Maddalaine Ansell argues that the UK needs to look after its international alumni

International students bring new ideas and knowledge to UK campuses, broaden the university experience for domestic students, help to sustain and enrich UK universities and have a positive impact on local communities and economies. Most importantly, when they graduate from students to alumni, they take their trust in the UK—and a sense of being connected to it—back to their own countries.

But all relationships require effort, and it is not enough to presume that a good experience of the UK will generate warm feelings towards it—or to see alumni primarily as a source of philanthropy. The UK has recognised that it needs to look after its alumni in a more systematic way.

In the 2021 update to its International Education Strategy, the government announced that the British Council would be exploring options for attracting and supporting a global UK alumni network.

Last year, we at the British Council launched Alumni UK—a global network for people from around the world who have studied in the UK as an overseas student. Over 15,000 people have now enrolled and our target is to get to 150,000 by 2025. Next month, we will hold Alumni UK Live, an online festival giving graduates who have studied in the UK access to professional development opportunities and the chance to connect to other international alumni.

The aim is to offer alumni a worldwide professional network through which they can continue learning, develop employability skills, make connections and share their experience and expertise, as well as to keep UK alumni connected to the UK—recognising that they are of incalculable value.

Basis of trust

The British Council’s 2018 report The Value of Trust summarised the many studies that had looked at why trust is the bedrock of all strong relationships, how it is earned and why it matters. It concluded that trust is what allows us to believe in the reliability of others and brings the possibility of cooperation to satisfy mutual interests.

Economically, high-trust relationships have lower transaction costs and stimulate investment, production and trade, which in turn lead to economic growth.

In terms of connectedness, Universities UK International’s 2019 report International Graduate Outcomes found that 77 per cent of international graduates said they would be more likely to do business with the UK as a result of studying there; 81 per cent intended to build professional links with organisations in the UK; more than 80 per cent would recommend studying in the UK; and 88 per cent would visit as tourists.

World-leading

The UK therefore benefits hugely from so many alumni ending up in positions of power or influence. The Higher Education Policy Institute’s 2022 Soft Power Index found that 55 current world leaders had been educated in the UK—more than any other country except the US. This is partly due to the prestige of flagship scholarship programmes such as Chevening and Commonwealth Scholarships, which attract extraordinarily talented young people to study at UK universities.

Alumni who become world leaders are only the tip of the iceberg. Many others, including some of those on Great Scholarships funded jointly by the British Council and universities, or through Women in Stem Scholarships, become diplomats, government officials, scientists and business and community leaders.

This is important because many of the most pressing challenges facing the world today require cooperation not only at the government-to-government level but beyond. Civil society, including universities, businesses and community groups, needs to tackle poverty, pandemics, climate change and the management of scarce resources.

Sustainable development

In hitting the International Education Strategy’s target of 600,000 overseas students studying in the UK each year, the higher education sector has educated a huge number of people with whom the UK can cooperate to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Study UK Alumni Awards give many examples of the exceptional contribution UK alumni have made to science and sustainability in their own countries, including tackling pollution in Jamaica and ghost fishing in Nigeria, where abandoned fishing gear continues to trap wildlife. UK alumni also helped to guide public health policy during the Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan.

It matters that these friends are spread around as many countries as possible. The latest statistics suggest that the UK is doing very well at attracting students from China, India and Nigeria and is making good progress, from a lower base, in Indonesia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia—testament to Steve Smith, the UK’s international education champion, as well as the Study UK campaign and the tireless work of international teams in universities around the world. Applications from non-EU international students as of January 2023 have increased by 21,050 (29 per cent) since 2020, to 94,410.

But the UK is doing less well in terms of applications from EU countries, which have dropped by more than 52 per cent since 2020, to 20,500. As these countries are its nearest neighbours, trading partners and allies, the UK needs to maintain strong links with them and must redouble its efforts here. Attracting students through marketing, scholarships, bursaries and strategic institutional partnerships that facilitate exchange of students and early career researchers is a highly effective way to do this, and so is maintaining connections with alumni.

Alumni are appreciating assets for the UK. It should invest in them.

Maddalaine Ansell is director of education at the British Council.

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Ivory Tower: We check in with the UK’s leading University Media Relations team.

An office, somewhere in SW1…

McCall [on the phone]: Well, if he won’t let you do it, have you thought about Plan C, minister?… I don’t know… Two weeks in Ibiza for all post-docs?… You could tie it in with the mobility scheme… Call it Turing All-in… I’m sorry minister, I’m only trying to help… How is the new office, by the way?… Exactly the same as the old office, I see. Have they changed the plate on the door?… No, still the science minister, I see. So, remind me, what was the point of creating a new ministry for science?… No, me neither. Anyway, we are very grateful to have won the contract for media relations for the department, and we are working on the launch event as we speak… Oh yes, glitz and glamour minister, definitely… Well, you know that open deck bus of national treasures they wheeled out for the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Yes, well, most of them have said no, but we’ve got Brian Cox… no the other one… yes, I agree the other one would be better… look I’ve got to jump on a Zoom call with Sydney in a minute… no, Sydney, Australia, minister. Sorry, who did you say? Sidney who?… I don’t know who that is, minister… A TikTok star? No, I don’t think we’ve reached that stage of event planning yet, minister. I’ll keep you informed and brief you in a couple of days. Got to go, bye. [puts phone down] Although God knows we are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to science policy.

Janet: Do you need me to set up the laptop for a Zoom, Mr McCall?

McCall: No, I just said that to get him off the phone. He’s becoming obsessed about the media launch for the new science ministry.

Janet: You mean, you lied to a client?

McCall: I was merely managing expectations. Don’t they teach you anything on that degree apprenticeship course?

Janet: I’m currently on a deep dive placement at the industry coal face.

McCall: What are you doing?

Janet: I was about to make Mr Juniper a cup of tea, would you like one?

McCall: Yes, please, and then let’s look at the invite list for this wretched science ministry launch.

Janet: Will do.

Juniper: Is everything alright, Oliver? You sound like a man out of love with his art.

McCall: I’ve really had enough of this government, Alexander, when are we getting a new one?

Juniper: Probably not until the end of next year. These are austere times, Oliver, you’ll just have to make do with the government you’ve got. See, if you can’t spin it out a bit longer.

McCall: I can’t believe Michelle Donelan is back.

Juniper: At least we don’t have to look at Grant Shapps anymore.

McCall: You could have fun pretending to forget his name. Sunak is just determined to make everything so bland and beige. I’m surprised he hasn’t brought back Greg Clark.

Juniper: Thank goodness for the DUP.

McCall: Quite, but they are blocking our Horizon Europe association field trip to Brussels.

Janet: Here’s a tea for you, Mr Juniper, and one for you Mr McCall, and here’s the list.

Juniper: This is entirely white.

Janet: I was trying to use up the milk before it goes off.

Juniper: No, this is a blank piece of paper.

Janet: Turn it over.

Juniper: Brian Cox? Anyone else?

McCall: That’s as far as we’ve got. You see, this government stinks so much of decay that no one in their right mind would want to be seen standing next to a minister at a gala event.

Juniper: Not even the vice-chancellors?

Janet: No, of course they are all coming.

McCall: Try and stop them.

Janet: And the science policy people, too. This is the celebrity list that will get us a photo on the front page of the broadsheets.

Juniper: Have we actually asked Brian Cox?

Janet: Which one?

Juniper: Either of them.

McCall: One said he would rather pluck his liver out with a knitting needle. The other hasn’t returned our call, so I’m banking that as a maybe.

Juniper: Where is this event?

Janet: The Science Museum.

Juniper: Ten out of ten for imagination, zero out of ten for levelling-up.

McCall: I am not getting on a train to Middlesbrough to drink a glass of lukewarm white wine and listen to a speech by the science minister.

Juniper: Isn’t there a science museum in Halifax?

McCall: I can see the headlines now: Minister’s Shock End in Happy Valley.

Janet: Might make it easier for one of the Brian Coxes to get there if he works in Manchester.

McCall: I can assure you that it is quicker to get a train from Manchester to London than it is to Halifax. Or it used to be…

Janet: We’d have to ship all the celebrities up north.

Juniper: Don’t they have celebrities up there?

Janet: Channel Four News has moved to Leeds.

McCall: So, that’s Cathy Newman, plus one, any others?

Juniper: I don’t think she’s personally moved to Leeds, it’s just the studio.

McCall: OK, so, that’s Cathy Newman’s cameraman plus one, any others?

Janet: Ant and Dec?

McCall: Shouldn’t they have some vague familiarity with science?

Juniper: Well, if you are going to draw that line, some people might query Michelle Donelan.

McCall: If only we still had dear old David Bellamy, he ticked every box: a bloke off the telly, had something to do with Durham, didn’t believe in climate change.

Juniper: Janet, have you still got that Scientists for Brexit list?

Janet: It was more of a post-it note.

Juniper: Can you remember who was on it?

Janet: They’ve all gone, I’m afraid.

McCall: They are all dead?

Janet: No, they’ve all moved to Europe.

McCall: This is hopeless. Northern science launch? Pigs might fly.

Janet: Higgs?

McCall: No, pigs, do try to keep up Janet.

Janet: No, Peter Higgs.

Juniper: Is he one of those TikTok stars?

Janet: No, Peter Higgs is a Nobel Prize winner, as in the Higgs-Boson particle. I listened to a podcast about it the other day. I think he’s from Newcastle or somewhere.

McCall: Brilliant, Janet! I can see the headline now, “Minister and Nobel Winner in Happy Valley Sunlit Uplands”. They’ll love that. You look for Higgs’ email, I’ll phone the minister [picks up the phone, dials] George, how are you?… Good, good, look we’ve made a bit of progress here and think we’ve found you a science super star to launch you as a science superpower…

Juniper: Well done, Janet, excellent work. Have you managed to find an email address?

Janet: Oh dear, Mr Juniper.

Juniper: What’s up? What have you found?

McCall [still on phone]: Yes, I think we should book an entire train load of ministers, scientists and celebs to Halifax, leaving from Euston, we’ll call it the Innovation Nation Express…

Janet: I don’t think Peter Higgs will be suitable after all.

Juniper: Why not? He’s not been cancelled, has he?

Janet: Worse than that Mr Juniper, he was heavily involved with the university lecturers’ trade union at the University of Edinburgh. It says here, he thinks he caused so much trouble that the university wanted to sack him, had it not been for the chance he might win a Nobel Prize.

Juniper: Probably not an ideal candidate to sit next to Rishi Sunak at dinner. Better show, Oliver.

McCall [on phone]: We could deck the place out in fun science stuff. What’s that thing when you roll down a hill in a giant plastic ball? Zorbing? Do you think Rishi would want to do that?… You think he looks enough like a hamster already? Interesting… hold on minister, my colleague is just alerting me to some breaking news [covers the mouthpiece] what is it Alexander, this had better be important?

Juniper: Read this.

McCall: Peter Higgs bla, bla bla… Nobel Prize bla, bla, bla… apologies, minister, I’ll be with you in just one minute… University of Edinburgh bla, bla, bla… trade union firebrand! Ah, I see… hello, minister, are you still there? Yes, it looks as if Sydney is back online now. I’ll have to go, I’m afraid. I think my colleagues have had a really productive redesign of your launch event. Nobel Prizes are so old hat, no media appeal in that. Have you thought about TikTok stars? Influencing young people through digital… Yes, we could still have the train from Euston, full of ministers and TikTokers… and vice-chancellors… Yes, if you really want to, we can call it Freeman’s Highway. Ok got to go now, Sydney and all that, bye.

Juniper: That was a close one.

Janet: I think I’ll make another cup of tea and look out the West Coast line timetable and that post-it note of TikTokers for Brexit.

Terms of use: this is a free email for fun on a Friday, it should be shared among friends like a tip off about a fresh consignment of tomatoes in Lidl. Want to book a seat on the Innovation Nation Express? Want to say hello? Email [email protected]

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Strong UK response raises broader questions about higher education’s humanitarian role, says Jamie Arrowsmith

One year ago, as the world watched in horror as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolded, the UK higher education community was vociferous in its response and unanimous in its support for the people of Ukraine.

