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Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
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UNITED KINGDOM

SIR DAVID PHILLIPS

Chairman, U. K. Advisory Board for the Research Councils

Let me start with two general comments on the remit for today's symposium, at least as seen from a U.K. perspective. First, to quote Haldane's famous comment in 1927, ''I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can yet imagine.'' Second, there is the story of the traveler in the Cotswolds who asked the way to London and was told, "If I wanted to go to London, I wouldn't start from here."

First, then, where are we starting from in the United Kingdom? Total spending on R&D in 1989-1990 was about £11.3 billion. That is about $22 billion, and it represents around 2.2 percent of the U.K.'s gross domestic product (GDP). Figures collected by the OECD suggest that this is a proportionately smaller sum than the shares of national wealth devoted to R&D in Japan, the United States, Germany, and France. That overall message is, however, rather less informative than the insights we can gain from looking at the component elements of R&D spending.

The prospects for the 1990s remain very uncertain.

Figure 1 shows that just over half of R&D spending in the United Kingdom is by industry. That is about the same proportion as in France and the United States, but it is significantly lower than in Japan and Germany. Several influential commentators have pointed to low investment in R&D by U.K. manufacturing industry as a significant factor in its relative decline; consideration of the differences between industrial sectors seems to support this argument. Research spending in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries is relatively high, and many of our most successful companies are in that sector. Overall, U.K. industry's spending on R&D increased in the latter part of the 1980s. Data for the last year are not yet available, but I suspect that the present economic recession in the United Kingdom will have curtailed that growth in research spending. The prospects for the 1990s remain very uncertain.

The other source of private sector support for research is what we term the "charities", which in this country are more usually referred to as "nonprofit foundations." In the United Kingdom these charities provide about 2 percent of research funding. The bulk of this—more than two-thirds— is support for biomedical research, where the charities now spend almost as much as the government-sponsored Medical Research Council. U.K. charities also are significant players in the funding of social science research.

For government-financed R&D, the biggest single block is defense research at 20 percent. Spending on this has traditionally been high in the

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

United Kingdom, albeit not quite so high as in the United States. However, unlike in the United States, the boundary between defense and other R&D sectors has been kept fairly clear in the United Kingdom: very little defense-related research is undertaken in our universities, and, except for aerospace, there has been remarkably little interaction between technological innovations in the defense and civil sectors of British industry. Even before the end of the Cold War and before the tantalizing prospect of a peace dividend, the U.K. government had been planning to reduce its spending on defense research. The driving force for this was the need to release resources—both cash and trained manpower—to boost civil R&D. This reduction started, very slowly, in 1988 and was expected to accelerate rapidly in the mid 1990s. It may well be, however, that events in the Persian Gulf will lead to some reconsideration of this policy.

FIGURE 1

UK Expenditure on R&D

Total 1989-90 £11.3 Billion 2.2% of GDP

In contrast to the position on defense, spending by U.K. government departments on civil research outside the science base has traditionally been low in comparison to the level in other major countries. Nevertheless, the last few years has seen a reduction in this element of research funding, and the government is planning further cuts over the next two years. In general, ministries' spending on research in support of policy development and their own regulatory' and procurement activities is not being reduced. The cutbacks are largely in government support for research of potential benefit to industry (in its broadest sense). The sectors mainly affected are agriculture and energy, although manufacturing will also receive less. Most of the reductions are in support of applied research and reflect the government's view that industry itself should be responsible for "near-market" research. The surviving programs are, in contrast, very largely "far-market"—meaning strategic research that is not expected to yield a marketable product or process for at least, say, five years. As well as being part of the government's general intention of removing what it saw as the featherbedding of parts of British industry, this policy was also intended to allow some redirection of funds to the science base.

By "science base" I mean the basic and strategic research funded by government in our universities and Research Council institutes. The terms "academic" and "academically related" research also are used to describe, roughly, the same territory. This is the area of the research enterprise about which I know most and about which most of my remarks this morning will be addressed.

Spending on the U.K. science base has increased over the last decade by about 8 percent in real terms. But that increase has not kept pace with the growth in U.K. GDP, and the government's present spending plans for the next three years involve reductions that will largely eliminate it. The best international comparisons in this area are probably those that emerged from a study, jointly funded by the Advisory Board for the Research Councils (ABRC) and the U.S. National Science Foundation, conducted at the University of Sussex. That study found that the United Kingdom spent

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

FIGURE 2

UK Science Base Funding

Total 1989-90 £l.7 Billion 0.3% of GDP

.significantly less on academic and related research than other major countries, although as a proportion of GDP, we did appear to be spending more than the United States and Japan.

Science Base Spending

Figure 2 shows how our science base spending breaks down among funding agencies and it illustrates very well the dual-support system that is at the heart of our funding arrangements. About half of the government's support for academic research flows in unhypothecated grants through the Universities Funding Council (UFC) and the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC). The other half flows through the five Research Councils: the Agricultural and Food Research Council (AFRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and the Science and Engineering Research (SERC). The proportion flowing through the Research Council route has increased during the last five years, and this is giving rise to a number of difficulties at present.

