UK science is under threat - from English higher education policy

The Uk science neighborhood has reacted with dismay to the information, leaked to the Guardian, that the Division for Company, Innovation and Skills (which helps make science policy for the Uk and provides funds for the Uk broad research councils) is considering generating cutting £100m+ from yearly science investing from 2015, as portion of a strategy to deal with a large hole in its finances. The Uk science spending budget is nominally “ring-fenced” inside of BIS, a measure intended to reassure the science neighborhood and the wider public that science funding income can’t be raided to support meet spending budget shortfalls elsewhere in the remit of this massive ministry. Of course, that ring fence hasn’t protected the science budget from austerity: however it was supposedly frozen in money terms in 2010, capital investing was stripped out of the budget and offered a hefty and damaging reduce (which has since been partially reversed).

So far, so straightforward. Placing even more strain on a science price range which has presently observed efficient cuts would be really unwise and even the existence of however more uncertainty around future science spending will be damaging as universities, study groups and other actors make their very own forward planning decisions. 

But one factor of this story has been small remarked upon thus far. That the ‘black hole’ in BIS finances stems from a higher than planned development in pupil loans as a benefits of a failure to plan for and management pupil numbers on programmes (specially Larger Nationwide Diplomas and Larger Nationwide Certificates) offered by private so-called ‘alternative providers’ is properly understood.

However, a point that appears to have been misplaced on most commentators and critics is that this BIS policy applies to England only – as element of the devolution settlement Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland make their very own higher education policies. Conversely, BIS helps make science policy and funds science for the Uk as a whole. Certainly a single BIS minister, David Willetts, is accountable each for Uk science and for English higher education. A single of the little oddities of devolution, United kingdom-design.

It is possibly understandable that the Treasury would demand that the ministry responsible for creating this kind of a mess get the hit in terms of cuts. But in this case, cleansing up the mess developed by a failure to make and employ excellent higher training policy for and in England threatens to influence on the Uk science base. 

For different factors it would seem to helps make sense for science policy to be a United kingdom-broad competence. Indeed the Scottish Government has acknowledged this in its current policy document Scotland’s Potential, which states that, assuming the independence referendum is won, Scotland would wish to carry on as a spouse in the Uk research council system as an independent nation. This is not surprising – Scotland does disproportionately properly out of the research council program.

But the existing messy arrangements have lead us to a situation exactly where an English policy failure threatens United kingdom-wide science paying and a United kingdom science minister is forced to contemplate creating even more science cuts which will impact on Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as a outcome of issues arising out of his England-only increased education responsibilities.

This seems not only ridiculous but intolerable – and politicians, researchers and the wider public in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland need to be particularly angry that this is even becoming contemplated. The concept of robbing the United kingdom-wide science spending budget to spend for English mistakes would seem to be to be especially barmy at a time when the recent Prime Minister sees one particular of his key tasks as “defending the Union”. 

I have extended been concerned that there could be important unintended impacts of the Coalition Government’s English greater training reforms – which are turning a ‘system’ into a set of competing institutions – on the science base. I never ever dreamt they may come in this kind. Putting the need to have to kind out English greater training policy to one side, surely it is now time to clarify the ringfencing of the United kingdom science budget on devolution grounds, and to consider separating out the position of Uk science minister from that of English universities minister?

Kieron Flanagan is a Lecturer in Science and Technological innovation Policy at the University of Manchester. He can be located on Twitter at @kieronflanagan

UK science is under threat - from English higher education policy