Sustaining UK’s dual-support research system ‘requires trade-offs’

The UK faces difficult choices and will have to make “trade-offs” to sustain its dual support research system, according to the British Academy.

Institutions will have to ask themselves “fundamental questions” such as whether it is right to increasingly subsidise research with teaching income, the body argued in a new paper published on 20 October, adding that “research funding policy cannot be understood in isolation from higher education funding policy”.

The report, Fit for the Future? Dual support and the sustainability of UK research, has been released to mark the start of a new initiative from the academy, known as “Higher Ground” which aims to “reimagine a vision for the future” of the higher education and research sectors.

Outlining a series of trade-offs “shaping the future of UK research funding”, the academy is calling for “a wider conversation about what outcomes the system is intended to deliver”.

It says the questions confronting the sector are not “incidental problems around its edges” but “choices embedded in how the system functions”.

One such fundamental question considered in the report is whether to concentrate public funding for research in places with established records of excellence or spread it more widely to boost regional innovation and create opportunities for new expertise to develop over time.

“Policymakers need to determine what balance to strike between international competitiveness, the development of emerging excellence, and the maintenance of research capacity across institutions, disciplines and places,” the report says.

Given “research funding can no longer be understood in isolation from the wider financial health of higher education institutions”, another “trade-off” facing the sector is to what extent institutions should continue to cross-subsidise.

The current model puts research outcomes at the mercy of much wider factors such as tuition fee income, international recruitment and regulation of institutions, the report argues.

“In practice, the contemporary research system rests not only on project funding and institutional funding, but also on the wider financial model of higher education itself.”

A question that will policymakers will need to answer, the academy says, is whether relying on cross-subsidy “is fair and consistent with the purposes of universities”.

It points out that “income used to cover the costs of research cannot also be used to improve teaching, student support, staff conditions or institutional resilience” and so “students may reasonably question why their tuition fees contribute to research”.

“If this settlement is no longer politically or publicly acceptable, more fundamental questions must be asked about who should meet the full costs of research and what responsibilities should sit with institutions, funders and government.”

Other choices facing the sector identified in the report include whether the balance is right between accountability and autonomy and if policymakers want to improve transparency are they prepared to sacrifice the “flexibility on which discovery and long-term capability depend”.

Considering whether more research funding should be devolved, the report says that this might “support responsiveness and legitimacy within each nation but require more sophisticated UK-wide coordination”.

“It is abundantly clear that our higher education and research system is no longer delivering as well as it could be for institutions, staff, students, graduates, government, or the taxpayer,” said Margot Finn, vice-president of higher education and research policy at the British Academy, launching the initiative.

“The pressures universities are under are multifaceted and complex and affect all subjects. But the real question facing higher education lies beneath funding. It is purpose.

“For decades, it has been easier to keep the tough questions and trade-offs in the ‘too difficult’ box, while the system and the people in it groan under mounting financial pressures and the lack of a long-term, coherent vision from policymakers. That is what Higher Ground aims to unpick. We will take a sector-wide, holistic view, ask the difficult questions and take insights from across disciplines and systems, to open up bold new possibilities for the future of universities.”

tom.williams@timeshighereducation.com