Research Council Institutes

1. The Research Councils are the largest public investors in fundamental research in the UK. In 2007-08 they will have a budget of £2.8 billion a year to fund research and training in universities and research centres. In addition to awarding grants to universities, most of the eight Research Councils invest in their own institutes, centres and units, collectively known as Research Council Institutes (RCIs). Evidence submitted by the Research Councils at the start of this inquiry encompassed some 130 such institutes, commanding an investment by the Councils in direct research of around £440 m (2004-05).[1] These vary greatly in size, structure and purpose. Some have been established for many years; others come into existence for a set period to meet a specific research need. Most are owned by one particular Research Council but others have cross-Council ownership or are partly owned by universities. The range of work undertaken by the RCIs is equally wide and includes long-term monitoring as well as critical pieces of fundamental research and responses to national emergencies. However, what the RCIs share is a clearly defined purpose which allows them to make a unique contribution to the research base of the UK.

2. RCIs are subject to regular monitoring by their parent Councils to ensure that they are meeting expectations and are still relevant to the science strategy which the Council wishes to follow. In many cases, this process is a welcome one to the institute involved as it involves close self-examination of their own operations and purposes. However, the Council's findings might lead to minor or major restructuring of an institute; in extreme cases, such as that of the Silsoe Institute, they might lead to closure, and as might be expected, the impact of Research Council decisions on the future of their RCIs can become a matter of some controversy and concern within the scientific community and beyond. The highly public arguments over the Medical Research Council's proposals for one of the largest of all RCIs, the National Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) in Mill Hill, North London, serve as example of the emotions that can be aroused when restructuring is strongly opposed.

3. Given their close relationship with Research Councils, it is perhaps not surprising that RCIs play a significant and special part in the provision of science and research capability to Government. Some institutes traditionally receive the majority of their funding from a Government department, even exceeding their grants from their parent Council, whereas others provide specific services towards the development or delivery of public policy. In return, RCIs have been counted among public sector research establishments (PSREs) and included in exercises by the Government aimed at improving the sustainability of the UK's public research base. It is therefore a matter of concern that an official survey of PSREs in summer 2006 concluded that there were "serious concerns" about a high proportion of institutes within this sector.[2]

4. There is a school of thought that RCIs are no longer the most effective way of conducting basic research. For example, on 25 January 2006 during Science Question Time, the then Minister for Science, Lord Sainsbury put forward the contention that "there is a well-considered view internationally that separate research institutes have the disadvantage that they become obviously specialised science institutions and in today's multi-disciplinary world, basic research increasingly should be done in a multi-disciplinary environment like universities".[3] This brings into question the whole ethos of RCIs and therefore their survival within the UK's research base. It was these factors which led us to conduct an inquiry into RCIs as the second in our series of thematic examinations of the work of the Research Councils.[4]

Our inquiry

5. On 22 March 2006 we announced an inquiry into RCIs, focussing upon the Research Councils' strategies for providing support to their institutes and centres. We invited evidence on the following points:

• The role of RCIs in maintaining the UK research and skills base;
• The balance between Research Council expenditure on RCIs and on grant funding;
• The rationale behind the different approaches adopted by the Research Councils to supporting RCIs and the case for greater harmonisation of practice;
• The role of Research Councils UK in monitoring and improving the effectiveness of Research Councils' support for RCIs;
• The role of the Office of Science and Technology (now Office of Science and Innovation) in providing support for RCIs; and
• A review of progress on current reorganisations involving RCIs, including the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the National Institute for Medical Research and the Roslin Institute.

Relevant reports

8. Two recent reports by the OSI are central to this inquiry and are referred to at various points throughout our Report: the RIPSS report and the Costigan review.

RIPSS REPORT

9. The RIPSS study was commissioned in 2005 by the OSI to examine how to improve the sustainability and strategic coherence of the £1.6 billion non-university public research sector. The full title of the RIPSS report, published in March 2006, is PSREs and the science base: a policy for sustainable trading and joint strategic investment in PSRE infrastructure. Final Report of the Research Council Institute and Public Sector Research Establishment Sustainability Study (RIPSS) Steering Group. The report found that the publicly-funded research system is crucial to the current and future interests of the nation and that PSREs (including RCIs) exist because the research capacity they provide is either specialist, or of strategic or policy importance. It made twelve recommendations aimed at Government departments, strategic partners and RCIs themselves as a part of an agenda to shore up the sustainability of the sector. The OSI completed its first annual survey of sustainability in PSREs this summer, intending this to provide a baseline against which to measure future progress.