To understand these difficulties, you need first to understand that our dual-support system is dual in two different ways. First, it is dual in that some research is wholly financed from UFC monies, whereas other projects and programs are sponsored by the Research Councils. Secondly, it is dual because the Research Councils cover only part of the cost of the programs they support; the rest of the cost is met by universities from their UFC grants. The consequence of the increase in Research Council spending in recent years has therefore been twofold: (1) a stretching of the limited university resources available to underpin Research Council projects and programs, and (2) a squeeze on the funds available for wholly UFC financed research. This makes the managerial problem facing universities increasingly difficult, especially when one takes into account the increasing diversity of university research funding, with some industrial and charitable paymasters covering only the marginal costs of the research they sponsor.

The difficulties that scientists at the bench have experienced as a result of this change in the balance of funding have led to greatly increased pressure on the government for additional funding for the science base. But the arguments that researchers present are almost entirely in terms of constraints on the total sums available. Very few of them realize that some, at least, of the resource problems they face are a consequence of changes in the way in which those totals are deployed. Contacts in other countries tell me that this sort of naïveté about management and financial considerations is not unique to the U.K. scientific community.

My conclusion is that part of the policy agenda for the 1990s must be to find means of increasing scientists' understanding of the ways in which their work is funded. Without this understanding they will not be well placed either to argue for a reasonable share of taxpayers' money or to ensure that

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

the resources they do receive are managed efficiently. In the United Kingdom we intend to help this process along by unscrambling part of our dual-support system so that from late next year (1992) the Research Councils will pay a much larger part of the costs of the projects they sponsor in universities. From that time the Research Councils will provide the full direct costs of the research they support, together with a contribution to properly identified indirect costs, leaving only academic salaries and premises costs to the responsibility of the universities.

All of this will put even greater financial leverage in the hands of the Research Councils, and I should therefore say something about how their budgets are determined, particularly as this is where the ABRC, which I chair, most comes into the picture. At this time of year, the Research Councils know their budgets for 1991-1992; they have been given indicative allocations for the following year years, 1992-1993 and 1993-1994; and they are putting forward their plans for the three years 1992-1995.

These "Forward Look" plans have to satisfy a number of criteria. In brief, these criteria are as follows. First, the Research Councils must plan to live within the indicative budget allocations they have been given, and within these budgets they must support the science and activities they judge to be of highest priority. That being so, if they ask for more money—as they invariably do—the extra activities that they want to support must be of lower priority than anything in their planned program. There is, however, one loophole in these rules. Some new opportunities may arise that are of higher priority than some part of the established program but that cannot be taken up quickly because it is difficult to run down existing activities fast enough to release resources for redeployment to the new venture. In these circumstances a Research Council may ask for money to cover frictional effects.

The ABRC then judges the relative importance of the councils' bids for extra money, against the background of an assessment of their existing programs, and gives proposals to the government for revision of the planned Science Budget totals. That happens in early May. In November the government tells us what the budget for the next financial year will be and gives revised indicative figures for the following two years. The ABRC then advises on how these total resources should be allocated among the Research Councils, looking again at the Forward Look plans they submitted earlier in the year. (I have emphasized this process because I believe that we must all learn how to manage research within steady or only slowly growing resources, in which new programs will increasingly require the discontinuation of old ones.)

After that excursion into the detail of our funding arrangements, let me turn back to some of the broader organizational issues we face in the United Kingdom. These concern coordination, and I am sure they will have their counterparts in other countries. First, in the United Kingdom we need mechanisms to promote coordination among our five Research Councils.

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

These are needed for a variety of reasons:

  • to ensure complementarity of the programs they support at the boundaries of their responsibilities, particularly in the biological sciences;

  • to facilitate interdisciplinary programs that need the involvement of more than one council;

  • to consider the impact of each council's policies on the others (e.g., decisions about the funding of major facilities or of postgraduate training programs can have quite wide implications); and

  • to harmonize administrative procedures so as to aid central policy-making and to minimize the bureaucracy with which researchers have to grapple.

The ABRC is our main mechanism for this. Since last year the board has been taking a more active role than hitherto in stimulating cooperation among the Research Councils.

We also need means for ensuring effective and ready communication among the Research Councils and the higher education Funding Councils, the UFC and PCFC. I have to confess that this is not working well at present. The answer, I suspect, is that both sides have to become better at communicating with individual universities and polytechnics, and better at ensuring that coordination is pursued actively at a local level. The balance of policymaking has become rather too top-down in recent decades. Research might be managed better if some of the responsibility were more clearly seen to reside at the local level, and if that responsibility were more firmly grasped by institutional managers.

Science Budget Spending

So much for that sort of organizational issue. Let me turn now to the different modes by which we support research. Figure 3 shows the breakdown of the Research Councils' spending last year. It is quite a varied and balanced portfolio. The biggest element, 31 percent in total, is spending on research grants to scientists in universities and polytechnics. These are normally for periods of three or five years and, as I have already said, at present cover only part of the costs involved. All of these grants are subject to competitive peer-review assessments. At present, of those grant applications that are graded alpha by the peer-review process, about 60 percent are funded.