Statements condemning the invasion were swift and unequivocal, followed by sanctions and advice to end research and education partnerships with Russia. These were necessary but small steps in signalling our condemnation of the war.

However, it was clear that action was also needed—what could universities do to help? Understanding how to respond, and how to target resources to deliver effective support to those affected was initially a challenge.

As a first response, Universities UK International drew together a task group of universities, government departments, funders, sector agencies and third-sector organisations to think through the immediate issues. This allowed the sector to prioritise and assign actions.

This group’s work informed the UK government response, helping to identify visa and immigration issues, and the need for targeted hardship support. The rapid deployment of resources for students and policy changes to support Ukrainian nationals demonstrated that, when working together with a common objective, both the government and the sector can move very quickly indeed.

Twinning programme

This work was vital, but it was reactive. It wasn’t a considered and strategic effort to work out what support the Ukrainian university community wanted from the UK. Thankfully, we were approached by an organisation with strong ties to the region, Cormack Consultancy Group (CCG).

Its founder, Charles Cormack, helped convene a meeting of British and Ukrainian university leaders to discuss how the UK could best support them. The answer from Ukraine was simple: help us stay open.

From this meeting, the UK-Ukraine twinning initiative was born. The idea is simple: universities in the two countries are brought together, supported by CCG, to develop a strategic partnership, consisting of a five-year collaboration with a bespoke agreement.

At an institutional level, the aim is to help ensure universities can continue to operate. At a more strategic level, the ambitions are to maintain the integrity of Ukrainian higher education, help prevent brain drain, and position Ukraine’s universities to emerge from the crisis with the resources, skills and international experience to make a full contribution to the reconstruction.

To date, more than 100 partnerships have been established. Hundreds of Ukrainian students have visited the UK twin on mobility programmes. New research collaborations have been fostered. Practical support, from providing computers and furniture to access to learning resources and academic infrastructure, has helped mitigate some of the damage done to campuses and infrastructure.

In September 2022, the #TwinforHope campaign was launched to share stories from these collaborations. The programme has received funding from the UK foreign office and UK Research and Innovation has provided £5 million for research and innovation activities within the partnerships.

Beyond Ukraine

The programme is testament to the huge amount of work and support from across the sector and the team at CCG. Beyond twinning, the UK government and British Academy launched the Researchers at Risk scheme, Refugee Education UK has developed a platform to make it easier for displaced students from anywhere find information on scholarships in the UK. And longstanding organisations such as the Council for At-Risk Academics continue to provide an invaluable service.

Over the past year, it’s been humbling to support the work of so many committed and inspiring people through the Twinning scheme. And yet it has also highlighted challenges in how the higher education community responds to humanitarian crises.

First, despite the phenomenal support provided by the UK government, universities have struggled to offer help to Ukraine’s international students. While UK visa, immigration and funding policy mean these students cannot be easily supported, this feels unsatisfactory as a response.

Second, the war has raised questions over how universities can respond to other crises. The Twinning scheme is built on very particular circumstances, including clear political and public support, policy change and, of course, funding.

These things matter, but the question of whether universities could do more, as a community, to mobilise that support in response to other crises is absolutely the right one.

UK universities have been clear in their support for Ukraine, and for their peers, colleagues and the students affected by the war. Our Ukrainian partners are equally clear that these collaborations are for the long term. And we, as a university community, need to learn and understand how we can better support universities, students and researchers affected by other humanitarian crises.

Jamie Arrowsmith is the director of Universities UK International

The post Make universities’ help for Ukraine a model for other crises appeared first on Research Professional News.

International cooperation and solidarity can give postwar reconstruction sound foundations, says Oksana Seumenicht

Earlier this month, more tragic news arrived from Kyiv: DNA tests confirmed that Bizhan Sharopov, a PhD neurobiologist at the Bogomoletz Intstitute of Physiology in Kyiv, had been killed. He is one of many researchers to die in the Russian Federation’s war against Ukraine. 

As the war rages into a second year, Russian rockets continue to destroy critical infrastructure. More than 2,500 educational institutions have been damaged and 437 razed to the ground, according to Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science. 

An online poll last October found that more than two-thirds of European researchers support sanctions on scientific relations with Russia. On the invasion’s first anniversary—and in the ninth year of Russian aggression—Ukrainian researchers are calling on the academic community to reassess the role of Russian science in supporting the war. 

This is not just an emotional stance. Freedom of speech, research, teaching and learning are severely compromised in Russia. The country ranks in the bottom 20-30 per cent of the Academic Freedom Index compiled by Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen, Germany, and the V-Dem institute. Cooperation with Russian institutions could pose a security threat and would violate academic values and freedoms. 

Ukrainian researchers and educators remain incredibly resilient and are convinced that science and research will be key to rebuilding their country after the war. International cooperation and solidarity in research and higher education are crucial to giving post-war reconstruction sound foundations to build upon. 

Access to education

One priority is to give Ukraine’s students education now, so that they can become the next generation of researchers. Encouraging examples range from the University of Würzburg’s bachelor programme for displaced mathematics students, taught in Ukrainian, to the partnership between the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the Kyiv School of Economics. 

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is in its second round of support for German-Ukrainian university partnerships. And the Ukraine Global Faculty, coordinated by the Ukrainian non-profit organisation K.FUND and supported by the country’s government, aims to provide Ukrainian students and professionals with online lectures.

Ukraine’s current generation of researchers also needs support and training. At the EU-level and nationally, there is a range of programmes aimed at displaced Ukrainian researchers. 

Preventing a brain drain means thinking now about how to help people return home once conditions are safe. The EU-funded MSCA4Ukraine fellowship programme aims to address this via secondments. Dedicated fellowships to support return and reintegration, similar to those offered by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation to fellows from certain countries, could be another useful option. 

Many researchers remain in Ukraine, creating an urgent need for non-residential support schemes, such as those offered by the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna or the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. Distance-learning programmes, such as the Executive Leadership Academy for Ukrainian University Leaders offered by the University of California, Berkeley, can fill the gap when no research is possible. 

Ukraine’s research and innovation ecosystem must also be strengthened. This could be done through long-term grants, such as those offered by Scientists and Engineers in Exile or Displaced, a programme run by the US National Academy of Sciences in collaboration with the Polish Academy of Sciences. The national research foundations of Ukraine and Switzerland have also agreed a joint funding call. 

Another inspiring initiative is the plan to establish an International Centre for Mathematics in Ukraine, spearheaded by four Fields Medal winners, including Ukraine-born Vladimir Drinfeld and Maryna Viazovska. Creating focused centres of excellence in cooperation with international partners, rather than trying to rebuild destroyed universities, could help Ukraine find its niche in the world of global science. 

A dedicated network group recently initiated by the Council of Young Scientists at Ukraine’s Ministry of Education and Science aims to build ties between Ukrainian scientists at home and abroad. Part of this will be a Ukrainian Science Diaspora online platform, under development in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.

A commitment to research integrity and academic freedom means continued support for Ukraine. Its science and innovation base must not just survive; it must become an integral part of global research, and serve as a motor for rebuilding Ukraine as an equal member of the European family. 

Oksana Seumenicht is programme director of MSCA4Ukraine at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Berlin and co-founder of the German-Ukrainian Academic Society and the Ukrainian Academic International Network. She writes in a personal capacity.

This article also appeared in Research Europe

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Policies to counter nepotism influence evaluation processes and attitudes to reform, says John Whitfield

Last November, two Spanish science-policy researchers, Ismael Rafols and Jordi Molas-Gallart, drew attention to the fact that in Spain, university hiring and promotion decisions are signed off by government agencies at national or regional level. 

This system, they wrote, was “introduced in the 2000s to reduce nepotism” but has resulted in the agencies taking a “rigid and standardised” approach based on journal rankings. Universities, they argued, need more autonomy.   

Theirs is one of many such calls in Europe for researcher careers to be de-linked from sometimes crude metrics. 

At present, the likeliest vehicle for such reform is the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment. Coara’s agreement calls on signatories to “move away from inappropriate uses of metrics”, to “broaden recognition of the diverse practices, activities and careers in research”, and to allow for differences between disciplines, cultures and places. 

Since it was finalised last year, it has attracted signatures from organisations across Europe. But differences in how nations and institutions approach evaluation are not just an internal issue for research. They depend on society and history more broadly—particularly social norms and the rule of law. 

The historical rationale for Spain’s approach makes it all the more interesting that while Spain’s CSIC network of publicly funded laboratories and many universities have signed Coara, its main public funder, the State Research Agency (AEI), has not. 

Sources point to differences in opinion at different levels of the Spanish system, with the appetite for change declining the closer one gets to government.

Seeking clarity

A diversity of views across different bodies might lead to some welcome flexibility, but it might also create inconsistencies that could leave researchers unclear what is required of them. 

Asked why it had not signed Coara, the AEI pointed out that it has signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, which has similar goals to Coara, and that it no longer uses metrics such as journal impact factors or h-index to evaluate individuals. 

“The AEI is firmly committed to fighting against the undesired effects of the publish or perish philosophy,” it said. “However, as the country’s main funding agency, it sees a certain risk in committing to follow procedures that may be too distant from our reality in Spain and making commitments that could be detrimental to our science.”

So far, national funders in 15 EU member states, along with the UK, Switzerland and Norway, have signed Coara. One holdout is Italy, where policymakers have also sought to combat nepotism in academic appointments. The country has given metrics a relatively prominent role in its national evaluation and in the habilitation process needed to become a university professor. Its national funder, the Ministry of Universities and Research, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Policymakers’ engagement with research evaluation partly reflects the strength of a nations’ research system. Unsurprisingly, the EU national funders that have signed Coara are mostly from the member states with the highest R&D spending as a proportion of GDP. 

But there’s also a strikingly good match with a country’s position on the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International at the end of January. Most countries where national funders have signed Coara score well on the index. Only two such countries—Slovenia and the Czech Republic—have worse scores than the highest-ranked non-signatory, which is Spain.

Otherwise, nations without national funder signatories are arranged squarely below those with them in this proxy for corruption. This is not to point to some funders as suspect and others as exemplars. Italy’s network of public research institutes, the CNR, and its research-evaluation agency Anvur, have both signed Coara. 

The AEI’s stance shows that not signing does not show a lack of reflection or engagement, and Coara does not have a monopoly on the issue. But it does hint at potential complications that may loom larger, particularly if Coara becomes more global.

Qualitative judgment

The coalition wants assessment to be based “primarily on qualitative judgment”. But, as others have observed, in places where the qualities needed to get ahead in academia don’t necessarily include being good at research, researchers tend to be more pro-metrics, seeing measurements as preferable to nepotism and patronage.

Coara will need to be alive to such issues. It will also need to deal with policymakers who might be reluctant to let go of the reins of evaluation. 

John Whitfield is opinion editor at Research Europe

This article also appeared in Research Europe

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Rebuilding Ukraine’s research sector can spark a brighter future

One year ago, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine appalled the world, and left Ukraine’s people facing a devastating new reality. Since then, thousands of researchers have fled the country, many continuing their work elsewhere. Others have stayed, working or defending their institutions and country.

On P8 of this issue, four Ukrainian researchers recount their experiences of the past 12 months. Their stories—from the chemist living day and night in his lab to guard it from attack, to the professor who fled the country with her nine-year-old daughter—speak of terror, courage and a passion for their work and their country. They also express hope in a future where Ukrainian research is rebuilt as a bigger part of an international research effort, underpinned by a renewed commitment to academic freedom.

Ukraine’s researchers have expressed deep gratitude for the international support they have received since Russia’s invasion. At EU, country and institutional levels, there have been numerous schemes to resettle researchers and enable them to continue their work, while those who stayed have been helped with grants, equipment and resources. Sergey Kolotilov, a chemist from Kyiv, says: “I don’t know of anybody who looked for a position abroad and could not find one in a short period of time.” 

In a world where bureaucracy and money are often shameful obstacles to humanitarian action, the speed and thoroughness of the response could not be taken for granted, even given the widespread condemnation of Russia.

