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More Cuts to University Funding

Posted in Education, Politics, Science Politics with tags , , , , , , on February 11, 2014 by telescoper

Grim news arrived yesterday with the announcement by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills of further deep cuts in funding for Higher Education in England. This announcement has been delayed due to internal wrangling over the allocation of funds but in the end the grant letter to HEFCE makes little attempt to sugar the pill:

The settlement will mean reductions in HEFCE funding for higher education institutions in 2014-15 and again in 2015-16 beyond those accounted for by the switch to publicly funded tuition fees. The Government has asked HEFCE to deliver the reductions in ways which protect as far as possible high-cost subjects (including STEM), widening participation (which is funded via the HEFCE Student Opportunity allocation), and small and specialist institutions.

The science budget is, of course, “ring-fenced” which means that recurrent funding for that is maintained at £1,573 million, the same cash levels as 2013-14. This has, for example, translated into the expected flat cash settlement for the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), although there has been some rejigging of the way this money is allocated within STFC, and an apparent increase in funds available for international subscriptions. At least this should unblock the numerous programmes in STFC and elsewhere in the Research Councils that have been on hold pending the final budget allocations.

That said, the overall picture looks very bleak for Higher Education. The really important figure for HEFCE is buried in Annex 2 of the latest grant letter, which reveals that, including the ring-fenced funds, HEFCE will have just £4,091 million to allocate in 2014/15. The corresponding figure for the current year, 2013/14, was £5,014 million. That’s a cut in cash terms of an eye-watering 18.4%.

The scale of the cuts makes it even more likely that if they continue there will be very little money available for HEFCE to allocate as a result of the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, in which case the vast expenditure across the sector preparing for that exercise may will have been wasted too.

For the time being, however, it seems that research has been spared the axe. The bulk of the cuts will therefore fall on teaching grants. HEFCE has been instructed to try to protect STEM subjects as it cuts expenditure on teaching, but will it be able to? The extra funds that have previously supplemented tuition fees have been steadily whittled away anyway, so expensive subjects like Physics only get about £1000 per year more than Arts subjects. There is already a strong incentive in the current funding model for universities to expand cheap subjects. That pressure will only increase with this new settlement.

The last paragraph of the grant letter says:

We recognise that our universities are one of our most valuable national assets. Higher education transforms people’s lives through excellent teaching and transforms society through research and the application of knowledge. The Government’s reforms have laid the foundations for a more securely funded, stronger, more confident and more responsive higher education sector. We will continue to work with the Council and the sector to communicate the enduring value of higher education to potential students and the wider world.

I’m sure readers of this blog will forgive me if I suggest that these words are rendered meaningless by the scale of the cuts announced in the grant letter. If the government really regarded our universities as “valuable national assets” it would be increasing investment in them, not cutting it. What worries me most is that these cuts will never be reversed, whatever the complexion of the next government as there seems to be more enthusiasm across the political spectrum for continued cuts than for investment in the future education of our young people. I’m increasingly ashamed of the legacy being left by my own generation.

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A Partly Political Message

Posted in Politics on February 1, 2014 by telescoper

You may decide for yourself who this is aimed at!

 

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40 years since the beginning of the ‘three day week’

Posted in History, Politics with tags , , , on January 4, 2014 by telescoper

Is it really 40 Years ago?
I wonder how many of you are old enough to remember the “Three Day Week”? I am. In fact I remember sitting my 11+ examination right in the middle of the period (from January to March 1974) in which electricity supplies across the UK were restricted to three days per week. Although it meant reading books by candlelight, it wasn’t as bad as it may sound to younger readers because we didn’t have that many electrical gadgets in those days and at least our house was heated by coal, not electricity. I dread to think what would happen nowadays if we should experience  problems with fuel supplied similar to those caused by the Oil Crisis of 1974. But such an event is not altogether impossible…

hatfulofhistory's avatarNew Historical Express

 

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the ‘three day week’, which lasted from 1 January to 6 March 1974. The ‘three day week’ was an initiative by the Heath Government to avoid the stand-still of Britain’s industry in response to the Oil Crisis of late 1973 and the threat of a strike by the National Union of Mineworkers (who were on a ‘work to rule’ basis at the time). It involved cutting electricity supplies to three consecutive days per week to conserve coal stocks, which was threatened by a strike by mineworkers.

