequent loss of knowledge and talent each time. This is creating significant inefficiency and failing to maximise the potential of public investment in research.”

Nevertheless, she too warned that: “Any changes of course need to be part of a balanced funding system, which continues to invest in the full breadth of the UK’s research base as a real global strength.”

Also sparking controversy is McDonald’s statement that UKRI will “more actively [use] demand management for selected funding applications where volumes are expected to be high”.

Rob Johnson, managing director of Research Consultancy, said the proposal is “just moving that work from the research councils and their reviewers on to universities and research-performing organisations”.

The result, he believes, will be a process that is “less impartial and independent than a national scale review process”, favouring established researchers.

Curry added that: “It is far from clear how, without funding support, [demand management] makes things easier for the communities on whom the burden of grant review falls.”

frances.jones@timeshighereducation.com