Now Ukraine’s researchers are uniting in a renewed plea to the international research community: to help their country rebuild its research base as a cornerstone of a rebuilt Ukraine. As many Ukrainians look for EU membership, researchers hope their world can be reshaped with European values, and be a bigger contributor to the international research endeavour.

A path to this future is already being paved through relationships brought about or renewed by war. With Ukrainian researchers continuing their work in institutions across Europe, connections are being forged which can outlast the conflict, however long it may continue. 

On a more strategic level, too, there is a growing shift in focus. On P11, Oksana Seumenicht, co-founder of the German-Ukrainian society Ukrainet, details efforts already under way to prevent long-term brain drain: EU-funded fellowships; distance learning programmes; and a recently issued joint funding call from the national research foundations of Ukraine and Switzerland.

These steps are hugely welcome, but rebuilding Ukraine’s research base—especially as envisaged by those who are part of it—will require many more. Fellowships will be needed to support return, and as Seumenicht outlines, plans to create centres of excellence in cooperation with international partners could offer a model to “help Ukraine find its niche in the world of global science”. 

The initial support for Ukrainian researchers was, by necessity, delivered in haste. As the EU starts planning for its next R&D framework programme, its officials must grasp the chance to take a long-term view of the assistance Ukraine may need. Doing so will benefit not only the country and its researchers, but also European research as a whole. 

This article also appeared in Research Europe

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Back page gossip from the 23 February issue of Research Europe

It’s a date

Kudos to all the research organisations that took advantage of Valentine’s Day to crowbar a plug for their activities into the special occasion/commercial schmaltzfest (delete as preferred). Honourable mention goes to the European Commission’s Twitter account for the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, which appropriately used the date to advertise its online tool for finding partners for potential projects.

Somewhat less convincing to your correspondent was the European Research Council’s adoption of the day’s social media hashtags to proclaim: “Just like love, research is full of wonder and discovery.”

Maybe it is at first, but then surely comes the inevitable overfamiliarity, annoyance at minor irritations and roving eye for better opportunities elsewhere? No? Please nobody tell our wonderful partners…

Keeping a distance

Going in the opposite direction to love and companionship, leaders of the European Parliament endorsed a plan to strengthen their institution’s integrity in the wake of the Qatargate influence scandal.

This included introducing “a cooling-off period for MEPs who wish to lobby Parliament when they are no longer in office” and a “ban on friendship groups with third countries where official parliamentary interlocutors already exist”.

Valentines be warned: nothing good comes from getting too cosy with the wrong crowd. 

What not to do

Using “buzzwords” and being “too ambitious” in aiming for project outcomes are common mistakes made when applying for funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, one of its administrative agencies has revealed.

Other common problems include forgetting to include ethical considerations, paraphrasing the Horizon Europe work programme when setting out expected pathways to impact, and confusing the meanings of results, output and impact, the European Research Executive Agency said in a list of dos and don’ts for applicants it published this month.

It said it hoped the list would help applicants prepare good-quality proposals: “Don’t use buzzwords. Try to explain your project in realistic terms. Don’t oversell your idea with too many or too ambitious outcomes. Don’t ‘overwrite’ your proposal—try to remain simple and straightforward.” 

Another recommendation was to demonstrate how a project consortium is suited to its task by setting out “the relevant capacities of the organisations and individuals” and adopting a “risk-mitigation approach”. The agency acknowledged that winning money from Horizon Europe is not easy. “Submitting a project proposal under Horizon Europe…requires careful planning, precise budgeting and a seamless collaboration with partners,” it said.

For more tips on winning funding from grantees and funders, remember we have a publication called Funding Insight devoted to exactly that.

The post Inside out appeared first on Research Professional News.

Iain Gillespie looks at what Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation could mean for Scotland’s universities

Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as Scottish first minister is one of those points in the cycle that prompts the question: ‘What next?’

While it marks a change in leadership and not government, the person who occupies the role of first minister has an undeniable impact on the direction of policy, the priorities the government takes forward and the resources attached to those priorities.

Over the years, several policy agendas have been described as defining priorities for Sturgeon. While one of these—widening access to higher education to underrepresented students—meant there was a shared commitment between the first minister and universities, it is fair to say that research, development and innovation were not as close to her heart.

Sturgeon’s successor will also have their own passion projects: specific areas of policy or opportunities for Scotland that personally excite them and that stand slightly above the full spectrum of government business. So Sturgeon’s resignation and the prospect of Scotland’s first new leader for eight years is an interesting time to speculate on the future prominence that research could have.

Early reflections on Sturgeon’s legacy will also prompt Scottish National Party contenders for the role of first minister to consider what they want their impact to be. The set of issues waiting in their in-tray is considerable. Among them is the need to catalyse stronger, inclusive economic growth in Scotland. Universities are a huge asset and willing partner to assist the next first minister in driving greater progress.

Continuity and change

Regardless of the change of first minister, we expect continuity from the Scottish government in a number of areas. University research is already a prominent feature of Scottish government strategies, some of them published very recently. It is unlikely that we will see a change in the architecture of strategies such as the National Strategy for Economic Transformation or the inward investment and export growth plans. Universities occupy a central part of the narrative of those strategies and we will be hoping that this remains true.

Scotland’s R&D community is also expecting an innovation strategy imminently since this has been the subject of considerable consultation and is fairly well developed. One cannot imagine that the change in leader will signal a significant change in direction here.

However, there are opportunities for the Scottish government to connect its narrative to action and investment in more meaningful ways, if the next first minister were so inclined.

There’s much in these strategies that points to expansion of existing routes to impact and some interesting new ideas to be pursued. There is also new policy thinking around—and potential investment in—entrepreneurship, company formation and growth. There are new ideas on city and regional growth, drawing on areas of established research strength, including collaborative initiatives around fostering and securing inward investment.

So while the strategies might not change significantly, we might see adjustments in the policies and decisions beneath them—and there are opportunities here that merit consideration.

Research base

There needs to be greater concentration on the foundations for the research base. These strategies acknowledge that a strong research base is key but they are insufficiently attentive to the realities of sustaining it in the face of global competition. There is already strong evidence of the need for far greater focus and action on our research base, where support for its sustenance is rapidly falling behind that of other home nations and our competitors.

Recent years have seen a decline in the share of research council funding won by Scotland’s universities, which fell from a peak of 15.7 per cent of the UK total in 2012-13 to 13.4 per cent in 2020-21. This needs to be a cause for concern.

As a review by the Scottish Funding Council of tertiary education and research reflected in 2021: “The trend indicates that Scotland’s research base is increasingly being outperformed by other nations of the UK in terms of our research council funding share and we should consider whether we are positioned appropriately to win new types of funding flowing from UK Research and Innovation.”

The response to these challenges and the route back to punching above our weight as a nation is more nuanced than simply injections of more funding into core grants. However, funding does ultimately matter a great deal and the ability to compete successfully within a UK landscape for research grants matters too. It is concerning that the Scottish government has not used Barnett consequentials to match the profile of investment flowing to institutions in England through Research England.

Funding policy

While budget decisions would have been difficult for any first minister of any government in the context of current public finances, the whispers are that Scotland’s last budget round and the spending decisions in it very much reflected the decision-making of the first minister—more so even than of the finance secretary.

The broadly flat trajectory of research funding for Scotland’s universities over the past decade not only diminishes the contribution that the sector can make economically, culturally and societally; it also diminishes universities’ direct impacts. Work by London Economics shows that the sector in Scotland delivers an 8:1 economic impact for every £1 invested in research.

There is a case, then—and potential opportunity—for a reappraisal of funding policy for our research base, alongside implementation of the new initiatives in the Scottish government’s economic strategies. Indeed, the best delivery of those strategies is dependent on such a reappraisal.

Business partnerships

Strategy and policy should also put a much stronger focus on enabling universities to leverage not just Innovate UK resources but the wide breadth of industry and charity partnership. Scotland’s business base is very different from that of the rest of the UK. Universities can and need to be more of a catalytic force in support of innovation and investment for the business community and for regional growth. But we need the right policy support structures.

As an example, Scotland’s universities are far more likely to be lead partners in successful project bids to Innovate UK—at around 30 per cent of the time—than those in other parts of the UK; in south-east England, that figure is only 10 per cent. As Scottish government policy seeks stronger growth in the economy, such policy must be tailored to local economic circumstances and fully enable universities to play the leading role where needed.

Sturgeon’s successor has three years until Scots next go to the polls. That is a good amount of time to make a mark and score some significant policy wins against which to be judged by the electorate. Research, development, innovation and enterprise have the potential to play into this political context in a powerful way. It will be the job of universities to demonstrate our worth, show what we can deliver and make the case for the right funding and policy structures to the next first minister.

Iain Gillespie is principal and vice-chancellor of the University of Dundee and research and knowledge exchange committee convenor for Universities Scotland.

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Ivory Tower: Another REF return of a celebrity academic

A study in Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. A Research Excellence Framework officer is waiting at the table; Professor X enters.

Officer: Thank you for making time to see me.

Prof X: Anything to help the university.

Officer: I know it’s early in the cycle, but I’d just like to touch base about your plans.

Prof X: For the school?

Officer: For the REF.

Prof X: Is that a supervillain?

Officer: Some think so. We prefer to think of it as an essential tool in the management of performance.

Prof X: Well, I think you’ll find my team is ready to go.

Officer: Can I just check for my records, what is the name of your team?

Prof X: The X-Men.

Officer: “Men?”

Prof X: The X-Men, yes.

Officer: I’m not sure you can say that these days.

Prof X: Sorry?

Officer: The university has an Athena Swan bronze, so I’m not sure you can call yourself that.

Prof X: It’s just a name.

Officer: You can’t just employ men. Did you not get the memo on diversity and opportunity?

Prof X: We are a very diverse group.

Officer: Are you?

Prof X: Yes, my team are all mutants.

Officer: Dear oh dear, professor, have you completed the unconscious bias training?

Prof X: I’m telepathic, if that’s what you mean?

Officer: That’s too much information, professor. I would have thought a simply descriptive name for your team would be more appropriate.

Prof X: Such as?

Officer: Well, it would usually be something like, The Centre for Research into bla, bla, bla…

Prof X: We don’t do bla, bla, bla.

Officer: That’s what I’m here to find out. Perhaps you could describe your research.

Prof X: Research?

Officer: Yes, you are a professor with a significant responsibility to conduct research.

Prof X: How long have you got?

Officer: It would be a good idea if you could explain your research to a layman.

Prof X: “Man?”

Officer: Person.

Prof X: Well, the question of “man” is very important here. You could say I am a specialist in the next stage of human evolution.

Officer: Is that Panel A or Panel B?

Prof X: Some of us have special powers.

Officer: Like a vice-chancellor?

Prof X: Is that a supervillain?

Officer: I couldn’t possibly comment.

Prof X: Some of us will always earn the suspicion and envy of others.

Officer: You mean you have research grants?

Prof X: Many, and we have used them to protect humanity.

Officer: Sounds as if this could be an impact case study.

Prof X: To support those special individuals I founded a school for the gifted.

Officer: Is that like one of those Maths schools?

Prof X: It doesn’t have very many students, if that’s what you mean.

Officer: Teaching quality isn’t really my thing. I’ll leave that one to the OfS.

Prof X: Is that a supervillain?

Officer: Yeah, totally. Can I ask you, professor…. sorry, my records are incomplete, it just says here Professor X.

Prof X: Xavier.

Officer: Are you Spanish?

Prof X: No.

Officer: That’s good.

Prof X: Don’t you like Spaniards?

Officer: Not at all, I was just thinking about the whole EU thing.

Prof X: Don’t you like the EU?

Officer: I just meant, who knows where we will be by the time the next REF comes around.

Prof X: Still not associated with Horizon Europe, probably.

Officer: Can I ask how you came to be a professor?

Prof X: I have PhDs in genetics, biophysics, psychology and anthropology, with a two-year residence at Pembroke College, University of Oxford. I also received an MD in psychiatry while spending several years in London. I was later appointed adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York.