A search of the digitised Cabinet Papers available through the National Archives show how the Heath Government approached the looming threat of a strike by the NUM and the energy crisis faced by Britain in 1973-74. One Cabinet meeting from 20 December, 1973 outlined the problem facing the Heath Government and the…

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In Place of Fear

Posted in Politics with tags , , on January 2, 2014 by telescoper

An extract from the fifth chapter, In Place of Fear, of Nye Bevan’s book of essays, published in 1952, has been circulating on the internet. I’m taking the liberty of posting it here because it addresses directly (and more cogently than modern politicians seem to be able to manage) the importance of the “civilising principle” behind the National Health Service – that nobody should be denied medical assistance because they can’t afford it. As Bevan himself puts it:

Society becomes more wholesome, more serene, and spiritually healthier, if it knows that its citizens have at the back of their consciousness the knowledge that not only themselves, but all their fellows, have access, when ill, to the best that medical skill can provide. But private charity and endowment, although inescapably essential at one time, cannot meet the cost of all this. If the job is to be done, the state must accept financial responsibility.

Part of this essay could have been written in 2013 rather than 1952, in response to government proposals that “foreigners” or “migrants” (or, as I prefer to call them, “people”) should be denied treatment on the NHS unless they can prove their entitlement. Bevan deals with this suggestion very well, but I think there is a point that he missed. Even if you accept that foreign visitors should be denied access to the NHS on grounds that they don’t contribute by taxation (which of course they do as soon as they buy anything that attracts VAT or earn wages in the UK), then logically you should also ban the unemployed, students, etc from access to free health care. I like to think that as a nation we wouldn’t countenance this, so why do pick out foreign visitors in this way? The answer is, of course, pure xenophobia – the lowest common denominator of British politics now as it was then..

Here is the nub of Bevan’s argument about visitors:

One of the consequences of the universality of the British Health Service is the free treatment of foreign visitors. This has given rise to a great deal of criticism, most of it ill-informed and some of it deliberately mischievous. Why should people come to Britain and enjoy the benefits of the free Health Service when they do not subscribe to the national revenues? So the argument goes. No doubt a little of this objection is still based on the confusion about contributions to which I have referred. The fact is, of course, that visitors to Britain subscribe to the national revenues as soon as they start consuming certain commodities, drink and tobacco for example, and entertainment. They make no direct contribution to the cost of the Health Service any more than does a British citizen.

However, there are a number of more potent reasons why it would be unwise as well as mean to withhold the free service from the visitor to Britain. How do we distinguish a visitor from anybody else? Are British citizens to carry means of identification everywhere to prove that they are not visitors? For if the sheep are to be separated from the goats both must be classified. What began as an attempt to keep the Health Service for ourselves would end by being a nuisance to everybody. Happily, this is one of those occasions when generosity and convenience march together. The cost of looking after the visitor who falls ill cannot amount to more than a negligible fraction of £399,000,000, the total cost of the Health Service. It is not difficult to arrive at an approximate estimate. All we have to do is look up the number of visitors to Great Britain during one year and assume they would make the same use of the Health Service as a similar number of Britishers. Divide the total cost of the Service by the population and you get the answer. I had the estimate taken out and it amounted to about £200,000 a year. Obviously this is an overestimate because people who go for holidays are not likely to need a doctor’s attention as much as others. However, there it is. for what it is worth and you will see it does not justify the fuss that has been made about it.

The whole agitation has a nasty taste. Instead of rejoicing at the opportunity to practice a civilized principle, Conservatives have tried to exploit the most disreputable emotions in this among many other attempts to discredit socialized medicine.