The chart subdivides the research grants spending into "Responsive" and "Pro-Active." This is a somewhat artificial division, but it is an important issue in the U.K. policy debate. In a very real sense, all of the research grants are responsive in that all of them are responses to detailed applications submitted by researchers. But as well as inviting applications generally across all subject areas, the U.K. Research Councils also, from time to time, issue specific invitations for applications in particular research fields. These are fields that they, in consultation with the relevant parts of the research community, have judged as meriting special attention, usually be-

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

cause there are emerging scientific opportunities that it is believed deserve greater attention from U.K. scientists. Examples in recent years include low-dimensional solids, plant molecular biology, and AIDS. The invitations for applications in these sorts of programs vary quite a lot in the extent to which they specify in detail the subfields in which it is hoped research might be pursued. Thus, there is quite a spectrum of support from the completely unfettered "responsive" mode through to what we term "directed" programs such as that on AIDS (where the areas in which more research was wanted, and the balance between those areas, was specified in detail from the center).

The "Pro-Active" category on this chart includes all those research grants that resulted from particular invitations from Research Councils, however detailed. In effect, these "pro-active" grants are part of a system in which resources are earmarked for particular research fields in advance of receiving grant applications for peer review. This does not, however, mean that poorly rated applications have an easy route through to a grant. In practice, the announcement of these earmarked programs generates a large volume of grant applications, and the competition between high-quality proposals is intense. These sorts of arrangements, which I know have their counterparts in other countries, are part of the process of selectivity in research support—a process that is becoming increasingly necessary.

Before discussing that yet further, however, I want to comment on our other modes of supporting research. Progressing around the chart from "Pro-Active" grants, we have "Units in Higher Educational Institutions." These are located in universities and polytechnics, but they are involved fulltime in programs of research negotiated with Research Councils and are financed directly by the councils. Most of them are supported by the MRC, but their numbers have been increased in the last few years by the establishment of 20 Interdisciplinary Research Centres, mostly sponsored by the other councils.

Further along the spectrum of support, we have a number of research institutes—rather fewer than other European countries and mainly involved in biological sciences. The chart shows that 21 percent of our expenditure goes to these institutes. This percentage, however, also includes our spending on large scientific facilities, such as supercomputers, a synchrotron radiation source, research ships, and so forth. Most of the activity at these facilities is by or on behalf of university scientists, but we have yet to disentangle fully the costs of that from the costs of the other in-house, institute-type research at these facilities.

Questions about the balance between these different modes of supporting research were a key issue in the United Kingdom during the 1980s and, I believe, will continue to attract attention in the 1990s. Each of the modes has it strengths and its weaknesses. Research institutes have the capacity to concentrate effort in identified fields, to organize continuing programs of research in those fields, to focus on the relevance of research to applications, and to mobilize scientists across a range of disciplines. But they tend to be

FIGURE 3

Spending by UK Research Councils

Total 1989-90 £881 Million

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

inflexible and can become moribund. University-based research, on the other hand, is characterized by its flexibility and its capacity for innovation— much helped by the continuing flow of bright young graduates who are involved. But these very strengths make it difficult to organize large, long-term, focused research programs there.

In the United Kingdom we have taken the view that the increasing pace and breadth of scientific advance puts a premium on flexibility and innovation. So, during the 1980s, we shifted the balance of support from institutes to university research grants. The proportion spent on the latter has already increased from 25 percent to 31 percent, and some further shift may be necessary. We have also looked at ways in which the strengths of the institute and university approaches can be better brought together. I have already mentioned our increased spending on centers and units, which are sort of halfway houses. Additionally, as well as cutting back on institutes' spending, we have encouraged them to develop better links with universities and in some cases to relocate alongside university campuses. I expect that we shall need to take further steps of this sort over the next decade. At the very least, we shall need to keep the balance between the different modes of supporting research under careful scrutiny.

Increasingly, we shall need to be selective to steer the bulk of our research effort into a more limited range of fields. The real issue is how, and on what basis, we do this.

The scientific and financial pressures that require that scrutiny also will, I believe, cause us to focus more than we yet have on selectivity in, and concentration of, research support. The United Kingdom undertakes about 5 percent of the world's research. Within that we cannot sensibly expect to be supporting high-quality work at the frontiers of knowledge in every field. Increasingly, we shah need to be selective—to steer the bulk of our research effort into a more limited range of fields. The real issue is how, and on what basis, we do this. Personally, I am convinced that the primary focus must be on excellence. The key criterion for selecting research priorities must, I believe, be the quality of the proposed research and of the scientists involved. In my view, if we do not back our top scientific talent to the hilt, we might as well go home. The other significant criteria in priority judgments are potential exploitability and applicability. They too are important and will certainly feature large in government minds. But, in my view, those factors should clearly take second place, behind research excellence.

A second aspect of selectivity about which I feel strongly is that our decisions about subject fields should not be irrevocable. We must retain some limited capacity in all fields, if only to understand properly what the research leaders elsewhere are achieving, and we must retain the flexibility both to shift resources from our selected fields into others in the light of scientific advances and to take account of inevitable changes in U.K. scientific strengths.

Linked with, but separable from, decisions about selectivity, are policy questions about the concentration of research resources. Both scientific and financial pressures point toward increased concentration, but how far should we go? Increasingly, the next scientific advance in many fields seems

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

to require a bigger critical mass of research effort: bigger research teams, now often including scientists drawn from different disciplines, and more sophisticated research equipment. Financial pressures inevitably mean that these larger clusters of research resources are going to be focused in an increasingly limited number of locations. We need mechanisms to ensure that location decisions are made other than arbitrarily by happenstance. But we also need mechanisms to ensure that, as well as the main concentrations of research effort and resources, we also maintain a rather broader spread of research expertise—not least as a seedbed for future developments. Getting the balance right will be a difficult job in a number of ways.

