Policy exchange of views
One of the challenges with submitting this column several days in advance is that even more ridiculous things happen in the interim.
Last week we noted the tendency of backbench MPs to chuck around unworkable policy recommendations trying to force the government to invest its research budget more equitably across different areas of the country. A few days later the Public Accounts Committee one-upped this by saying that UKRI should simply set a funding target for each region and stick to it, as if this made any sense once you bother to consider the mechanics.
Being able to include this would have made for a better column, but we are where we are.
Something else caught our attention last week, however. A new report from Policy Exchange calls for lots more technical universities to address higher education cold spots in England – and it wants them modelled after Hereford’s NMITE. The funny thing is that the report repeatedly makes a virtue out of the fact that NMITE conducts “no basic research”, mentioning it in some form or another on four different occasions.
You may have heard the quotation “once is an accident; twice is a coincidence; three time is a conspiracy” – it’s one of those that gets endlessly remixed and misattributed online. And sadly the expression doesn’t go up to four, so we can only speculate on what’s going on with this report.
All the mentions are all spins on this:
“NMITE does no basic research, which is highly unusual among degree-awarding institutions. Its work is application: re-engineering and integrating different technologies.”
The authors want more of this sort of thing (even if as phrased it actually sounds pretty research-intensive). There’s also a glowing reference to Ireland’s technological university system, wherein institutions – we are told – are restricted to “industry-focused research.”
There’s a helpful hyperlink to the relevant part of the Irish Technological Universities Act 2018, which describes the functions of a technological university. These include to support a body of research relevant at regional, national and international levels and pursue excellence in the conduct of that research; to provide teaching which is informed by research; and to give opportunities to international staff and students to teach, learn or conduct research.
So that’s quite a lot of research, in fact. The legislation provides for research and innovation at technological universities to reflect the needs of “business, enterprise, the professions, the community, local interests and related stakeholders in the region.” Describing this as “industry-focused research” does not quite do it justice, you may feel.
Anyway, it’s unlikely to be a revelation that there are those who would like to see universities in poorer areas and serving less advantaged students do less research (and especially less “basic” research). What’s different in this report is the idea that central and local governments might want to set up challengers with this explicitly written into their missions.
From where we’re standing right now, the relitigating of the binary divide feels like one of those old chestnuts that could suddenly become very topical under a future government. The Policy Exchange approach is one lever, though it’s very expensive – NMITE trustees’ most recent going concern assessment was underpinned by factors including the commitment of £5m from donors and the renegotiation of DfE loans on more favourable terms.
The report authors do recognise that the current HE funding model “rewards cheaper, high-volume, lecture-based courses over technical, employer-facing ones” – yes, and over research as well, we might add. While there’s nothing prima facie objectionable about some institutions focusing more on translation and industry, it’s unlikely that’s where we’d end up.
If it wasn’t like this, what other levers might get pulled? One option would be reforming the system from within – the blowback when Research England suggested possible twin-track research assessment last autumn suggests this would be enormously contested.
But if a future government wanted to go down this route, it would have to grasp this nettle at some point. Well, it’s either that or wait for half the universities in the country to employ their staff through subsidiaries and thus render them ineligible for REF. This might be the politically easier option, sadly.
Spotted a politician meddling in the research system? Or a blurry line between academia and government? Email the man himself: haldane [at] researchagenda [dot] news