Officer: OK, but that makes you, overqualified, part-time, precarious Contract X, rather than Professor X.

Prof X: It’s all a bit hazy after that.

Officer: OK, tell me, what is it that you and your team do here?

Prof X: We save humanity.

Officer: You mean vaccine research?

Prof X: No, we fly about in a supersonic plane and use our special powers to fight supervillains.

Officer: Unpack that for me. Plane?

Prof X: I designed it myself.

Officer: Right, that’s the aeronautical engineering unit of assessment.

Prof X: The team are interdisciplinary. You should meet them.

Officer: That would be helpful. Are any of them independent researchers?

Prof X: There’s Wolverine, he’s pretty independent.

Officer: Good, and what is Dr Wolverine’s role?

Prof X: He’s an animal.

Officer: If you can refrain from the personal comments, professor. Have they made any kind of scientific breakthrough?

Prof X: Adamantium.

Officer: Sorry?

Prof X: He has adamantium claws.

Officer: Claws?

Prof X: Yes, a unique skill.

Officer: It’s certainly unusual for a postdoc. But did I hear you right, “adamantium”?

Prof X: Yes, it’s a special alloy.

Officer: Surely it’s a made-up word that sounds a bit like Adam Ant?

Prof X: It’s closer to Captain America’s vibramium.

Officer: I’m beginning to wonder if you should be in the UoA for chemistry or creative writing. Who else is in your team?

Prof X: Storm.

Officer: Dr Storm?

Prof X: No, but she’s a great teacher, the students love her. Wherever she goes she brings the weather with her.

Officer: Yes, I have an aunt and uncle who are like that. Anyone else in your team who does research?

Prof X: Jean Grey.

Officer: At last, a normal name. What does she do?

Prof X: She has the ability to destroy worlds.

Officer: Is she a peer reviewer?

Prof X: No, she is married to the one we call ‘Cyclops’.

Officer: Look, you really need to do that training. Perhaps, you could just tell me what it is you do?

Prof X: I plug myself into Cerebro.

Officer: I’m sorry I asked.

Prof X: It is a machine of my own creation, which allows me to read the minds of everyone on the planet.

Officer: That’s interesting, have you thought about commercialisation?

Prof X: With great power comes great responsibility.

Officer: Yes, but you must have registered the IP. Surely, you could sell a service to businesses.

Prof X: Like what?

Officer: Advertising? How many people are thinking about having sausages for dinner, or something?

Prof X: I think you really misunderstand our work here. Cerebro has been used by the US government.

Officer: Influencing policymakers, now we’re talking. What did you use it for?

Prof X: To hunt down rogue mutants.

Officer: And you were doing so well.

Prof X: However, my old foe Magneto uses an anti-psychic helmet to prevent me from reading his mind.

Officer: I’m beginning to wonder whether you have ethical clearance for all this.

Prof X: We once worked together but now he is my nemesis.

Officer: You mean you used to co-author papers but now he is the third reviewer?

Prof X: Something like that. Look, I’m rather busy today, is there anything else?

Officer: Yes, finally, can I ask, do you use Researchfish?

Prof X: That is a supervillain, right?

Officer: I think we are done here, professor. Can we expect to see you at the Research Leaders’ Forum?

Prof X: The university will stop my grant if I don’t come, yes?

Officer: Absolutely.

Prof X: OK, see you on Wednesday.

Terms of use: this is a free email for fun on a Friday. It should be shared among colleagues like nomination papers for the leadership of the Scottish National Party. Want to see Charles Xavier’s citation index? Want to say hello? Email [email protected]

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Disabled research students face barriers that are still poorly understood, says Pete Quinn

Even though disabled people are protected by equalities legislation, they have historically been marginalised in higher education and academia. This is especially true for PhD students, for whom many of the adjustments and accommodations available to disabled people on undergraduate or taught postgrad courses are not appropriate. 

A 2022 report from Disabled Students UK (DSUK), the largest disabled student-led organisation in the UK, found that a large majority of disabled research students were unhappy with the support they received from their institution during the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has resulted in increasing numbers of disabled PhD students reporting chronic health issues, including with mental health and long Covid.

The experience of disabled PhD students in the UK is still under-researched. To remedy that, I’m working with DSUK and the University of Oxford’s Interdisciplinary Bioscience Doctoral Training Partnership, with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), to conduct a survey of disabled PhD students in the life sciences across the UK. We are investigating the lived experience of disabled and neurodivergent PhD students, looking at challenges as well as examples of good practice. The project covers every stage of doctoral training, including admissions, funding, transition, progression, placements and fieldwork. 

Challenging the challenges

A report published last year, Inequality in Early Career Research in the Life Sciences, found that 12.4 per cent of students beginning a postgraduate research degree in these disciplines report having a disability. It also found that disabled students take longer to finish their PhDs, and that students who self-reported a mental health difficulty were more likely to drop out of their course.

Doctoral candidates funded by the research councils, including the BBSRC, can apply through their institutions for a Disabled Students’ Allowance. This provides funds for things such as specialist equipment and transport. However, the take-up and effectiveness of this support is unclear. Assessment and recommendations can also be overly influenced by a focus on adjustments around lectures and assessments that are less relevant to doctoral learning. 

Whether a disabled PhD student receives adequate support often depends on individual supervisors or academic administrators having a good knowledge of disability and how best to support disabled students. 

When these are lacking, disabled PhD students can face difficulties in securing accessible study areas and labs, and in obtaining appropriate adjustments during assessments, especially the viva exam. They may struggle to obtain necessary extensions to their studies due to funding arrangements that fail to take into account the impact of disability. 

There can also be a failure to acknowledge the damage that inaccessible environments do to the academic progress of PhD students, and on their wellbeing more generally. DSA funding does not always compensate for the ‘disability tax’ represented by the need for extra time and resources, or the need to use specialist equipment or lab space at particular times. 

PhD students exist on the edge of professional academia while retaining student status. Current provision needs to be investigated if disabled students are to be better supported to meet their academic goals and complete their studies without any detrimental effects. The quality of support will shape their professional goals and careers, whether in academia, industry or other sectors. 

The survey has received a good response and the team has held structured conversations with academic and professional support staff from many BBSRC-funded doctoral training programmes and across associated institutions. Data are being analysed, but we welcome further written reports or conversations about the experiences of supporting disabled doctoral students. All this will inform our final report, created using feedback from both staff and doctoral students. This aims to provide a detailed insight into the lived experience of disabled PhD students, to identify examples of best practice and to offer recommendations for improvements.

Pete Quinn is an independent consultant and former head of the disability advisory service at the University of Oxford and director of student support at the University of York

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British Academy scheme will target hidden costs that block access to funding, says Simon Swain

The relentless cycle of grant applications, oscillating unpredictably between rejection and success, is a professional peculiarity of academic life. The time commitment required to complete just one grant application is significant—estimates put it at up to several working weeks. But for some researchers, the process carries a hidden financial burden.

For instance, an applicant who has caring responsibilities will face a distinct set of time and resource constraints compared with one who doesn’t have those pressures. A researcher living with sensory impairments may benefit from help to navigate the grant application system. Costs such as these may be a barrier to applying for funding. Particularly in the current economic climate, the expenses and opportunity costs associated with application processes are keenly felt. 

Eliminating disparities

As funders, we must strive to eliminate these disparities in opportunity. No one should be disadvantaged because of circumstances beyond their control.

The British Academy has been looking at how best to tackle these financial inequities. This is why, from 16 February, we are introducing a new £100,000 fund to provide additional support. The fund is open to existing award holders, to ensure that costs for things such as childcare or assistance do not come out of their overall research award. 

Crucially, it is also open to potential applicants. From application to award, and throughout a grant’s duration, our aim is to make the academy’s research funding inclusive to the broadest possible pool of eligible researchers.

The new scheme was conceived in 2020 by a working group tasked with making recommendations for best practice across the academy’s research funding programmes. Since then, there has been much effort behind the scenes to turn those recommendations into action; the launch of this fund signals a milestone in that work.

The initiative is part of the academy’s effort to extend our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion beyond rhetoric and into practice. It builds on recent work, such as a trial of partial randomisation in our Small Research Grants selection process and our partnership in the EDI Caucus, a £3.4 million initiative tasked with identifying, assessing and sharing EDI best practice in the UK’s research and development landscape, and “building an evidence base of what enables marginalised researchers and innovators to thrive in their careers”.

To ensure the new support has the flexibility to adapt to researchers’ needs, the academy will gather feedback during an initial pilot phase and use this to shape the scheme’s future.

The scheme will remain open on a rolling basis for applicants, who must be either planning to, or are in the process of, applying for academy funding, or already hold an award. A review committee will turn applications around in 4-6 weeks; those approved will be confirmed by the British Academy’s research committee. 

Applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis. There is currently no upper limit on how much an individual can request to cover their needs; the fund is there to be used.

We hope this scheme will help alleviate unfair financial burdens on those ­under-represented in the current system. Breaking away from unequal practices in the research community will require taking risks and embracing bold initiatives. 

Simon Swain is vice-president for research and higher education policy at the British Academy and professor of classics and vice-president for engagement at the University of Warwick

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

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Department is Conservatives’ latest effort to square industrial strategy with free-market ideology, says Kieron Flanagan

One consequence of the creation of a standalone Department for Science, Innovation and Technology with its own cabinet minister has been a wave of historical comparisons from people like me. Initially, these tended to be with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills created by prime minister Gordon Brown in 2007. 

However, it’s starting to look as if a better reference point for DSIT might be John Major’s creation of the Office of Science and Technology (OST) in 1992. This was a mini-department within the Cabinet Office, headed by the chief scientific adviser and with a cabinet minister in the person of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. 

The OST reflected the Thatcherite aversion to active industrial policy, often disparaged as picking winners. At the same time, it established a UK Technology Foresight programme to set priorities for research spending, based in the idea that innovation involved pushing scientific discoveries through to the market.  

Technology Foresight failed to stick, but faith in the science-push model, aided by increasing efforts to ‘transfer’ knowledge to industry, remained dominant until the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, and in times of austerity, we’ve seen tentative movement back to investment in civil technological development, with the creation of Innovate UK and its network of Catapult centres. The new Advanced Research and Invention Agency is likely to sit in this space, albeit with better public relations. 

Alongside this came increased interest in industrial strategy. Science minister David Willetts championed Eight Great Technologies, while Theresa May and her business secretary Greg Clark spoke of grand challenges and modern industrial strategy. 

Such language, however, sits uncomfortably with Thatcher-inspired politicians. Boris Johnson’s government largely stopped talking about industrial strategy, and Rishi Sunak seems unlikely to revive it. Yet the government clearly still wants to set technological priorities. The new department launched with a glossy video in which secretary of state Michelle Donelan extols the chance to bring the “five technologies of the future” together in one portfolio. 

In 2021, concerns over reliance on imported high technology such as advanced semiconductors drove the Johnson administration to create the Office of Science and Technology Strategy (OSTS) in the Cabinet Office to set priorities in the context of international competition. 

There is, then, a tension between the desire to direct and the instinct towards laissez-faire innovation policy. OSTS was missing from the initial briefing on the new departmental arrangements, but Number 10 confirms that it will go into DSIT alongside the Government Office for Science. 

Shifting responsibility

At the time of writing, it is unclear whether responsibility for supporting the National Science and Technology Council, a cabinet committee chaired by the prime minister, will also shift to DSIT and Donelan.

OSTS’s priority-setting function was kept carefully separate from the quasi-independent advisory role of the Government Office for Science, even though GO-Science does a lot of the analytical work for OSTS. Moving the OSTS into the new department, alongside the implementation machinery of UK Research and Innovation, makes sense but it will surely make it impossible to keep the roles of OSTS and GO-Science distinct. 

Concern with national security and technological self-sufficiency were not major drivers of policy back in the early 1990s. But they have clearly influenced the creation of the OSTS and, presumably, the choice to locate it in the Cabinet Office, close to the national security machinery. The move to DSIT could make it harder to coordinate science and technology policy with strategic concerns, but it could also free priority-setting from being overly driven by perceived—and inevitably politicised—threats to sovereignty and security.

