Health researchers

* Health researchers are calling on the Higher Education Funding Council for England to maintain some research funding for selected nursing departments with poor grades from last year's RAE, writes Julia Hinde.

John Done, health research co-ordinator at Hertfordshire University, said a decision to withdraw money from the many departments that scored a two or lower would defeat the purpose of bringing them within higher education. Nursing came bottom in the recent tables, with only 14 of the 36 departments scoring above a two.