The focus really needs to be on mechanisms for improving the two-way flow of information between academic researchers and industry so that industry can take up and exploit research findings more readily, and so that researchers have a clearer perception of the root problems industry wants tackled.

In the present distribution of Research Council grants to U.K. universities, about 75 percent of grants go to only 20 institutions. That might suggest that the U.K. research effort is already quite heavily concentrated. However, as is often the case, these statistics disguise more than they reveal. In the first place, most scientists in the apparently weaker universities do not recognize the situation and believe that they have an equal call on resources with their counterparts in the "top 20." To some extent they are right to believe so, for much of the research in the universities receiving the most in Research Council grants is not in itself very concentrated but is instead spread around in penny-packets. The U.K. policy agenda for the 1990s therefore also has to include questions about the following: first, the extent to which we should recognize more overtly institutional differentiation in research functions and the implications of that for funding arrangements, and, second, the extent to which we should proactively be encouraging relocation of particular research activities and interests between the "top 20" research universities.

Industry and International Links

Let me finish by touching briefly on links with industry and the international dimension. My first point about links with industry is the need to recognize that many industrialists place the output of trained scientific personnel above the generation of new knowledge as the key output of the science base. I appreciate that this view is somewhat sector dependent— for instance, in the United Kingdom this view is held more strongly in the chemical sector than among electronics companies. But it is a factor that many senior academic scientists do not fully appreciate and to which they therefore may give inadequate attention in future planning.

My second point is that we have put a lot of emphasis in recent years on building better links between academia and industry in the United Kingdom. Simplistically, this can mean an increase in the amount of applied research that universities and Research Council institutes undertake for industry; we have indeed seen a welcome increase in such commissions. But, more fundamentally, the focus really needs to be on mechanisms for improving the two-way flow of information between academic researchers and industry so that industry can take up and exploit research findings more

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
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readily, and so that researchers have a clearer perception of the root problems industry wants tackled.

An increasing proportion of our research budgets is likely to be directed to international activities.

Regarding the international dimension, my most important comment concerns the increasing need for international collaboration. In some ways this is but the extreme case of the pressures toward selectivity and concentration I discussed earlier. Few single countries can afford the investments required to produce ever-bigger particle accelerators or more sophisticated radiation sources, and increasing attention is being given to global concerns, such as climate change, which inherently require multinational inputs. Thus, an increasing proportion of our research budgets is likely to be directed to international activities. You will have seen from my earlier slide that about 11 percent of the U.K. Science Budget is spent already on formal international subscriptions. If more informal international collaborations were included, that figure would probably be half as large again. That is fine, both in terms of the importance we all attach to fostering international links and of the major scientific advances that have undoubtedly been facilitated by these international efforts. But the downside is that international spending is too often a preemptive charge on national research budgets. It cannot be varied much or quickly at the margin, and when times are hard—as next year will be in the United Kingdom—that places awkward constraints on domestic science budgets.

SIR MICHAEL ATIYAH

President, the Royal Society

The Royal Society is not a body concerned with the management of and decision allocations in science as a whole in the United Kingdom. It gets 1 percent of the total government funding of fundamental research, and this is used mainly for the support of research scholarships. Thus, we are not in the business of science management per se. However, we are, of course, like the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, involved in science policy as a whole. We represent the scientific community, and we are concerned with scientific policy questions. We try to influence those who have to make the decisions, such as the chairmen of the Research Councils and ministers, and we play a role on the public scene. Our involvement therefore is very much not managerial but is in trying to take part in the general discussion.

I think I have to start by describing the present position of the United Kingdom in more detail. Perhaps the most significant indicator of funding trends is in percentages of the GDP. The main point one can draw from data covering 1981 to 1988 is that, whereas in all other countries the percentage has gone up in the period, in the United Kingdom the percentage has gone down significantly. When we complain in the United Kingdom to our government about these factors, it tries to argue that percentages of the GDP are not good figures to look at. My own view is that they do really

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

indicate a significant difference between the situation in the United Kingdom and in other countries. The forecasts for the future are for this tendency to go on unless there is a major change in policy.

So those are the present realities. There are also significant differences concerning the allocations of research money to civil and military expenditures. In the United States, the United Kingdom, and France a large fraction goes to defense, which is quite unlike the situation in Germany. Of course, there is a general recognition of this by the U.K. government. The policy is to reduce, to some extent, the amounts going into the defense budget; if this were to continue, it would help to improve the situation for civil research.

Looking into the future is a difficult task. We have a new government in the United Kingdom, and perhaps will have more governments in the near future. Bearing in mind the changing international scene and the way the world is going, I would guess that future U.K. governments may deem that the proportion of funding going into defense in the United Kingdom is unjustifiably large. If future governments made a policy decision of that kind, we might have a significant improvement in U.K. science over the next decade. That is an opportunity which might be taken, but then again it might not.

Future U.K. governments may deem that the proportion of funding going into defense in the United Kingdom is unjustifiably large. If future governments made a policy decision of that kind, we might have a significant improvement in U.K. science over the next decade. That is an opportunity which might be taken, but then again it might not.