It’s possible the UK is moving full circle, from tentative efforts to rebuild an activist technology and industrial policy back to a naive science-push belief that technological priorities can be realised merely by guiding UKRI-funded basic research, leaving development and application to take care of themselves. 

This does not mean there will be no picking winners—no government has any choice but to make technological bets. But it could mean that systematic, transparent and accountable discussions about priorities happen largely at the research stage, while technological winners depend on the whims of ministers, advisers and lobbyists. The problems with the OneWeb satellite system and Britishvolt battery factory show the dangers of such an approach. 

Kieron Flanagan is professor of science and technology policy at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, University of Manchester

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

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Horizon end game draws near—a long-term view is needed

On the surface, Michelle Donelan’s controversial recent opinion piece said little that should have shocked researchers.

Amid the now-familiar government praise for the UK’s innovative scientists, the head of the newly created Department for Science, Innovation and Technology discussed the UK’s long-in-limbo access to the EU’s €95.5 billion (£84.4bn) research and innovation funding programme, Horizon Europe.

“I know…that the sector is keen to know about our future association with Horizon,” she wrote.

The UK remains shut out of the programme. Its association deal is stalled, with the European Commission refusing to sign it off until disputes over trade with Northern Ireland have been settled.

“I will engage with the sector as my top priority and work closely with them before I set out our position in the coming weeks, but I will not sit idly by while our researchers are sidelined,” wrote Donelan. “If we cannot associate, we are more than ready to go it alone with our own global-facing alternative…The time for waiting is quickly coming to an end and I will not shy away from striking out alone.”

On its face, this is not hugely different from past statements by science minister George Freeman, who is also ensconced in the new department under Donelan.

In October 2021, Freeman said the UK’s “longstanding commitment and offer to stay in Horizon stands” but that “if the EU decide the Northern Ireland protocol politics stops UK joining Horizon Europe, we have a bold plan B”.

It is wise to be cautious when attempting to read the runes from every comma and verb in ministers’ messages. But the possible change in emphasis from Donelan is worrying some in the sector, with, for example, Mike Galsworthy describing it as “not the most full-throated pro-science position”.

The pause in UK access to Horizon has certainly been damaging. UK researchers were reliably at the top of the winners’ tables for a plethora of EU R&D grants before Brexit, whereas now EU data indicate that their successes are being significantly diminished.

It would still be a huge loss if the government were to walk away from Horizon Europe. The collaborations forged with European colleagues are about far more than just money.

But the money is important, and it would not be realistic to expect universities and other organisations to keep hanging on forever if their income dwindles and vital research goes unfunded.

If Horizon access materialises, UK researchers will need support, patience and time to claw back their previous successes. If it does not, the money they have lost will need to be replaced, and they will need help forging new international links.

Neither of those paths will be easy. Both will require strong support from science ministers. The question is not just what schemes are needed now, but what will be needed in years to come.

The EU is already considering what the next iteration of its research programme will look like. Donelan and Freeman need to take a similarly long-term view of what they want UK research to be.

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

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New department will aid science policy but poses questions for science advice, says David Willetts

In December 2010, Vince Cable, then Liberal Democrat business secretary in the coalition government, was secretly recorded saying that he had “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch. In the fallout, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) lost responsibility for digital technologies to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Software and hardware, in other words, were separated. 

By closing this divide, the most dysfunctional in the system, the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) marks a step forward for UK science and research. 

The split had caused cabinet committees on science and technology to get bogged down in arguments about which department was responsible for quantum technologies or cybersecurity. It has also held up the semiconductor strategy. Giving the new department responsibility for technology in all its forms resolves the problem.

The creation of DSIT also recognises that the business department lost interest in key technologies in about 2015. Since then it has been led by the Office for Science and Technology Strategy, which is also brought into the new structure. 

This does, however, open up a delicate issue. The classic model of science policy, developed by the OECD in the 1960s, distinguishes between policy for science and science for policy. In my time as science minister, for example, then chief scientist John Beddington advised the whole government on the impact of the Fukushima earthquake and Icelandic volcanic eruption, as part of a distinct unit serving the cabinet and all of Whitehall.

Policy for science required a different way of working under the science minister. That model was not perfect, but if anything Fukushima enhanced its reputation. Beddington briefed cabinet and publicly stated that the risk of radiation reaching Tokyo was tiny, so British citizens need not evacuate. 

It was a striking contrast to France’s decision to pull out its diplomats. Afterwards, the Japanese government asked how it could create a post of chief scientific adviser with similar independent authority. That was how our classic model was supposed to work.

During the Covid crisis, the current chief scientist Patrick Vallance developed an exceptionally close working relationship with the prime minister and others at the top of government. That is a good thing. Unsurprisingly, Vallance has also come to play a larger role in policy for science. 

Is this a temporary change shaped by the intensity of the Covid crisis and the gifts of one man, or a permanent new model? How will the new department organise around these two functions? The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which succeeded BIS, hosted both the science minister and the chief scientist, but the latter served cabinet as a whole. Is that subtle but important distinction to continue? How will it work in practice? 

Such questions raise another key issue. The biggest change in British science and technology policy over the past few years has been the growing importance of the security perspective. This rescued strategic support for technologies from Beis’s indifference. A Cambridge academic and entrepreneur once asked me why the security services were so interested in his technology that they wanted to check who invested in it, yet the Treasury and Beis were so unsure of its potential that they refused to fund it. 

Cabinet’s National Science and Technology Council created in 2021 was one place where civil and security perspectives came together. How will that work now? 

One reason why UK industrial strategy collapsed after World War II was a failure to work out how to commercialise technologies developed with a security requirement. The new department is a chance to revisit that challenge. A good working relationship with the Ministry of Defence will be crucial.

The other crucial relationship will be with the Department for Education. Universities are fundamental to the UK’s research effort, and the science superpower agenda depends on their growth. The DfE, however, doesn’t much like universities, rather wishes fewer people went to them, and is presiding over a steady fall in the unit of resource per student. This in turn means revenues from overseas students are subsidising the costs of teaching domestic students, whereas until recently they have subsidised research. 

It is dysfunctional to have one department responsible for university teaching and another for research. Far better to put universities as a whole in the new department. As a minimum, the DfE should recognise that the science superpower agenda cannot be delivered without its active support for universities. 

David Willetts was minister for universities and science, 2010-2014, and is now a Conservative peer

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

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Back page gossip from the 15 February issue of Research Fortnight

Name and shame

So, farewell to the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (Beis), which has now become the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the Department for Business and Trade (DBAT).

The acronyms may be unwieldy but are not as risqué as the one reported to have been considered in 2005 by the Blair government, when the business department was to be renamed Productivity, ENergy, Industry and Science. The honourable member who would have led the department was Alan Johnson.

Sports science

Since returning from the Qatar World Cup, Brighton and Hove Albion’s Japanese winger, Kaoru Mitoma, has been in rich form. He has also become a perhaps unlikely ambassador for university research.

The footballer initially delayed becoming a professional to attend the University of Tsukuba, 50 kilometres northeast of Tokyo.

His research involved running with the ball while recording how he and his opponent reacted with the aim to work out the best way to move past. Wearing a camera on his head, he observed what his eyes focused on while he dribbled and crunched the data on a computer.

Since his work became the subject of numerous articles in the football press, ‘Kaoru Mitoma thesis’ has become a top search term.

Skills legacy

University technical colleges were once heralded as a new dawn in addressing the UK’s persistent skills gap. The brainchild of former education secretary Kenneth Baker, they were introduced by the coalition government in 2010 as specialist secondary schools, sponsored by a university, and with close ties to business and industry and funded direct by the Department for Education.

This month the Watford UTC became the 13th school to close since the programme began, with three further schools choosing to ditch UTC status. That means over 30 per cent of all UTCs have now been shuttered, with 50 established since 2010.

Poor student enrolment is said to be the reason for the Watford closure. The UTC was sponsored by the University of Hertfordshire and Hilton Worldwide, whose headquarters is based in the town.

The UTC scheme has been characterised by weak enrolment, Ofsted concerns and poor student outcomes, with a 2019 National Audit Office report noting that while 37 per cent of school students took the English Baccalaureate, at UTCs only six per cent did. Plans are still afoot for three further UTCs in Southampton, Portsmouth and Doncaster.

Deadly debates

Freshly installed as a minister of state in the new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, George Freeman found himself on Question Time last week defending his party’s new deputy chair, who has expressed support for the death penalty. Not that Freeman supports the death penalty himself, he was quick to stress. But “parliament is a place that needs to speak for all the people in this country, even voices we don’t all want to hear”.

The post The third degree appeared first on Research Professional News.

Mary Curnock Cook reports on how students have been faring since Covid

It has been a year since the publication of a major report on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on students, which seems a good time to reflect on progress.

The UPP Foundation’s Student Futures Commission, which I chair, set out to understand what impact the pandemic had on aspiring and current students and to crowdsource pragmatic solutions from the sector—and from students—about how to get student futures back on track.

We identified an underlying crisis of confidence among students, who were worried about their personal and professional relationships, had growing imposter syndrome because of what they thought of as ‘fake grades’ from school, were worried about graduate jobs and had fragile mental health in the face of the anticipated stretch they expected from their higher education. Months of loneliness and of isolation from the norms of student life had taken their toll.

Challenging times

The thick of the Covid pandemic might feel like a distant nightmare, but while the context has changed, the challenges for students have changed less than everyone might have wished. Reports from around the sector indicate that attendance has been challenging this year, student support and mental health services have been under increasing pressure and more students are behind or failing in their academic progress, with a resultant uptick in dropouts.

The hangover from Covid, a perma-crisis of spiralling costs of food and energy, war in Ukraine, geopolitical instability and industrial action (including in universities themselves) have combined to turn the carefree intellectual journey that students may have imagined into an increasingly anxious, demanding and in some cases unaffordable challenge. Our key recommendations from a year ago feel just as relevant today.

The diagram below shows the subtle framing shifts that the commission’s work in 2021 identified.

Of these, the strongest echoes that I hear across the sector relate to two interconnected themes: belonging, and co-creation with students.

‘Belonging’ may not be a new concept but it has become part of the central discourse about student engagement. It was featured in a major piece of research conducted by Pearson. Co-creation with students—or ‘students as partners’—has become a mainstream approach to effecting change and action across universities. I was delighted to notice the words ‘co-creation’, ‘co-production’ and ‘students as partners’ popping up in my judging task for almost every entry to a university employability strategy award recently.

Some 30 universities have signed up to create student futures manifestos to capture and communicate the ways in which, with students, they could commit to securing successful student futures. I’m looking forward to attending the launch of one next month. This year, the UPP Foundation will be hosting a series of regional meetings and workshops with those who committed to developing a manifesto, as well as those that are adopting some or all of the Student Futures Commission pledges. This will provide welcome opportunities to update and refresh our approach.

Cross-sector teamwork

My engagement with the sector following the commission’s work has given me new insights. Talking to hundreds of colleagues through engagement with, for example, the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services, the Higher Education Institutional Research network, the Association of Heads of University Administration, the Change Agents’ Network and the Chartered Association of Business Schools, as well as several universities, only amplified how important focusing on successful student futures is.

Clearly, commitment to successful student futures resonates throughout and across university functions, within professional services and academic teams alike.

New to me was the university technician community and the Talent programme, designed to increase the visibility of university technicians. These professionals, who work in close proximity to students, often play pivotal support roles and have a unique insight into the prevailing mood in student cohorts.

One debate, with the Higher Education Institutional Research network, centred on whether to evaluate the impact of student futures manifestos or whether they represented something more akin to a cultural movement that should be allowed to flourish organically. Would they be more successful without the constraints of research and evaluation? Would this give students more agency and fewer boundaries within which to imagine their future selves?

Blended learning

In the backdrop to all these conversations were ongoing debates about blended learning, government calls for a return to face-to-face teaching and a reminder that the general public still believes that university teaching takes place almost entirely in lectures. Low attendance at some lectures and other face-to-face events, coupled with a steady stream of press stories bemoaning the insufficiency of online learning in universities, was undoubtedly challenging.

