FC 87

Memorandum submitted by Durham University

Durham University input to 1994 Group Response

We append below responses to the specific questions. We should declare a strong interest in STFC funding, holding a 10-year (renewable after 5) programme grant for the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, and large grants in the Institute for Cosmological Computing and in Observational Astronomy.

Tom McLeish

PVC Research

Durham University

-       the process for deciding where to make cuts in SET spending;

This question needs to be divorced from political and organisational issues within RCUK. A high-level review should ask:

· What are those fields within SET of high future promise in both fundamental breakthroughs in understanding and technological promise, that are non-incremental in nature?

· In which of those fields is the UK internationally leading or potentially internationally leading?

· Prioritise the intersection of those two classes of fields.

-       what evidence there is on the feasibility or effectiveness of estimating the economic impact of research, both from a historical perspective (for QR funding) and looking to the future (for Research Council grants);

There have been recent reports by HEFCE on the effect of QR funding, and by EPSRC on the effectiveness and economic return of grant funding. Both proceeded by a sample of case studies carefully researched. In the EPSRC case, the connectivity of partnerships in industry and academic projects in the polymer science sector was followed, and used to identify products and improvements over a 10 year interval. A 10-fold return on investment for the UK economy was found in that case. This methodology (one could call it "phylogenetic tracking") could be used more widespread.

-       the differential effect of cuts on demand-led and research institutions;

It is essential to recognise the plurality of the higher education sector in the UK, and to recognise equally that the performance of the UK's research-intensive universities has delivered for the nation the most efficient producer of research on the planet. Per £, the UK produces more citations, so changes the way more people and institutions think and behave, and creates more innovation, than anywhere else, including the US. This is a huge national advantage but is very fragile. This sector is very exposed to national research funding and teaching funding for its financial viability.

-       the implications and effects of the announced STFC budget cuts;

There are three classes of effect for these cuts:

1) impact on physics departments

2) impact on specific fields

3) impact on UK science and brain drain

1) It is clear that the amount of money being distributed to physics departments as part of the domestic programme is being reduced. The areas covered by PPAN - Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics - are being reduced by about 30M per year. That is money that would be going to physics departments. We expect that some physics departments may be forced to close.

2) The size of the financial problem has a number of implications for the long term health of the fields. There is a delicate balancing act between exploitation of the current facilities/experiments and R&D for future projects. In particle physics, the need to exploit the investment at the LHC is tensioned against the need to keep the expertise for future projects like the Linear Collider. Given STFC's decision to fund only (at reduced levels) the PPAN alpha5-ranked, and most of the alpha4-ranked, projects there is concern about the resulting overall balance and options for the long-term future of the UK particle physics programme.

The impact on astronomy is very severe. Astronomy grants are reviewed every year and the results of last year's round are now being finalized. The effective funding cut this round is 20 percent which, added to the 25 percent cut suffered in the previous 2 years, makes a 45 percent cut in total. Should similar cuts be repeated over the next 2 years, we will reach a point at which it arguably no longer makes any sense to have an astronomy programme at all in the UK. Yet this is a field that one would certainly seek to maintain under the criteria proposed by the first question above.

3) Already two of the particle physics staff in Durham have left the UK- Professor Weiglein and Dr Moortgat-Pick. The main reason for coming to the UK was the support for Particle Physics through PPARC, and the UK contribution to the International Linear Collider. The main driver behind them leaving was the dramatic change in the UK position on the Linear Collider as described in the STFC delivery plan from 2007.

Despite the best attempts of the community to properly plan for the long term science facilities needed to explore the fundamental nature of the Universe, the STFC era has been an unmitigated disaster. Over the past decade, the UK has recruited from the best available international talent, and as opportunities and funding in the UK dries up, the very best will return to their own countries - who ironically are increasing support for education and science.

-       the scope of the STFC review announced on 16 December and currently underway;

STFC, as it stands must be restructured. The chief executive should be removed.

There are four main problems

1) year-to-year changes in international subscriptions beyond the control of the UK;

2) there is a separation between the funding of national facilities and the RC funding the users

3) there is a major conflict of interest between an organisation which runs its own national facilities and subscribes to international ones

4) no functional forum exists in which a national strategy for investment in facilities with appropriate representation for the major stake-holders can be formulated.