Now, one of the major trends of the past decade, which was very definitely the result of government policy (sometimes trends are not government policy, but instead are simply facts) has been the successful attempt to reduce the percentages of research funded by the U.K. government, which has gone down from 50 percent to 36 percent over that period. This policy was based on the belief that there was too much support by the public sector of various things, including scientific research.

The attempt thus was made to shift some of the burden of scientific research into the private sector. This attempt took various forms, in addition to actual decreases in scientific budgets. There also has been a shift administratively in terms of trying to move out various organizations, such as laboratories, into the private sector or into an intermediate "agency" status.

From the point of view of university research grants, the money has been coming from a wide range of resources, including the Research Councils, the U.K. government (directly from government departments but mainly from the Research Councils), and U.K. charities. The charities fraction is the one that has been increasing most significantly. This fraction has, in the medical field, grown to be larger than contributions from many other sources, which is perhaps unique in Europe.

There is another part to the funding of the universities that we call "core funding." Core funding refers mainly to the provision of staff salaries of those involved in research in universities and the basic infrastructure that goes with that. As seen from the universities standpoint, the percentage of their core funding has gone down by approximately 10 percent in the past decade.

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

Corresponding with this shift of resources, what we see coming out of a general government policy is a shift of financing away from major reliance on government sources and toward diversification. In many ways diversification of funding is a good thing. Diversification gives you some kind of stability, and the more sources you have, the healthier you are—in a sense.

On the other hand, diversification has other consequences, and one of these consequences is felt by academic staff conducting research (those who hold higher degrees, not technical assistance staff). The proportion of such staff in U.K. universities who are in permanent employment, as opposed to short-term renewable contracts, has been much reduced. Over the period in question—the last decade or so—the proportion of people on short-term contracts has doubled, from around 20 percent to 40 percent. This is a major change in the staffing of universities, which is to a great extent a consequence of the diversification of sources, for the outside sources tend to be on a shorter time scale.

This increase in short-term contract staff has both plus and minus factors. Some people view the possibility of having people on short-term contracts and then letting them go as a good thing. It keeps you from getting stuck with somebody who ceases to be productive after a certain number of years. On the other hand, many people in the scientific community feel that those who are engaged only on a short-term contract cannot afford to take the long-term view of scientific work; instead, they have to concentrate on short-term projects perhaps proposed by someone else, rather than initiated by themselves, because they have to justify themselves at the end of a short period of time to get some renewal of their funding.

Thus, there is a genuine problem here—to compare the advantages and disadvantages of having a largely mobile or short-term staff in our universities. But I think the feeling of many of our colleagues at the moment is that the present proportion of short-term staff is unduly high, and with about half the staff appointed this way, the disadvantages probably outweigh the advantages.

One of the major recent trends in the United Kingdom is the rather rapid growth of what we call interdisciplinary research centers.

Let me move on now to some other factors. One of the major recent trends in the United Kingdom is the rather rapid growth of what we call interdisciplinary research centers. These are large units, always associated with a university and sometimes with several universities, where there is a large concentration of resources, substantial expenditure, and usually some kind of interdisciplinary work involved. These research centers have many advantages—for those who believe in them. First of all, they foster research across traditional boundaries. Second, they concentrate expensive equipment in a few key places where it can be used (the argument is that you cannot afford this kind of equipment everywhere). Third, they are a means of fostering particularly exciting new areas where you want to put a lot of your resources.

Because of these kinds of arguments, there has been a very significant growth of interdisciplinary research centers in the past two years. But the

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

arguments against them are also familiar: they are too elitist; they put too many resources in one place; and, perhaps more doubtfully, their establishment depends more on science policy than on science. That is, the people who know how to manage themselves on scientific committees sway the arguments, whereas those scientists who spend their time working at the bench do not spend time on committees and therefore do not get the support.

I think this is certainly a danger. When you go too far down the line in making awards very large—an all-or-nothing affair—then it becomes so important for people to take part in this process that either they are involved in the management side or they are scientists working on the ground. I think this an aspect that I myself am rather concerned about. If you have a large number of such centers, no doubt some of them will be very successful, but some of them may be of only mediocre significance.

The days when Europe could go it alone, the United States could go it alone, Japan and the Soviet Union each could go it alone are perhaps coming to an end, and even larger-scale collaborations may be the only way to go forward.

The present view, after initial enthusiasm in establishing a lot of centers, is that perhaps we should be a little bit more cautious and that the Research Councils are pulling back a little from too rapid an involvement until they see more clearly how things develop.

As for the European question, there are two major directions in European cooperation in science. The first of these is large multinational laboratories. These laboratories have been remarkably successful in scientific terms, but they do have their drawbacks: they are bureaucratically very cumbersome; they require agreement by a large number of countries; they are difficult to control; they tend to be expensive; and, again, their establishment and subsequent evolution depend very much on political questions as well as purely scientific ones.

The consequence of this is certainly major tension, particularly in the United Kingdom concerning the resources that can be spent on international collaboration of this kind and the resources that are spent inside the United Kingdom itself. The United Kingdom is perhaps different from other countries in Europe in that the money for these international subscriptions comes out of the same overall financial budget as the direct support of science in the United Kingdom. Other countries manage it in a different way, so the competition is not quite as obvious. In the United Kingdom the one overall budget funds both U.K. science and most of the foreign science as well. So at the present time, when there are a lot of constraints, many questions are being raised about what is the best use of money, and this produces tension in the scientific community.