COSTIGAN REVIEW

10. The second report relevant to this inquiry is the light-touch review of the governance of Research Council Institutes carried out by Gavin Costigan, Deputy Director of Research Councils in the Office of Science and Technology, over the period July 2005 - January 2006. The Review concluded that that there was not a strong case for introducing a single governance structure for the Institutes, but that improvements could be made in some cases (with particular criticism of BBSRC RCI governance). The Research Councils are now in the process of putting the Costigan recommendations into practice. For example, NERC is examining alternative governance models for the British Geological Survey. The Council which was criticised most thoroughly by Costigan—the BBSRC—responded by asking Professor Sir Brian Follett FRS to make further recommendations to the BBSRC Council "on the best way to improve both the governance per se and to take account of the sustainability problems related to the current size of institutes".[5] Professor Goodfellow of BBSRC told us that "We are certainly going away from one size fits all models and we will be looking at the appropriate governance for the science and the relationships they may have so if they wish to move closer to the university they may well move away from BBSRC and from the current model."[6] We have not examined this issue in any detail, given the recent date of the Costigan report, but we will be interested to track the impact of the report on the development of new governance structures within the RCI sector. We readily agree, however, that there should be no blueprint for governance of RCIs simply because of their status and that appropriate arrangements should be tailor-made in each case.

Our Report

11. This Report is concerned with the scientific capability represented by the RCIs. Throughout our inquiry, our primary concern has been the sustainability of the work undertaken by and the skills available in RCIs in terms of the national science base. Closely linked with this is our search for evidence of a co-ordinated strategy towards RCIs on the part of all stakeholders, including Government departments, Research Councils and other users of the science of this part of the research base since if RCIs are to deliver what is required of them then the support mechanisms must be appropriate and effective. We are aware that there is a sense of crisis in some, but by no means all, parts of the sector caused by abrupt and sustained changes in Government funding levels. There are also far-reaching reform plans for individual institutes underway, and a wider questioning of the need for RCIs as part of the UK science base which have added to the pressure on RCIs to justify their existence. We support the view that institutions may have to change to meet the new demands of 21^st century science. We are concerned that when this happens, it should represent an enhancement of UK science, rather than a loss. These considerations shape our analysis and recommendations as set out in this Report.

STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT

12. In the following chapters of this Report, we look first at what RCIs are intended to do and how they compare with the university sector. Next we examine their funding arrangements, both in relation to Research Council funding and other public money from government departments, including the key question of who should pay for nationally-important basic research and facilities and for research intended to underpin policy development. In Chapter 4, we move on to how the strategy of individual RCIs is decided and influenced, and how co-ordination in this area could be improved. Chapter 5 sets out the difficulties experienced by several RCIs in their relationship with one particular department, Defra. This issue was raised by several written submissions to our inquiry and became the focus of two evidence sessions, as well as furnishing examples of issues which could have a wider application. Chapter 6 contains our observations and recommendations on three current restructuring projects which present very different experiences and outcomes. Chapter 7 makes proposals for enhancing the oversight role of OSI in relation to RCIs, and chapter 8 sets out our general conclusions arising from this inquiry.

Terminology

13. RCIs are known by a variety of names. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) have research centres; BBSRC uses the collective term "institutes"; the MRC has institutes and units, also known as its "Research Centres"; NERC has wholly-owned centres and surveys and also collaborative centres; and PPARC refers to its bodies as institutes, although none of them includes this term in their titles. Nevertheless, despite these differences, the term Research Council Institute or RCI is readily understood by all interested parties to include all such establishments, and we have used it in such an encompassing fashion throughout this Report.

2   OSI: Comments on the first annual monitoring process of the RIPPS implementation project by JM Consulting, para 14 Back

3   Q 60, Oral evidence taken before the Committee on 25 January 2006, HC (2005-06) 490-ii. This transcript is currently available at www.parliament.uk/s&tcom and will be published with the Committee's OSI Scrutiny Report 2006. Back

4   The Science and Technology Committee decided at the start of this Parliament to adopt a thematic approach in order to fulfil our remit to scrutinize the eight Research Councils. Instead of examining each one individually, we undertook to identify key issues which affect all of the Councils to some degree and to hold a series of inquiries into those issues. The first of these was our Report on Research Council Support for Knowledge Transfer, HC (2005-06) 995-I, published in June 2006. Back

5   Ev 120 Back

6   Q 94 Back