To solve (1) and (2), there should be an alignment of the budgets used to support a particular area.:

the RC with the predominant use of an international subscription takes responsibility for this and the volume part of the subscription is transferred into their budget. Future volume changes in the international subscriptions should come out of the research programme of that RC, but everything else, which includes currency fluctuations and the inflation compensation built into the international agreements are dealt with centrally. In year, the non-volume changes for each subscription are compensated centrally at the highest possible level, preferably above RCUK. This proposal follows the suggestion of section 8.9 of the Wakeham review.

To solve (3) and (4) we should develop a national laboratory on multiple sites with the director reporting to a stakeholder Board- to support Diamond, ISIS, etc. It would provide large-scale engineering and computing facilities for both public and private sectors. Subscriptions from RCs are set by the Board on an annual basis in a rolling process with a three-year horizon. The peer review processes of the contracting research council to allocate this time are unchanged. A properly constituted National Laboratory would naturally take its place alongside other national laboratories overseas providing reciprocal free access to facilities.

-       the operation and definition of the science budget ring-fence, and consideration of whether there should be a similar ring-fence for the Higher Education Funding Council for England research budget and departmental research budgets;

There is a problem with "ring fencing" as a policy - as the cuts in higher education currently under consideration amply show. It allows cheap access to "high moral ground" in the media, while abdicating responsibility from a difficult but necessary balancing of priorities. The result is that non-"ring fenced" areas receive disproportionate cuts that follow no strategic thinking. Setting research budgets should be done according to the national value placed on their outputs and consequences, and tensioned properly against other priorities.

In an economy such as the UK's where future manufacturing is an absolute necessity to maintain our balance of payments, yet where this manufacturing base will have to be build on high-added value technology in emerging areas, research is clearly a priority in both public and private sectors. This is especially so in the medium to long term, so it is essential that strategic decisions on research support are not set by measures and mechanisms constrained by the short term.

-       whether the Government is achieving the objectives it set out in the 'Science and innovation investment framework 2004-2014: next steps', including, for example,  making progress on the supply of high quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) graduates to achieve its overall ambitions for UK science and innovation;

There is some evidence that able young people are being attracted back into STEM subjects at university and from thence into teaching, but there are many obstacles still to overcome. In particular the core numerate science of physics is irreplaceable in the school context if we are to meet the demand of excellence in teaching in the future. The sub-disciplines of astronomy and particle physics regularly appear at the top of the list of attractions to young people considering the subject. The repeated battering received by these subjects under the STFC era of support has damaged this goal, and the current cuts threaten to damage it further.

-       whether the extra student support, which the Government announced on 20 July 2009 for 10,000 higher education places, delivered students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses;

The announcement of the extra support came too late in the admissions cycle to have any influence on recruitment to these subjects. We had already received all our applications and made all our offers well before this point so the extra support had no impact on our planning. The additional support provided allowed us to accept a small number of students in excess of our planned numbers without incurring a fine for over-recruitment, where those students had in any case met the conditions of their offer.

- the effect of HEFCE cuts on the 'unit of funding' for STEM students.

There is a threat to STEM students arising from cuts in HEFCE funding for teaching. If the overall teaching grant starts to fall, there are two ways universities can protect the unit of resource per student. One is to simply reduce the number of home/EU students, which (within the +/-5% tolerance band) increases the unit of resource. Reducing numbers in lab-based subjects has a greater impact than reducing numbers in classroom based subjects. The other is to move students out of high cost (lab-based) science subjects and into lower cost classroom-based subjects. In this scenario, the institutional income and therefore the average unit of resource remains the same but the students are much cheaper to teach.

Furthermore, to compensate for reductions in HEFCE funding universities are also looking to increase international student numbers.  The only way to do this economically in many HEIs who are already 'full' is to displace home/EU students.  Clearly reducing home/EU numbers in high cost subjects like STEM and replacing them with high fee paying students in the humanities where the 'net surplus' is greatest, makes good financial sense in straitened financial times. 

So even if the unit of resource for STEM subjects were to be nominally protected in some way, if there is an overall drop in teaching funding there will remain an incentive for universities to reduce the number of students being taught in STEM/lab-based subjects because of the way the overall funding model works.