The numbers quoted above are very interesting. The current NHS budget for England is just a shade under £100 billion (c.f. £400 million in the 50s). The estimated current cost to the NHS of treating visitors is (possibly) as high £500 million, ie around 0.5% of the total budget. That’s a larger proportion (by about a factor 10) than in the 50s, presumably because international travel is far easier nowadays, but since migrant workers contribute a net £25 billion to the UK economy it’s hardly excessive. Indeed, the NHS itself could not function at all without the thousands of doctors and nurses who come from other countries to work in it. Neither would our university system, as a matter of fact.

It’s about time some of our politicians had the guts to stand up against the growing tide of foreigner-bashing. The one problem this country has with immigration is that there isn’t enough of it.

Anyway, my New Year message to any potential visitors to these shores, whether they be Bulgarians or Romanians or any other citizens of this planet, is a great big Welcome. And if you get ill while you’re here we’ll look after you. Because we’re like that. At least, I hope we are.

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Quantum Technology – a Sussex Strength

Posted in Finance, Politics, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , on December 9, 2013 by telescoper

Amid all the doom and gloom in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement delivered last week there’s a ray of sunshine for research in Physics in the form of an injection of around £270 million in Quantum Technology. According to the Financial Times,

The money will support a national network of five research centres, covering quantum computing, secure communications, sensors, measurement and simulation.

Details of the scheme are yet to be released, but it seems the network will consist of “regional centres” although how evenly it will be spread across the regions remains to be seen. How many will be in the Midlands, for example?

We’re very happy here with this announcement here in the School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Sussex as we have a well-established and expanding major research activity in Quantum Technology and an MSc Course called Frontiers of Quantum Technology. Moreover, as members of the South East Physics Network (SEPNet) we seem to be in a good position to be for funds as a truly regional centre. Assuming, that is, that the scheme hasn’t already been divvied up behind closed doors before it was even announced!

The investment announced by the government mirrors a growing realization of the potential for economic exploitation of, e.g., quantum computing which is bound to lead to a new range of career opportunities for budding physics graduates.

I’d welcome any comments from people who know any more information about the details of the new investment, as I’m too lazy to search for it myself…

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Caught in the Middle

Posted in Education, Politics with tags , , , , on December 7, 2013 by telescoper

Academics these days are caught between a rock and a hard place.

On one side we have a government which seems not only malevolent but also utterly incompetent. I cite the recent example of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills, which has completely lost control of its budget, meaning that further cuts are likely to a higher education sector already struggling to cope with the instability generated by constant meddling from successive governments.

On the other we have our students, who are definitely getting a very raw deal compared with those of my generation. Most are justifiably  unhappy with the high level of fees they have to pay. Many also feel generally alienated by the way the country is run, for the benefit of the rich  at the expense of the young and the poor. Recent campus protests across the country are clearly a manifestation of this groundswell of resentment, although in some cases they have clearly been hijacked by extremist elements who will protest about anything at the drop of a hat just for the sake of it.

In between we have us academics, the vast majority of whom agree with the students  that UK higher education is in a complete mess and that the UK government is responsible. However, most of us also believe in the importance of universities as places of research, scholarship and teaching and want to carry out those activities as best we can for the benefit not only of our current students but for society as a whole.

So what should we academics who find ourselves caught  in the middle do?

Unsurprisingly, opinions differ and I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself when I state mine. I think it’s the responsibility of academic staff to recognize the burden placed on our students by government and in the light of that do absolutely everything in our power to give them the best education we can. That means ensuring that as much of the money coming into universities from tuition fees goes directly towards improving the education of students – better teaching facilities, more and better trained staff and a better all-round experience of campus life. That is the reason that I did not participate in the recent strikes over pay: I absolutely refuse to take any action that would be in any way detrimental to the education of students in my School. Call me a scab if you wish. My conscience is clear. For me it’s not a matter of choice, it’s a matter of responsibility.