Of course, there are many international collaborations that involve countries outside Europe. The scale of many things has now reached the point where worldwide collaboration may be the only solution for future development. The days when Europe could go it alone, the United States could go it alone, Japan and the Soviet Union each could go it alone are perhaps coming to an end, and even larger-scale collaborations may be the only way to go forward.

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

On the European scale, I think it is fair to say there is not the same degree of confidence in the procedure by which the funds are allocated and in whether these are as well justified as the corresponding funds allocated within the country itself.

The second growing channel of support for science in Europe is through the European Commission. There is every reason to expect this to increase very significantly, particularly after 1992. In general, the Royal Society is in favor of this. Collaboration is viewed as desirable for cultural, economic, political, and scientific reasons, so in general terms we all are enthusiastic about this general direction.

On the other hand, I have to say that at the detailed level of mechanics, there is some concern that, partly because of the diversity of systems in different countries in Europe and partly because of the speed with which things are changing, the mechanisms for the distribution and allocation of funds at the European level are not perhaps as refined as they are within a given country.

In the United Kingdom we have developed, over a long period of time, what we think is a reasonably refined system of peer review and the methods for getting the best use out of the limited funds we have. On the European scale, because of the difficulties I have alluded to, I think it is fair to say there is not the same degree of confidence in the procedure by which the funds are allocated and in whether these are as well justified as the corresponding funds allocated within the country itself.

At the present time, the funds on the European level are not so great that they totally distort the picture. But as these funds increase and as we look ahead (and we ought to look ahead over the next decade or so), undoubtedly this is one of the major factors we have to come to grips with. Namely, if larger amounts of funds for scientific research are going to be spent in Europe on a multinational basis, in one way or the other, then the mechanisms for dealing with this will have to be refined so that they command more general assent within each country. Because of the wide range of different structures in different countries, this is not going to be an easy task.

So much for Europe, for the moment. We were also asked to comment about the national plans in various countries for the science policy over the next decade.

I am not a government official, and I am not privy to the inner secrets of what ministers decide or what their plans are. But, as far as we outsiders are aware, there is no plan in the United Kingdom. I think it is fair to say the government does not have a long-term vision for the planning of science. Everything is conducted very much on a short-term basis governed primarily by financial considerations.

For the scientists, who have to think quite often in long-term scales, this makes for great difficulties. The one item that one can deem to be a government plan is the general philosophy I mentioned before—that direct government spending in all forms should be reduced and a greater burden should be placed on the private sector. This is a philosophy that the previous government held, and it still appears to be part of the present government policy: to reduce the public sector expenditure in general and in particular for science.

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

If I go back for a moment to the figures about the percentage of scientific research funded by the government and by the private sector, one will see the government was very successful in reducing its own contribution and increasing the percentage taken up by industry. One might feel therefore this was therefore a very successful policy. But if one looks at the comparative figures of other countries and bears in mind the percentages in terms of the GDP, one might argue that all that has happened in the United Kingdom is that the government has pulled out and the gap has not been filled by anybody else. Thus, it is dangerous to believe that if the government pulls out and exhorts industry to take its place, this will automatically happen; one could argue, indeed, that it has not really happened at all.

There has been some oscillation, I believe, in government thinking on what kind of scientific research it should support. There was a time when the view was that the government should support the movement of scientific research into industry and should support those kinds of research that have exploitable economic advantages. But after a certain amount of experimentation, the basic philosophy that the government should keep out of things finally won over. The government now has a policy of keeping out of near-market research and leaving that to industry, which is best fitted to undertake it.

Whatever one might think about the overall size of the science budget, one day, now or later, limits are reached. Within those limits the most important thing is how the money is divided and how rational allocations are made among different kinds of research. Those are the responsibilities of the scientific community, and they should not be handed over to the government.

The government now believes in funding basic or strategic research. Its policy is to fix cash limits and, by and large, to leave it to the scientific community to divide up the cake as it feels necessary. Of course, whatever one might think about the overall size of the science budget, one day, now or later, limits are reached. Within those limits the most important thing is how the money is divided and how rational allocations are made among different kinds of research. Those are the responsibilities of the scientific community, and they should not be handed over to the government.

Because there is no plan for science, as far as I can see, in government circles, the Royal Society decided recently to undertake what one might think of as a plan of its own. This plan is a bit ambitious. The society has set up what we call a science inquiry, which is to run for the next year or so, to address a number of issues in science over the next decade. It will be a middle-term plan, established to investigate the present situation and to see what recommendations we might make to those who have to make decisions.

This inquiry has a list of topics or headings, and they cover almost everything of concern, but I can spell them out a little for you here. The first question concerns what sort of research should be supported by public funds and what should be supported by other sources, including industry. T h e second question concerns what the organization should be of the U.K. science base—that is, science conducted within universities and research councils. We want to find the best way of organizing that with respect to the division among universities, large research centers, laboratories, and the Interdisciplinary Research Centers that I mentioned earlier. How much should scientific research be directed and how much should be left to the

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

individual scientists? Obviously, these are crucial issues and will form one of the focal points of our inquiry.