Students, it seems, want both—especially since many more of them are juggling part-time work to help pay the bills or have disabilities and caring responsibilities that make it hard for them to get to classes on campus. Some still lack the confidence to interact with peers and academics, and they vote with their screens to stay away.

Universities are working hard to accommodate these variable preferences, and this has, once again, highlighted the difficulty of presenting a digital or flexible model when many still lack the fundamental technology infrastructure needed. Digital transformation strategies are being prioritised or reimagined, with knock-on effects for facilities and estates, requiring costly modernisation of technology infrastructure.

The university sector has always been resilient in times of challenge, but everything points to the need for more investment. In these difficult times, the current fees and funding settlement, frozen in England until 2025, may not stretch to deliver what students want and need to secure a successful future.

Mary Curnock Cook is chair of the UPP Foundation’s Student Futures Commission.

A version of this article appeared in Research Europe

The post Back to the future appeared first on Research Professional News.

Ivory Tower: eyes down for a test of your numeracy and your patience

Assessment for the degree of:

BSc Trussonomics

Incorporating the Rishi Sunak certificate in Extra Maths*

[*Approval of government expenditure, training and employment of additional maths teachers, and redesign of entire post-16 educational offer in England and Wales required. Available from 2025—maybe.]

Module 101: Economic Growth and Tax Cuts

You must use an AI chat bot to complete your answers.

Assessment is subject to a marking boycott.

You have 49 days to complete.

You have 40 years to repay your student loan.

Terms and conditions apply.

Paper validated by the Quality Street Assurance Agency, Microsoft Office for Students, the Anti-Growth Coalition, and the Guardian-Reading Tofu-Eating Wokerati.

Section 1: Kwasi Rational Economics

1. If Liz spends 49 days as prime minister and her mini-budget costs the taxpayer £30bn, how many days is it before she is allowed to make a political comeback with a front-page op-ed in the Telegraph? Express your answer as a fraction of the outrage felt by the taxpayer.

2. How long must a deluded rant by an ex-prime minister about her failed economic policies be before we are obliged to refer to it as an “essay”? Do not exceed 4,000 words to justify yourself.

3. Liz and Kwasi have run up debts. They pass the terms of the loan onto Jeremy and Rishi. Draw a graph to explain the declining popularity of Jeremy and Rishi over time: stop at 2024, no data are necessary after that. Express Liz and Kwasi in negative terms.

Section 2: Sound Money

4. If you need to put off £40bn worth of public spending cuts until after the next election, how many times do you have to send Grant Shapps out to do the early morning media round before everyone gives up trying to ask about it?

5. Nadhim has carelessly but not deliberately underpaid his taxes. How long can you wait before replacing him as minister without portfolio, and would anyone notice if you did?

6. A large Whitehall department is being broken up in a cabinet reshuffle caused by a departing party chairman. Calculate the cost to the taxpayer of new stationery and email addresses for all the civil servants involved. Do a cost benefit analysis of leaving things exactly as they are, then roll your eyes in disbelief.

Section 3: Student Finance

7. Nigel buys a train ticket from Thanet to Oxford. He is then no-platformed at a university and wants to reclaim his expenses. How many minutes of legal advice can he pay for before it becomes economically unviable to do so? Send your answer to the Office for Students, marked for the attention of the free speech tsar.

8. If the post work visa for international students is reduced to six months, how many PhDs must a non-UK student write to allow their spouse and children to enter the country long enough to watch an entire series of The Masked Singer? For extra points on your immigration application, make sure your PhD is in a STEM subject and that you are willing to pick fruit.

9. Nicola has a number cap on domestic student places. How many English students at £9,250 per head would a Scottish university have to recruit to ensure value-for-money for the purchase of a Zoom Pro account to continue to fill spaces on online courses months after the rest of the UK has gone back to teaching in person?

10. (i) Suella has banned noisy protests in the street, but Gillian has introduced a legal tort for free speech in universities. How many noisy protesters can the average university campus hold to ensure a safe space for anti-government demonstrations?

(ii) Express your answer in terms of the number of times per week an education minister would have to visit a university to facilitate that volume of noisy protest. Use Sam Gyimah as your baseline.

11. Kier and Rachel are designing a graduate tax. How many years can they put off announcing it before people start wondering whether they are just going to stick with the current fees and loans system?

12. In 2010, one year’s tuition fees on an undergraduate degree in England cost £9,000. Had fees risen with inflation, how much would a BA in sociology now cost? Give your answer as a percentage of the political capital that would have to have been expended to make that happen; use Cleggs as an International System of Units.

13. In 2023, if student maintenance loans continue to rise with a government-approved rate of inflation of 2 per cent, how mad is that? Express your answer as a sum of the total despair felt by students and parents during a historic cost-of-living crisis.

Section 4: International Finance

14. A target has been set for a country to spend 2.4 per cent of GDP on R&D by 2027. Produce a Venn diagram of everything that would need to be included to make that remotely possible without changing ONS methodology. Do not include the purchase of toasters or mobile phone top-ups. White lab coats and highlighter pens are permissible.

15. (i) If non-association with Horizon Europe has cost Oxford and Cambridge universities £130m per annum, how big a story is that for the broadsheet press?

(ii) How much bigger a story would it be if journalists at the Times and Telegraph had heard of the other 148 universities in the UK?

16. (i) George must spend £4.5bn earmarked for association with a cross-border R&D programme before the end of the Comprehensive Spending Review. What is his Plan B?

(ii) How much money will George be sending back to the Treasury as an underspend? Give your answer to the nearest billion pounds; alternatively, beat your head repeatedly against your desk in utter despair.

17. Rishi wants to do a deal with Ursula. How much money is he going to have to throw at the Democratic Unionist Party to get it through? Draw a pie chart to represent how big a slice is heading to East Belfast.

Section 5: Financial Engineering

18. Dominic has bought the wrong satellites at a cost of £400m to the public purse. They are then sold on to an EU rival. Calculate how low the bar of expectation has become for competent government in this country? Illustrate with examples from the sport of limbo dancing.

19. If universities have £40bn in reserves and staff ask for a pay rise of RPI plus 2 per cent, how long can you continue to spin the line that you are as poor as a church mouse who has just received a self-assessment tax bill on the day your spouse has run off with the rat next door taking all the cheese? Draw a diagram and use thought bubbles.

20. If the chair of the BBC introduces your cabinet secretary to a distant relation of yours willing to loan you a six-figure sum, how many times would you have to repeat the same after-dinner speech to repay the sum? Are you 100 per cent ding dang sure? Check your working. No need to provide evidence.

Section 6: Home Economics

21. If gold wallpaper costs £840 per roll, how much money can you save by buying a couple of tins of magnolia and a stencil kit from B&Q? Include your receipts and any honours offered as part of your calculation.

22. Lee thinks you can eat like a king for 30p per day. How many student food banks could be closed if only undergraduates knew how to budget properly?

23. If you must pay a fixed-penalty notice for every lockdown party you attended, how many police officers need to turn a blind eye so that you are only fined for being surprised by cake? Give your answer to two decimal places or the nearest Mr Kipling fondant fancy.

24. James was on a panel that has appointed the wife of Ben, a close political ally, to the directorship of a regulatory body. How many freedom of information requests are required before James is obliged to declare the background to this situation? 

25. If Boris earns £1m for four speaking engagements in 2023, and Rishi joins the after-dinner circuit in 2024, how much will Rishi be able to charge gullible American think tanks to talk about his experience of running a G7 economy into the ground? Express your answer in terms of the number of nurses who could be employed for that kind of money.

End of paper

Now turn over.

Now turn over again.

Congratulations, you have completed the Rishi Sunak U-Turn.

Degree-alternative apprenticeships in Trussonomics are available*

[*If your mother’s cousin knows the brother of the bloke in charge of the apprenticeship levy who happens to be a very good friend of Uncle Algernon.]

Terms of use: this is a free email for fun on a Friday afternoon. It should be shared among colleagues like the 2L container of milk that Susan put in the fridge and forgot to write her name on. Want to waste your Lifelong Loan Entitlement studying a Trussonomics module? Want to say hello? Email [email protected]

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New project aims to make science facilities more hospitable to disabled researchers, says Katherine Deane

When people walk into a building, they assume they will be able to open doors, use stairs to get to the next level and go to the toilet when needed. Unfortunately, disabled people cannot make these assumptions in many buildings, even modern ones.

Buildings that house technical facilities such as laboratories are often even more inaccessible. This lack of access means there are too few disabled scientists in labs today. While about one in five working-age adults has a disability, only about 4 per cent of UK academics working in science, technology, engineering and maths are disabled.

To do something to redress that imbalance, I’m leading a project called Access All Areas in Labs, aimed at understanding the barriers that disabled scientists face and how labs can be made more accessible. The project’s first phase is an online survey, running until 24 February. If you are a disabled scientist who has worked in a laboratory, now or in the past, or you have an interest in making labs accessible, we would love to hear from you.

Overlooked diversity

As a wheelchair-using researcher in healthcare, I know that I design my research very differently. I make sure I have information sheets in accessible formats; I provide videos with British Sign Language interpreters to explain the project; I budget for higher travel costs for any wheelchair-using participants.

I know a lot about disability—enough to know that I always need lay advisers to make sure I tailor my projects to fit the patients I’m working with. All of this improves recruitment and retention of research participants, as well as the relevance and quality of my data. For much research, though, the lack of accommodations for this often-overlooked aspect of diversity has the opposite effect.

Scientists who are deaf, disabled or have long-term illnesses should be able to work in laboratory settings. Some solutions may be simple, such as a contrasting-colour fascia for a power socket that helps a visually impaired scientist find where to plug in their equipment, or a fire alarm that uses both audible and visual signals.

Some accommodations are a bit more complex, but address very basic needs. Scientists who have limited mobility and who need to use incontinence pads often have to compromise their safety and dignity by lying on a toilet floor to have their pads changed. The solution is an accessible toilet with a bench and hoist. Over a quarter of a million people in the UK need such facilities.

Our project aims to look at every aspect of laboratory science to find out how to adapt furniture, equipment, working practices, training, protocols and culture to ensure maximum accessibility. We also want to find out how to ensure consultations, conferences, publications and web pages are accessible.

The results will feed into a set of access guidelines covering all aspects of working in laboratory settings. We hope to persuade funding councils, universities, pharmaceutical companies and others to use these guidelines to enhance disability access.

Katherine Deane is access ambassador at the University of East Anglia, Norwich

A version of this article appeared in Research Fortnight

The post How can labs become more accessible? appeared first on Research Professional News.

Michael Hastings urges higher education managers and unions to swap strikes for a social pact

All social struggles have to be conducted within ethical parameters. These may differ from context to context and from sector to sector, but a concern with ethics has to be a defining feature of all such struggles, including collective industrial action. What then is the ethical parameter of a strike in a university?

The University and College Union and Unison have intensified their pay and pensions dispute with 18 days of strikes, and a pending assessment and marking boycott. Eighteen days of strike action will constitute more than 50 per cent of the teaching days in February and March—the last two months of this critical term of the academic year. Both will significantly affect student learning and progression. For some students, this disruption will be on top of the impact of the pandemic on face-to-face teaching and the overall learning experience.

Public institutions

Perhaps the first defining element of the ethical parameters in which universities operate is the fact that many of them are public; they are institutions that do not appropriate a surplus for private shareholders. The second defining element is the fact that they primarily service students and their learning and professional development. Both of these features must influence the conduct of unions and how they engage in industrial relations disputes.

Union leaders in universities should recognise that one cannot conduct oneself in the same manner as in disputes in private companies. The actions of academics and professional services staff at a university must never irreparably threaten the learning and progression of students. But 18 days of strike action and an assessment and marking boycott essentially do this. Both actions compromise the ultimate outcome of the academic year: students’ graduation or progression. In effect, they represent breaches of the institutional mandate of a university and violate the essential principle of academic integrity.

