Sunday thoughts: If we want to be a research superpower, why don’t we act like one? (and why does no one outside HE know about the REF)
The REF. The Research Excellence Framework. Quite possibly the bit of measurement in public services that has the biggest difference between a sector that obsesses over it, and everyone else that is largely oblivious to it — or, to paraphrase Palmerston on Schleswig-Holstein, knows about it but can’t begin to understand it.
The best way to explain it to non-higher education educationalists is to imagine this: all the schools in the country are simultaneously inspected by Ofsted, who don’t do visits but just sit remotely and do a massive standardised data exercise, looking not just at current performance but at the last seven years’ worth of school performance. Then the results of this are combined into a super league table and all published in one go. Oh, and several billion of extra money is given to the schools who performed best, with almost no strings attached, to help them do more good stuff.
You can see why the HE sector cares about it so deeply. But why does the rest of the country ignore it?
After all, the results this week of the delayed 7-yearly data dump which should have been published in 2021, shows that universities do research remarkably well. 84% of university research pieces that were submitted, and moderated externally, were judged to be either “world leading” (the best score) or “internationally excellent” (the second best). Depending on how the league table is constructed — and here schools colleagues will nod wryly — different universities excel, but broadly speaking the traditional heavy hitters of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, UCL and Edinburgh all once again were top or nearly top. But almost all instututions, regardless of size or specialism or subject areas, showed some outstanding research prowess.
So far, so good. And indeed, so far in line with government rhetoric, which claims a desire to be a scientific superpower, to be an innovation nation, to trade on our wits and our intellect given we can’t compete on wages. And yet (and I accept some people will stop reading here with disbelief), government actions don’t always follow rhetoric.
Take one example, which is the Oxford — Cambridge arc. This is the geographic area which spans east to west just above London. It contains some of the country and indeed the world’s best research universities, plus a number of highly proficient research and technical institutions that capitalise on this research. It has brilliant north south transport links. It has businesses who want to invest and grow. It has a growing population. It is, say government repeatedly, this country’s Silicon Valley.
Pop quiz. Has the government recently a) decided to double down on an area of almost unparalleled growth, scientific ingenuity, business hubs and booming population by providing the necessary houses, east to west transport links via a promised new railway, and support for spin out businesses that could take advantage of £20bn of private capital wanting to invest just in life sciences? Or b) has it decided to junk the whole thing in favour of some unspecified other plans, which may or may not be linked to moans about housing pressure, Building On The Green Belt, and infrastructure wobbles?
If you gusssed a, I’m sorry. And if you’re a business operating out of Milton Keynes that wants to grow, or an early career researcher looking to spin out a new company, or someone looking to travel beween Oxford and Cambrudge quickly, or a citizen of this growing area who can’t buy a house, I’m really sorry.
This is, sadly, not just a case of Southern NIMBYism. Across the country, there are universities fizzing wth ideas, but who need support for those ideas to become commercialised, support existing firms or grow into new ones, and create jobs. The hotbed of almost any local area of a sufficient size is likely to be its university. It’s often the most rapid shortcut to economic growth.
And while Government chants the chant about supporting our world leading universities, this is often performative. The spending commitment on R+D, to reach 2.4% GDP by 2027, is welcome. But hidden in the small print is an assumption that the private sector will supply a lot of this funding. Which they might, if government set policy to help it happen. Which in turn relies on them doing the things that only they can do: planning, some skills development, visas, an element of early stage capital, a post Brexit system of European research engagement, and so on. Many of these are stuck in the Whitehall go-slow lane, or are in danger of petering out altogether.
University research is fiercely popular among people when asked, and one of the best things they think British universities do. A government truly advocating for it ought to have an open goal. As loath as I am to reach for the cliche of “joined up government”, this requires much more co-ordination between BEIS; the DfE; LUHC; local mayors and combined authorities; the DfT; and DIT to secure inward investment. The new National Science and Technology Council ought to be a heavy hitting body that brings this together, and which can — critically — overrule other decisions made by government that contradict this vital mission.
It doesn’t need superpowers. Just a bit of imagination and co-ordination.