A third question concerns the funding of the U.K. science base, which refers to how much funding comes from different sources and how it is channeled into the different types of research. The fourth question or topic refers to high-cost research—the large facilities needed for such fields as particle physics, astronomy, space, and so on. The most pressing problem is how to support these fields and how to decide on their scale measured against the claims of smaller scientific research. This problem certainly has to be tackled in some fundamental way.

The most pressing need is to ensure in science that we recruit and bring into the scientific community able people of the next generation, and that we give them the right training and the right opportunities to conduct their future careers, whether those be inside universities, in research centers, or out in industry.

The fifth topic refers to career structure, which is related to the figures I gave about the proportion of scientists who are on short-term contracts in universities. The most pressing need is to ensure in science that we recruit and bring into the scientific community able people of the next generation, and that we give them the right training and the right opportunities to conduct their future careers, whether those be inside universities, in research centers, or out in industry. Ensuring that the permanent career structure develops in the future in a constructive way is certainly one of our biggest problems. We know some of the difficulty already, and we are going to look at it in greater detail.

A sixth question is the European dimension I alluded to before: the increasing role of Europe and what the consequences are going to be for science in the United Kingdom—the financial consequences, in particular.

The seventh question also refers to the same thing: the division between national and multinational support for science. And the eighth and final topic concerns the division of science into different parts: what is the size of the total and how much should the United Kingdom be spending on science? For that one can, of course, make international comparisons as I did in the beginning.

We were asked not only to describe trends but to explain what our views are about what the future should be. The Royal Society view will be much clarified when this science inquiry has been finished. So if you ask me to come in a year's time, I may be able to come with a very clear blueprint. At the moment, however, I cannot do that. All I can do is give you a few thoughts on what I think the general principles are that the Royal Society believes in.

The first, and most important one, we feel, is that the training of scientific personnel is the single most important thing to bear in mind. This is not only because the future of science depends on the training of succeeding generations but also because of the practical applications in industry. Many people in industry tell us the most important thing they need from universities is the production of a trained scientific workforce at various levels. This is one of our essential tasks. Training is undertaken in universities by staff who are involved in research. The Royal Society view has been very firmly that most scientific research should be based in universi-

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

ties, either within departments or in research centers associated with universities. Either way, we feel that the research should be conducted in universities in close proximity to the younger generation. The distinction between education and research can be oversimplified. The important thing is to have a whole cohort of people coming up doing undergraduate work, graduate work, and postdoctoral work and then moving into scientific research, and having them all in close proximity at the same place. This is the most effective way of ensuring continuity and providing for the future.

Applied research, whether it is applied for industrial purposes or applied to a specific area such as the environment, may well best be done within large research institutes not necessarily related to universities.

The second principle is, we believe, that government support should be given to basic long-term science, with no immediate consideration of commercial or industrial payoff and that such research is best done in universities or similar establishments. Applied research, whether it is applied for industrial purposes or applied to a specific area such as the environment, may well best be done within large research institutes not necessarily related to universities.

The general question of whether research is best conducted within large institutes and laboratories or by individual scientists is one that is very pertinent at the moment in the United Kingdom. People are much concerned because of the shortage of funds. Perhaps I could digress a moment to say that one of the good things about having a constraint on resources is that it makes people think so much more. Certainly, we have had plenty of time to think within the last 10 years in the United Kingdom. I do not make that an argument for cutting funds, but if you do have to cut funds, then you are forced to think about certain fundamental issues.

The general view, I believe, in the Royal Society is that really fundamental progress in science comes from the individual scientists—the cutting edge—and that science funding should recognize this and should respond by providing funds for key scientists. Attempts to control science by overdirection, by saying ''this is what we think the interesting things are that you should be working on,'' should be avoided, at least as far as possible. Committees, however experienced, are not the best people to make judgments. Our view is that we have to respond basically to the research needs of the scientists actually working at the bench. There are various mechanisms by which this can be done, but the fundamental need is for support of the individual scientist.

Looking ahead a little, I believe there are going to be a lot of pressures on universities. I have said that universities are the key places in which research should be done. But there is going to be a lot of pressure on the universities, in the United Kingdom in particular. For example, there is certainly a general feeling in the United Kingdom that far too low a percentage of our population goes to universities, or indeed goes on to any form of higher education. Undoubtedly, there will be an increased number of students over the next decade. Our universities are much smaller in total size than those of comparable countries. It is very likely that there will be an increasing number of students entering universities and other forms of

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

higher education. This means that universities will probably have to diversify in many ways: they cannot all fulfill the same function. Perhaps we will move more toward the kind of system that exists in the United States, with a wide range of institutions of higher education—from very prestigious universities conducting a great deal of high-grade research to other universities that perform a wider range of activities.

Because of the political movement in Europe and the wide diversity of structures in different countries, I think it is inevitable that we will have some kind of convergence of the different systems in Europe.