Strategic failure

Beyond principle (on which people may hold different views), from the perspective of the unions these actions are not strategic. Industrial action will not result in the outcomes they seek.

Take the example of Soas University of London, which has already communicated its unhappiness with the pension reforms to Universities UK (UUK). Our director, Adam Habib, has publicly argued that the decision of the Universities Superannuation Scheme trustees was not sensible given that the asset and liability assessments had been undertaken in the midst of a pandemic. This has been shared with the unions and our internal community on multiple occasions.

Industrial action at Soas will not change the outcome of decisions on the pension benefits because these were made by USS trustees, who are not at the receiving end of the action. This is especially the case when industrial action is dispersed and disaggregated, with significant participation in a few places and sparse turnouts in most institutions in the country. In these circumstances, industrial action at Soas will only hurt our students and damage our institution, without contributing to any of the systemic positive outcomes desired.

Retrenchment threat

Such action will also have an impact on staff. Significant increases in remuneration would increase institutional expenditure that needs to be met by increased income. As a socially just institution, Soas does not carry large financial reserves from which to pay for significant wage increases. Many other universities in the sector are in the same position. In the context of a freeze on fee increases—in real terms a reduction due to high inflation—much of the increased income needed would have to come from increases in student numbers.

Student numbers will only increase if prospective students perceive that the university is prioritising their interests. If this is not the case, as 18 days of strike action is likely to suggest, students will not come, income targets will not be achieved, and the resulting financial deficits will force institutions to consider staffing reductions. The net effect of imprudent industrial action and unaffordable salary increases may very well be the retrenchment of staff costs and shrinkage in all areas of academic activity—an outcome that no stakeholder in a university wants.

Scrutiny needed

It is sometimes said that it is not for others to influence the particular type of industrial action adopted by unions. This is nonsense. Universities are meant to subject ideas, behaviour and strategies to critical scrutiny. This should apply to union leadership decisions as much as it applies to university executive decisions. None among us should be spared. If we truly believe in the legitimacy of our actions, we must be willing to subject them to robust debate and defend them in the contest of ideas.

A social pact urgently needs to be built between universities and their unions. Such a social pact does not mean capitulating to the demands of unions or being forced to acquiesce to university executives. Rather it recognises that the policy architecture and business model of a university is determined by actors outside of the higher education sphere.

A fight between internal stakeholders within universities serves no one. Indeed, it financially imperils institutions, compromises the learning of their students and threatens the livelihoods of their staff. It is thus imperative that unions and vice-chancellors in the sector get together to identify necessary actions and reforms that become the basis of their joint advocacy to government. This is the only rational and, frankly, progressive approach to the challenges confronting higher education in the UK. It is a thought that needs to be pondered by both the leadership of UUK and the unions themselves.

Michael Hastings is chair of the Soas board of trustees and a member of the House of Lords

The post Common purpose appeared first on Research Professional News.

Evaluation reforms shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, say Lutz Bornmann and colleagues

There is a concerted campaign in many areas of science policy against the inappropriate use of bibliometrics in research evaluation. One stated goal of the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment is to “reduce the dominance of a narrow set of overly quantitative journal and publication-based metrics”. 

In Germany, the German Science and Humanities Council (WR) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) have opposed the quantitative evaluation of research. The WR has said it favours “assessing the quality of individual publications…rather than focusing on the publication venue, or indicators derived from it”. While the DFG has warned that “a narrow focus in the system of attributing academic reputation—for example, based on bibliometric indicators—not only has a detrimental effect on publication behaviour, it also fails to do justice to scholarship in all its diversity”.

Goal displacement

The principal concern behind these reform efforts is that using bibliometrics to measure research quality leads to goal displacement: scoring high becomes the end, damaging research in the process. And it is true that improper use of bibliometric data—such as tying funding or salaries to measures of productivity or citation impact—can have undesirable effects on scholarship. 

In the evaluation of economic research, for example, there is a focus on just five renowned journals. Consequently, they are overwhelmed with submissions, the risk of scientific misconduct in the pursuit of spectacular results rises, and much other high-quality research that is not published in these five gets overlooked.

But the research assessment baby should not be thrown out with the bibliometric bathwater. It is important to distinguish between amateur and professional biblio-metrics, but neither the WR nor the DFG does so. 

By amateur bibliometrics, we mean decision-makers whose lack of expertise in the field puts them at risk of using unsuitable indicators and databases and inadequate datasets, resulting in harmful incentives and misguided decisions. Professional biblio-metrics makes use of large datasets from appropriate sources, and professionally recognised methods.

Bibliometrics is unsuitable for some purposes, such as evaluating junior scientists for doctoral positions. But for others, such as surveying the academic activities of institutions or countries and the cooperation between them, it can yield empirical results of the highest validity. If bibliometrics is to be used in an evaluation, specialists in bibliometrics and experts in the relevant fields should collaborate to decide whether the use is sensible and, if so, how bibliometrics should be applied.

Popularity factor

To tackle the inappropriate use of metrics in research evaluation, the reasons that make them popular should first and foremost be addressed. One is speed: evaluating academic work using metrics can be quicker than examining its content, and several studies have shown that bibliometrics and peer review achieve similar results in many cases. Using bibliometrics as a heuristic saves overstretched academics valuable time.

Another reason metrics are popular is the desire to reduce subjectivity in evaluation. As a rule, reviewers of the same work reach different judgments; metrics offer the (claimed) possibility of objectivity. It is much easier to base an argument on a metric than on the content of a work, which could be open to dispute. However, the use of metrics in decision-making may also cause researchers to relinquish some of their own judgments.

Addressing these concerns means reforming peer review processes. Scholars should be given enough time to carry out peer review, and reviewers should be chosen on the basis of expertise, not eminence. Highly regarded scholars are overwhelmed with requests to review papers, grant proposals, job applications and so on, often outside their own fields. Focusing on reputation can result in eminent but unqualified reviewers. In such a situation, bibliometric indicators become more appealing. To avoid their use, only those competent to conduct qualitative peer review should be given the job of evaluating the research, irrespective of their reputation.

Just as the use of bibliometrics in research evaluation can be criticised, so can qualitative, content-focused peer review—in terms of reliability and fairness, for example. Both modes of evaluation have their own pros and cons. Rather than reject one or the other, a specific procedure should be developed for each planned research evaluation to allow for the optimal assessment of that research. 

The views of the authors do not necessarily match those of the Max Planck Society

Lutz Bornmann and Georg Botz work at the administrative headquarters of the Max Planck Society in Munich, Germany, and Robin Haunschild is at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany

This article also appeared in Research Europe

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Making doctoral training more professional and selective would benefit all Europe, says Jürgen Janger

Precarity of research careers touches on questions of systemic efficiency and equity. But while this is widely acknowledged, a coherent, evidence-based picture of the problem and measures to address it have been lacking.

In a European Commission-funded report, my colleagues and I try to fill this void, analysing data from sources including surveys, Eurostat and online job offers, as well as interviews and a workshop with policymakers. 

Precarity means different things in different places. In the EU’s research-intensive nations, it means many junior researchers on fixed-term contracts competing for open-ended contracts. In its emerging R&D nations, the main issues are poor salaries and funding.

There are positive trends: the share of fixed-term contracts is falling, and recruitment is be-coming more transparent and merit-based. But our data still reveal high levels of precarity. 

In 2019, 40 per cent of all researchers in the EU were on fixed-term contracts, compared with just 8 per cent of R&D workers in industry. For under-35s in research-intensive nations, this rises to 86 per cent. In the emerging countries, 28 per cent of PhD trainees lacked formal employment contracts.

Policies aimed at reducing precarity need to consider supply and demand, researchers’ working conditions and how these interact. Recruiting more early career researchers without more funding for permanent positions, for example, would only make things worse.

In particular, reforming the structure and processes of PhD training is vital. PhD candidates should be seen as professional researchers, not indentured apprentices. They need formal contracts and pay, just as their peers in industry would get.

Structured support

Many countries have no or few graduate schools, structured doctoral programmes or other support structures. Such schools can provide a host of support services, including job-market information from the application process onwards, facilitating contact with alumni and training in transferable skills. 

The same goes for postdoc support offices, which are rare in the EU in comparison with the US. Associations of PhDs and postdocs, or even junior faculty, may also make their concerns more visible and contribute to policymaking.

Increased support should come with increased selectivity. Not everyone aspiring to a position in research will be able to obtain one, so career paths need early, reliable and fair selection points during PhD programmes, postdocs and tenure-track positions to avoid protracted phases of uncertainty. 

In some EU countries, anyone with an undergraduate degree can start a PhD course. Increased selectivity may lead to fewer PhD applicants and postdocs, but by reducing dropouts, it ought not to reduce the supply of researchers. 

All fixed-term research positions should come with training in transferable skills and careers advice. Researchers should be able to make informed decisions about their careers as early as possible, and have the skills to take on a broader range of jobs in and outside of research.

This would mean training group leaders in giving feedback and understanding career options to help junior researchers’ career progression, instead of perceiving those who don’t take the traditional academic route as failures. 

Reforms to organisational structures and grant funding may also create more permanent positions. In several countries, tenured researchers’ salaries cannot be funded by grants. Allowing this could free up university money for junior researchers and act as a productivity incentive, much like giving tenured researchers flexible teaching hours. 

The growing complexity and specialisation of science has also created a need for more permanent positions besides principal investigators. This should lead to academic units becoming flatter and more collegiate, rather than hierarchies with one person at the top.

Role for EU

The potential for reform is huge, but it needs to be underpinned by strong and predictable funding—which is needed anyway to address societal challenges and deficits in competitiveness. 

The EU could play a role both directly, by applying best practice to funding schemes such as the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, and by helping to spread learning and best practice among member states. Recently mooted plans to introduce institutional EU funding would be a welcome additional tool.

Reducing precarity in research would have many other benefits, strengthening emerging nations and reducing risk-aversion in research-intensive systems. And it would make Europe a more attractive place to do research in general, helping it in the global competition for talent. 

Jürgen Janger is a senior economist at the Austrian Institute of Economic Research in Vienna

This article also appeared in Research Europe

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Lemaître’s appointment to crucial research post comes just in time

The top official post in the European Commission’s research and innovation department is probably the most important European-level role for the research sector, alongside the political figurehead that is the EU R&I commissioner.

So it will have been a relief to many when the Commission announced on the first of this month that the post—which has been without a permanent holder since the departure of Jean-Eric Paquet last summer—would be filled from 16 February by Marc Lemaître, currently head of the regional and urban policy department.

While Signe Ratso has been keeping the Commission R&I department steady on an interim basis, the wait for a new leader could not have continued much longer without sparking unease.

Lemaître will take up the R&I post at a vital time and with many important calls to make, as we report on this week’s cover.

The timing is partly important because of the looming prospect of change to the other vital role of R&I commissioner, held by Mariya Gabriel since 2019. Gabriel’s term is set to end next year, alongside those of her fellow Commission political leaders, and although it is possible that she could be reappointed, there is also a high chance that a new commissioner will take her place. 

So it was imperative that the R&I department got a new top official early enough this year for them to find their feet before any political changeover.

In policy terms, Lemaître will take up the reins just in time to lead the analysis of, and response to, the Commission’s survey on the bloc’s 2021-27 R&I programme, Horizon Europe, as we approach its halfway point. Sector leaders have been quick to point out the importance of this process for the EU’s long-term research planning.

This year will also see the mid-term review of the EU’s seven-year budget framework. Although this seems unlikely to have major impacts on the current R&I programme, the review could shape how Horizon Europe is swayed by political priorities. Hot topics such as microchips have a habit of encroaching on the R&I programme’s budget, and determined leadership may be needed to prevent its core instruments, such as the European Research Council, from suffering as a result.

Sector representatives have taken heart from Lemaître’s experience of running the regional department and, before that, of serving as head of cabinet to a former budget commissioner. 

He is expected to be well-placed to fight the R&I programme’s corner and ensure his new department keeps running smoothly.

