Scottish v-cs fear falling further behind on research funding

Scottish universities risk falling further behind English institutions on research funding if new legislation to create more combined local authorities with potential funding responsibilities is passed, a conference has heard.

In a forthcoming White Paper on devolution – due to be published this month – the new Labour government is expected to outline plans to create more metro-mayor regions in England and deepen their powers with the aim of supporting economic growth.

The arrangement is likely to be significant for research too, with larger combined authorities potentially being given their own pot of research funding. Based on Greater Manchester’s work with its local universities, universities within combined authorities might also have an advantage in attracting private research and development investment or in winning impact-related funding from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which often require evidence of local partnerships.

At a Universities UK conference on research, however, concerns over Scotland – which does not have combined local authorities – and its universities’ ability to win research funding were raised by Lesley Jackson, director of policy at Universities Scotland.

There was a risk that Scotland would be treated as an “single entity”, putting its universities at a disadvantage to English institutions which could apply with the backing of their combined authority, explained Ms Jackson.

“We should not regard Scotland as a homogeneous block,” she said, noting the very different centres of research excellence in Dundee, Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as the Highlands and Islands.

Noting how Scotland’s universities already receive proportionally less quality-related (QR) funding than English universities, as well as less money from the Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) stream for knowledge exchange, Ms Jackson said there was a risk that the new devolution plans could empower English universities at the expense of Scottish ones.

“We don’t know what is in the devolution bill,” Ms Jackson told Times Higher Education at the event, which took place on 3 December.

“But the difference is that Scotland doesn’t have these metro-mayor areas – if the devolution bill is considering this, then it needs to recognise we have very diverse regions within Scotland.

“If you regard Scotland as a single entity, you will miss out on the growth.”

That could potentially undermine the ability of Scotland’s universities to win competitive research grants if they continued to miss out on QR funding and other UKRI grants that helped them to submit successful grant applications, said Ms Jackson.

“The difficulty is that [in England] you have unprecedented [QR] funding that powers the machine that allows universities to go and submit competitive grant applications,” she said.

Referring to Scotland’s Research Excellence Grant (REG) funding – the Scottish equivalent of the QR funding allocated by Research England – Ms Jackson added: “If REG funding is not keeping up [with English universities] it makes it much harder to win that UKRI funding.”

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com