At the same time, I think there will be a need to converge in Europe. Because of the political movement in Europe and the wide diversity of structures in different countries, I think it is inevitable that we will have some kind of convergence of the different systems in Europe. For example, in Germany it takes six or seven years to get a degree. In Britain one can do it in three years. I think convergence here means that there has to be some kind of move in both countries toward the middle. In the United Kingdom, on the one hand, we will certainly move toward less specialization in schools and toward, perhaps, longer courses in universities. In Germany, on the other hand, they will try to shorten their courses. Both of us may end up with four or five years of study being customary. I think such changes will come because there is now essentially a free flow of students. One of the most remarkable things is the increasing number of German students who come to study in the United Kingdom, for the obvious reason that they can get their degree in half the time. Once free-market education has been set up, then the institutions have to develop accordingly; they cannot retain their previous forms.

Universities are going to have to converge in some sense, and that will have consequences both for education and for research. I am sure that this is one of the big issues that will be facing us in the next decade or so.

In comparing Europe and the United States, it is very tempting to see whether we can learn from U.S. experience. The history, of course, is completely different, but the United States has the same problems between state and federal structures and with the diversity of educational institutions, so perhaps we can learn something by making comparisons.

DISCUSSION

Question: With regard to the concentration of research in the United Kingdom, I am curious to know whether your research has been diffusing to more institutions, or is it becoming more concentrated in fewer institutions over the past few years?

Sir David Phillips: By your standards, our universities are very small, ranging from 2,000 to about 12,000 students. Now, for an institution with only 2,000 or 3,000 students to expect to engage in research across a broad spectrum of subjects is probably a false and uneconomic hope. As for trends, I think that the concentration has been getting greater. How much further

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

it will go, I don't know, but you should know that in 1987 this kind of argument led to a proposal that we should be differentiating between universities that are engaged in research across the full range of subjects and those that are expert in, say, one or two fields of research.

Universities are going to have to converge in some sense, and that will have consequences both for education and for research. I am sure that this is one of the big issues that will be facing us in the next decade or so.

We in the United Kingdom have a group of universities—of which there are about 50 in all—all of which give doctorates and all of which engage or have the ambition to engage in research at the highest and most expensive level, but these universities are of this range of sizes that I have described, and many of them are of a very uneconomic size to be engaged in expensive research across the range of activities. We have a university, for example, that is extremely good at plant sciences but not terribly distinguished in other areas. We envisaged, in 1987, that such smaller universities will be engaged in not very expensive research but rather in support of teaching. Now, that raised a great amount of debate and, I think I would have to say, anger in the university community. Nevertheless, the trend is in that direction. The mechanisms used to fund the universities through the universities' funding councils, and the forces of the Research Councils, are pushing the system in that direction.

In parallel with the universities, is a system of higher education institutions known as the polytechnics, invented in the 1960s, partly I believe as a government response to the expense of maintaining universities in which all the staff had the right to spend 30 percent of their time doing research— whether they did or not, incidentally, but they had a right to engage in research. The polytechnics are constrained not to receive public money in support of doing basic research and are pushed toward a close relationship with industry.

The greatest expansion in U.K. higher education over the last 10 years has been in the polytechnic sector. Polytechnics are, on the average, larger than universities, and they produce now' the greater number of graduates: 50 percent or more. But they are not funded through a funding council automatically with a large block grant to support research. They get the support from industry, the Research Councils, and wherever else they can find it. So we do have a diverse system.

Question: Could you address how the abolition of tenure has affected the morale of the universities and what long-term effects it might have there?

Sir Michael Atiyah: First of all, one has to recognize a little bit of history in this. The problem with British universities was that there was a very, very rapid expansion of the system in the 1960s, which led to an enormous influx of new faculty. In the British system at that time people got tenure immediately on first appointment after their Ph.D. This caused an enormous problem, which we still have today. It was that problem that had to be tackled—to remove tenure in that sense. The effect on morale can be exaggerated. Although tenure has been abolished in the legalistic sense, in practical terms people are not in immediate danger of losing their jobs. There will be a difference between people who are appointed with the expecta-

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
×

tion of being kept on, and who are normally kept on except in unusual situations, and those who are appointed on limited grants.

Question: Dr. Atiyah, you mentioned that work at interdisciplinary centers is often mediocre. That might often be true, but can one not also look at it as evidence that the scientific community has lost the ability to communicate across disciplines and that they have specialized so much that these mediocre studies reflect merely bad communications?

Sir Michael Atiyah: Of course, interdisciplinary activities are very important. I totally agree with you that, on the whole, within universities people are traditionally stuck within traditional disciplines, and we want to break those down. It is difficult in a university sometimes to bring this about, and therefore it is very good to have centers that bring together people from different areas to work together. That is a very good reason for having these centers.

However, the decision of which areas to cover may be dictated by political considerations, or considerations of strategy and policy, and not necessarily by the status on the ground. One can therefore make mistakes, for one might end up saying there should be some interdisciplinary activity in this area for general reasons of strategy or because some committee thinks so, but once it is set up and has become a large organization, it may not produce fundamentally good science.

Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
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Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
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Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
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Suggested Citation:"United Kingdom." Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering. 1992. Future National Research Policies Within the Industrialized Nations: Report of a Symposium. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1975.
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This book is a summary and proceedings of a symposium sponsored by the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable and the National Science Foundation. It includes presentations by senior government science policy officials and leading scientists who are directly involved in the research and higher education policy formulation processes in various countries. Included are their assessments of current challenges to their national research systems, descriptions of national strategies for meeting these challenges, and a discussion of options for national research systems in the twenty-first century.

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