1.  DCAL (the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre) is one of a number of social science research centres funded by the ESRC. Research Centres are major investments in one or more of the ESRC's priority themes. They are funded for an initial period of ten years, subject to a satisfactory mid-term review. Selection is based on a competition steered towards one or more of the themes, with peer and merit review processes involved.

  2.  DCAL comprises a series of thematically linked research projects, each directed by a senior researcher, with Professor Bencie Woll as Centre Director. The five specific themes of DCAL's research are (1) Language processing; (2) Face-to-face communication; (3) Language development; (4) atypical sign language—developmental and acquired disorders of sign language; and (5) the deaf individual and the community. The study of communication and cognition in deafness is used as a model for the broad study of human language—its origins, development and processes.

  3.  DCAL has a budget of around £4.2 million for the first five years of its activity (2006-10). DCAL is based at University College London and is affiliated to the departments of Human Communication Science and Psychology within the Faculty of Life Sciences. There are four directors; nine post-doctoral research staff; four administrative staff; 12 associated research staff; and ten research students. Eight of the current research staff and five of the research students are from outside the UK;

  4.  While some opportunities for international collaboration have been effected through Research Councils, our experience as senior scientists responsible both for scientific programmes and for training new scientists, is that initiatives founded in European funding have generally been more successful in fostering international collaboration at all levels than those based from UK Research Councils. However, the level and amount of bureaucracy involved in the various framework schemes, and a perception of less than transparent assessment and appraisal, have often deterred would-be UK applicants from major involvement—even where a good scientific case could be made.

  5.  The picture concerning outcomes from such schemes is mixed. On the whole, graduate and postgraduate training seem to have been more successful in fostering genuine international cooperation at the highest level, whereas Euro-wide projects in life and social sciences show a more patchy profile in terms of value for money, whether assessed in relation to scientific advance or closer collaboration between possible partners.

  6.  In relation to postgraduate study, the UK is losing out competitively, particularly in comparison to the USA, because of the limited funding available to support overseas students. Inevitably there are more applicants seeking opportunities for post-graduate study in the UK than in other countries, for both academic and linguistic reasons. Although the ORS and Dorothy Hodgkin Scholarships provide a degree of assistance, European applicants are disadvantaged by Research Council restrictions on subsistence allowance funding and the competition among applicants from outside the EU means that there is insufficient or no funding available for many highly qualified applicants. In our own area of work, this problem is particularly acute for applicants for studentships who are themselves deaf since we are especially committed to capacity building and training of deaf researchers who may be unable to obtain appropriate places for study in their own countries.

  7.  Among very useful UK small schemes are those funded by the Royal Society and similar learned societies: typically these are unbureaucratic and are seen to work efficiently. Similarly, overseas scientific foundations including the Max Planck Institutes, Human Frontier Science and MacArthur Foundation have been more successful in supporting genuine international cooperation at the highest level. These are seen to be driven by top-level science, with commensurate prestige and clarity, rather than by a variety of competing social and economic pressures.

April 2007