So what about the recent wave of student protests? Again, all I can do is give my own opinion (not that of my employer or anyone else) which is that I believe in the right to protest – as long as it’s peaceful – but targeting universities is short-sighted and counterproductive.  I’m sure that all the government is delighted that none of the latest protests have been in Whitehall, which is where the focus of complaint should be, but instead dissipated at arms length in a series of futile and divisive campus demonstrations.

And if one of these protests causes enough disruption that it succeeds in closing down a university for good – and don’t tell me that this government won’t allow that to happen – what good will that have done?

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The Russell Groupies

Posted in Education, Politics with tags , , , on November 29, 2013 by telescoper

There’s an interesting article in Research Professional upon which I thought a brief comment would be appropriate. The article is mainly about the recent demise of the 1994 Group of universities, made inevitable when some of its larger members jumped ship to climb on board the much posher Russell Group. I’ve always felt that mission groups of this type were of little interest or value, but the growth of the Russell Group has, in my view, become rather sinister because it involves a cynical attempt to manufacture status when none is justified by performance.

The piece in Research Professional says:

Vice-chancellors and principals are not the only ones playing the status game. Students, employers, academics and government ministers—who seem to love visiting Russell Group universities—all want to be associated with high-status universities, even if those institutions do not necessarily provide better education or research. A 2009 analysis of the results of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise, carried out by the Higher Education Policy Institute, found that Russell Group institutions performed only half a percentage point better than the overall average, and that when universities in the golden triangle were excluded the score fell to below average. Truly, this is an emperor with very modest clothes.

This echoes my experience. Before moving to the University of Sussex earlier this year I worked in two Russell Group universities (and one which wasn’t in the Russell Group when I worked there but is now). All these institutions have much to recommend them – and I have no desire whatsoever to say negative things about former colleagues – but it is clear to me that they (or at least their Physics Departments) can’t claim to be any better than the one in which I currently work. Indeed the Physics department that performed best in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise was Lancaster, which is also not in the Russell Group.

It’s also noticeable that the primary characteristic of Russell Group universities in the National Student Survey tables is that they generally do quite poorly relative to non-members. Does Russell Group status mean promoting research at the expense of teaching and the student experience generally?

There’s no doubt that by many metrics there is a group of “elite” English universities – Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, and Imperial. The Russell group comprises these and a few other excellent institutions. But the later additions are simply a group of fairly average universities who thought the £500,000 joining fee was worth paying to try to convince students and others that they had elite status too. Worryingly, it seems that the Russel Brand Group Group Brand has been marketed so effectively that politicians are starting to talk as if “research intensive” and “Russell Group” mean one and the same thing.

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How to segregate your lecture

Posted in Education, Politics with tags , on November 26, 2013 by telescoper

Following the announcement that UniversitiesUK has decided that it is acceptable for audiences at events held at UK universities to be segregated by gender, I thought I’d would explain how such segregation should be achieved for speakers who require it.

To start with the lecture theatre chosen for the event should be equipped with suitable man-sized box trunk or cabinet into which the guest speaker is to be placed. An illustrative example of the type of container required is shown here:

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Care must of course be taken to ensure that the box is of sufficiently large dimensions that it is capable of containing the speaker without causing undue discomfort.

Before the audience is admitted to the event, the speaker should be placed inside the box whereupon it should be locked.

The audience can then enter the lecture theatre, sit down wherever they like and make themselves comfortable, being confident that the appropriate level of segregation has been enforced.

An additional advantage of this scheme is that a suitably chosen box will make it impossible for the audience to hear the stream of misogynistic drivel produced by the invited guest, thus ensuring that the event runs smoothly and without disruption.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

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BIS Budget Horrors

Posted in Finance, Politics, Science Politics on November 25, 2013 by telescoper

Just back from my travels so I only have time for a brief post today, but it’s about something potentially very important. It seems that there are big problems with the budget for the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills which includes the budget for universities in England and also the Research Councils under the umbrella of RCUK. The government has lost control over the number of students recruited into universities – particularly privately run colleges – with the result that it faces a massive £1.4 billion recurrent overspend. A leaked memorandum suggests making immediate £350 million cuts into funding for the poorest students, which is bad enough, but nowhere near enough. It seems the rest of the shortfall will have to be tackled by big cuts in the previously “ring-fenced” science budget. Such a move would run counter to numerous pledges made by the Minister David Willetts and would be devastating for the already underfunded science budget. There is already talk of the Science and Technology Facilities Council having to close one of its major research facilities.

