The UK government has dismissed as “nonsense” concerns it is disengaged from the financial pressures facing academic research after it emerged that science minister Patrick Vallance visited just two universities during his first six months in office.
While Vallance’s appointment was warmly welcomed by UK universities in July, the former chief scientific adviser has been seldom seen on campuses, with trips to the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, part of the University of Cambridge, in September, and the University of Edinburgh’s computer science research institute in October, his only university visits up to 5 February.
His relative absence from university campuses – disclosed to Times Higher Education following a Freedom of Information request – coincided with one of UK higher education’s most turbulent periods, as universities faced with rising costs and falls in international student recruitment announced thousands of redundancies. As part of these cuts several institutions have scaled back research activity, with the sector already having to fund out of its own coffers £4.6 billion of the £14.6 billion it spent on research last year.
With sector bodies warning about the impact of course closures, such as cuts to chemistry degree provision, on the STEM talent pipeline, Vallance’s lack of visibility on campus may prompt further questions on whether universities are sufficiently engaged with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), led by science secretary Peter Kyle, given their current position within the Department for Education (DfE).
Skills minister Jacqui Smith has official responsibility for UK universities, but most of her statements on higher education have focused on skills, university funding and changes connected to the Office for Students.
With Kyle and Vallance also spearheading technology policy and efforts to attract investment from industry, and Vallance recently appointed the government’s champion for the Oxford to Cambridge growth corridor, there are some private concerns from university leaders that the academic research sector is “falling into the gap” between DSIT and the DfE.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said he “shared these worries”.
“No one doubts the science minister’s knowledge of the research community but the postholder has to triangulate party politics, universities and the whole research community, and that triangle feels a little weak at the moment,” said Hillman, who compared the current setup with the “days when universities and science were both in one Whitehall department with one minister in charge”.
“I would expect a minister, especially a minister in the Lords with no constituency to nurture, to be on a campus most weeks, just as Lord Adonis would visit a school every week when he was schools minister,” continued Hillman.
“Finance directors, vice-chancellors and chairs of university boards are currently tearing their hair out at the lack of joined-up thinking about university budgets and it puts the sector in a tough place as the spending review hoves into view,” he added.
In response, a DSIT spokesman described claims that Vallance and DSIT were disengaged from universities as “nonsense”.
“DSIT ministers meet with universities regularly and work closely with the minister responsible for them,” he added.
Official DSIT data shows Vallance met representatives of several learned academies, Universities UK and several individual universities – the University of Oxford, City St George’s, University of London, and Imperial College London – between July and September.
However, Helen Pain, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, urged ministers to “increase their engagement” and “act to ensure that chemistry research and innovation continues to benefit local economies and that chemistry education providers remain available across the UK to train the future chemistry workforce”.
Referencing the recent announcement of chemistry course closures at the Aston and Hull universities, Pain added: “Decision-making at institutional level does not always consider how local course closures or mergers will affect chemistry skills provision across the UK, nor the research and innovation capability and capacity at the UK-wide level.
“Putting the onus for resolving current financial pressures entirely on institutions and departments therefore is not a sustainable strategy.”