I don’t like to say I told you so, but I have had suspicions for a long time that the government was planning to cut the amount of QR research funding allocated via the 2014 Research Excellence Framework to which submissions are due at the end of this week. Now I think it is virtually inevitable that all the years of preparation for this exercise across the country will earn universities virtually nothing. The total amount allocated via the QR mechanism is currently £1.6 billion – easily enough to cover the gaping hole in the budget caused by Whitehall incompetence. Slashing this budget will hit university science departments particularly hard.

Science has struggled along during the tenure of this government with a flat cash settlement, equivalent to a 10% real terms decline. That’s by no means a good result, but substantially better than other areas of public spending. Now it looks like austerity is really going to bite us very hard indeed.

I’m very worried for students and for science. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the people responsible for creating this fiasco in the first place won’t be in fear of losing their jobs. It may be that “we’re all in it together”, but some of us are in it a lot deeper than others.

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Would Scottish Independence be Good for English Science?

Posted in Politics, Science Politics with tags , , , , on November 13, 2013 by telescoper

On Monday the Minister for Universities and Science, David Willetts, visited Edinburgh where he took in, among other things, the UK Astronomy Technology Centre and was treated to an explanation of how adaptive optics work. There being less than a year to go before the forthcoming referendum on Scottish independence, the visit was always likely to generate political discussion and this turned out to be the case.

According to a Guardian piece

Scientists and academics in Scotland would lose access to billions of pounds in grants and the UK’s world-leading research programmes if it became independent, the Westminster government has warned.

David Willetts, the UK science minister, said Scottish universities were “thriving” because of the UK’s generous and highly integrated system for funding scientific research, winning far more funding per head than the UK average.

Unveiling a new UK government paper on the impact of independence on scientific research, Willetts said that despite its size the UK was second only to the United States for the quality of its research.

“We do great things as a single, integrated system and a single integrated brings with it great strengths,” he said.

Overall spending on scientific research and development in Scottish universities from government, charitable and industry sources was more than £950m in 2011, giving a per capita spend of £180 compared to just £112 per head across the UK as a whole.

It is indeed notable that Scottish universities outperform those in the rest of the United Kingdom when it comes to research, but it always struck me that using this as an argument against independence is difficult to sustain. In fact it’s rather similar to the argument that the UK does well out of European funding schemes so that is a good argument for remaining in the European Union. The point is that, whether or not a given country benefits from the funding system, it still has to do so by following an agenda that isn’t necessarily its own. Scotland benefits from UK Research Council funding, but their priorities are set by the Westminster government, just as the European Research Council sets (sometimes rather bizarre) policies for its schemes. Who’s to say that Scotland wouldn’t do even better than it does currently by taking control of its own research funding rather than forcing its institutions to pander to Whitehall?

It’s also interesting to look at the flipside of this argument. If Scotland were to become independent, would the “billions” of research funding it would lose (according to Willetts) benefit science in what’s left of the United Kingdom? There are many in England and Wales who think the existing research budget is already spread far too thinly and who would welcome an increase south of the border. If this did happen you could argue that, from a very narrow perspective, Scottish independence would be good for English science.

For what it’s worth, I am a complete agnostic about Scottish independence – I really think its for the Scots to decide – but I don’t think it would benefit the rest of the UK from the point of view of science funding. I think it’s much more likely that if Scotland were to leave the United Kingdom then the part of the science budget it currently receives would be cancelled rather than redistributed, which would leave us no better off at all.

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