A former holder of the top R&I post, Robert-Jan Smits, was one of those who told Research Europe that they hoped Lemaître would also be able to improve the ways in which dedicated EU R&I funding works with the bloc’s regional funds, which also support the sector. The need to improve such ‘synergies’ has gained attention, as more EU leaders have realised the importance of R&I to urgent challenges such as climate change and health.

With all of this in mind, Lemaître’s appointment looks to be putting the right person in the right place at the right time. Watch this space to see how it pans out.

This article also appeared in Research Europe

The post Right on cue appeared first on Research Professional News.

Back page gossip from the 9 February issue of Research Europe

One wait over

Just when your correspondent was starting to think the European Commission’s research and innovation department had spent rather a long time under interim leadership, up popped the announcement of a new director-general (see cover).

Signe Ratso, a deputy director-general responsible for the association of non-EU countries to the bloc’s R&I programme Horizon Europe, had reached five months serving as interim director-general when the news of Marc Lemaître’s appointment broke.

It had started to look a little like the situation over at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, where Martin Kern served as interim director for five whole years before finally being given the role proper in 2019.

The sector will no doubt be grateful to Ratso for keeping the show on the road following the departure of Jean-Eric Paquet last summer. But one wonders how easy it will be for her to return to the deputy role, having had a taste of life at the top.

In recent weeks, Ratso has travelled to South Korea and Japan to firm up their R&I ties with the EU, with both countries being candidates for Horizon Europe membership deals. As we report on P7, all has not been going entirely well with some association deals, as the European Parliament is threatening to block those agreed with New Zealand and the Faroe Islands, as well as a prospective deal with Canada, because it feels sidelined by the deals’ indefinite duration.

With Horizon Europe already more than two years into its 2021-27 lifespan, and various countries still only at the exploratory stage of their association talks, one wonders whether the negotiation process is working as it should.

The importance of parliamentary scrutiny notwithstanding, perhaps there’s an argument to be made for keeping talks to a minimum.

Vision of perfection

The EU-Life group of life sciences research institutes has teamed up with the journal Nature to host an essay contest focused on the “perfect research institute”. 

What would such an institute look like, they ask. “One that constantly adapts to the needs of different people and is open to all? One that fulfils everything you wished for? One that protects its staff from paperwork and helps them to create better science? One that’s fully funded, completely inclusive and promotes creativity above all else? How far do we dare to go in our thinking?”

If researchers’ work environments are anything like those of the Research Europe team, they’d perhaps settle for an environment in which the coffee machine isn’t permanently broken.

But researchers are thankfully more imaginative than journalists, so we expect the entries to outshine our prosaic dreams.

Applications of up to 1,000 words are welcome from anybody and are due by 9 March. The three best entrants, as judged by a panel of researchers and writers, will be invited to present their essays at the EU-Life annual conference in Lisbon in June. Top prize is €5,000, while the two runners-up will get €2,500 each. Sharpen those pencils!

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Heidi Fraser-Krauss argues that ChatGPT is not as bad—or as good—as you think

Many column inches have been written about the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT (the GPT stands, not very snappily, for Generative Pretrained Transformer) since its launch at the end of November. Some of the uses to which it has been put are hugely entertaining, my personal favourite being a train cancellation announcement in the style of the Book of Revelation.

However, there has also been a big focus on the challenge the tool poses to education and research. It is easy to see ChatGPT as a threat. It can produce grammatically correct, well-structured and highly plausible pieces of content, in seconds. This means it has obvious potential to be used to produce essays or outline research proposals and academic papers with minimal input and effort.

Break in routine

Despite this, I am convinced that ChatGPT and similar AI-generative tools hold great promise for educators to use them in positive ways to improve teaching, learning and research.

For example, ChatGPT can cut the time spent on routine tasks like writing reports: the tool is great at producing succinct summaries of arguments, it can be used to quickly create content and, properly prompted by the user, it can generate ideas and outlines for lessons. It also has enormous potential for writing and debugging computer code. In fact, new use cases are emerging all the time as more people experiment with it.

There is also the fact that the genie is out of the bottle and these tools are going to be a part of life. Microsoft is reportedly planning to incorporate ChatGPT into its Bing web search and Office products. It is not too simplistic to see ChatGPT as the next logical step on from spell checkers, grammar checkers and Google: they all save time and effort.

Assessment change

In my view, instead of banning its use like some schools in the US have, we should be working to integrate it into the pallet of tools that we can all call upon to make us more effective both at work and in the classroom. The kneejerk reaction is to revert to in-person exams. However, I think we should see this as an opportunity—one that began in the pandemic—for the sector to explore assessment techniques that measure learners’ critical thinking, problem-solving and reasoning skills rather than their essay-writing abilities.

On the downside, it has been amply evidenced that ChatGPT has limitations. For a start, it does not know everything and it is already out of date. It was trained, with human support, on a massive set of data, with the last update of those data being the end of 2021. As a result, while it can generate facts around past events and published data, it is not good on current affairs and it is definitely behind when it comes to new research.

It is also unreliable. ChatGPT can supply incorrect information and give detailed and credible answers to stupid questions such as “Can I teach my cat to code?”. A male colleague of mine mischievously described it as “mansplaining as a service”. Given that the data it was trained on come from humans, it can be inherently biased, and it is also incapable of reflecting human or ethical values. Finally, it cannot produce original ‘thoughts’.

Research citations

Discussions are ongoing in the academic community as to whether it is appropriate to use AI tools such as ChatGPT when authoring papers, and whether or how those contributions should be credited. Some say that if an AI tool has been used in any way to author a paper, its contribution should be acknowledged in either the methods or the acknowledgments section. Guidance on how to cite software used in research already exists; should we treat ChatGPT any differently?

Clearer guidance from the research and publishing communities that recognises the difference between the authorship of original research and the assembling of factual material will no doubt emerge, but this is not a trivial undertaking.

Ultimately, despite the hype, these tools cannot replace or produce original research. There are currently no generative AI models trained on the vast body of scientific research publications, which means that ChatGPT has limited “knowledge” of the most up-to-the-minute research data. Even with better knowledge, it would still be prone to providing false information, as we saw with Meta’s Galactica.

Finally, the impact of these tools will be different for each part of the sector, and we should embrace them as the next evolution in knowledge creation and management rather than a threat to research and education.

And, by the way, ChatGPT was not used to write this article!

Heidi Fraser-Krauss is chief executive of the higher education IT agency Jisc.

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Ivory Tower: a new Shakespearean tragicomedy is discovered through literary scholarship

1.1 A hall in Westminster

Rishi

Now is the winter of our discontent,

Made much worse by this MP from Yorkshire;

And all the schools in our catchment area

Like the university departments are closed.

Now are our Brexit woes still at the border;

Our interest rates going up further;

Our energy bills causing conniption;

Our weekly food basket filled with inflation.

Oven-ready deal hath unravelled at first touch

And now, instead of buccaneering on the high sea,

To undercut our European adversaries,

We limp from strike to strike

In a cost of living crisis.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Who was top of math camp

And drinks of Coke for fun;

With a house in the Americas and a card of green;

I, who made Eat Out to Help Out;

Chancellor of furlough and Lord of Instagram;

Promoted, unfinished, sent before my time

Into the Treasury when the Saj resigned,

And so lame and unfashionable

That I do think the new Star Wars good;

Why, I, in this time of recession,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

As the first chancellor,

To obtain a fixéd-penalty notice for eating cake.

And therefore, since I cannot prove a chancellor,

To level-up this broken country,

I am determined to become prime minister

And hate the idle pleasures of government.

Plots have I laid, leaks to the press,

Briefings against cabinet colleagues,

To set the public and King Boris

In deadly hate the one against the other.

And since this earth affords no longer joy to me,

As a giveaway chancellor,

During a time of pestilence and press conferences,

I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,

And while I live, to account this world but hell,

Until I have a photo opportunity

On the steps next door of number 10.

But yet I know not how to get the crown,

For many townhouse meetings stand between me and home;

And I, like one lost in a party of chaos,

Do tell the members that the money tree

Of Lady Liz is rent with thorns.

But they do cheer Elizabeth

And calleth me a maker of gloom and ‘no-votes Rishi’,

So the crown remains further off.

Although I am the favourite of MPs,

The members want tax cut and do call for growth.

I know ’tis mad and will crash the pound,

But I can smile, and lie while I smile,

And cry “content” to that which grieves my heart,

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,

And say I hate the woke and small boats,

Just as much as the agéd members do.

I’ll be more Brexit than Farage,

I’ll go to wars for culture sooner than Nadine,

Speak more falsely than Rees-Mogg,

And, like a Boris, repeat-visit Ukraine.

I can teach colours to the chameleon,

Change shapes like Starmer for advantages,

And set the devious Mandelson to school.

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it farther off, I’ll pluck it down.

But hush, here comes the Lady Liz.

Prey good Truss, how goes the day?

2.1  Another hall in Westminster

Liz

’Tis like total wack, my Lord.

Once more we must debate with members

For them to choose who will wear the crown.

But I so vibe the rounds that I do pity you

And cannot find words to say sorry not-sorry.

For when I sit upon the throne

With the Quasi Lord on my right,

You will be cancelléd and we will lol.

Liz will slay the day and be adultin’ in number 10

While you will be nought but a non-dom.

Laters, Rishi, tempus fugit;

I will away, to dream of mini-budget.

[Exits]

Rishi

Were ever members in this humour wooed?

Were ever members in this humour won?

The Lady Liz speaks of tax and woke and growth,

Yet I too have designs just as good for freeports and extra maths.

I will tell the members what they want to hear

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With old odd ends stolen from the TaxPayers’ Alliance;

And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

But lo, here cometh the Lord Shapps and the Lady Keegan.

Hail fellows well met, what news from court?

Keegan

Why my Lord Rishi, no news but of the election of Elizabeth

Who is fawned upon by the members

But hath not the love of us who sit in the chamber.

Shapps

’Tis over Lord Rishi, Elizabeth hath the crown,

She is the second premier to sit this year,

You shall not be the third.

Rishi

So unwise so young, they say, do never last long.

Shapps

The Lady Liz hath offered me transport but no more.

What bounty wouldst thou bestow upon this head, were you king?

Rishi

Thy talents speak to more. Why I would give you business,

And with it domain over all of space and what the scholars call research.

Keegan

And what of me, my Lord? Wouldst thou find service for me?

Rishi

The Lady Keegan I would set to school and give her education.

Shapps

If such a day were to dawn, ’twould mean that we three

Would hold in our hands the fate of every university.

Keegan

And so, with the crown, Lord Rishi’s dream of maths for all will see the day.

Rishi

A course! A course! My kingdom for a course!

But your wit does you no credit, my Lady Keegan.

There be less chance that you two the universities sequester,

Than I meet my end in an NCP in Leicester.

Messenger

My Lords! The Lady Liz hath resigned.

Long live King Rishi, the third prime minister this year.

Shapps

And so am I business.

Keegan

And I to school.

Rishi

Extra maths for all! Hurrah!

[Exit pursued by a Boris]

Terms of use: this is a free email for fun on a Friday; it should be shared among colleagues like a bullying complaint against a secretary of state. Want to visit the Rishi III car park and freeport exhibition? Want to say hello? Email [email protected] 

The post Rishi the Third appeared first on Research Professional News.

Mark Carrigan calls for more strategic direction in the way universities use social media platforms

Three months ago, Elon Musk completed his takeover of Twitter to become its owner and CEO. Entire teams have since been cut from the company, leading to questions about Twitter’s capacity to counter misinformation or hate speech. It remains to be seen what the medium- and long-term implications will be for the security and stability of a platform that has long enjoyed a political influence far outweighing its relatively modest number of daily active users.

It might not be immediately obvious why this Silicon Valley issue matters for UK higher education. But that is part of a problem that all universities will need to address in the coming months. In a relatively short space of time, social media in general, and Twitter in particular, have become ubiquitous features of academic life. They are used for marketing at university, department and programme level, to raise awareness and support recruitment. They are used for internal communications by services and teams attempting to cut through the information overload that afflicts most universities. They are used for networking by centres, groups and initiatives to increase the visibility of the work they undertake. They are used for public engagement by research projects to reach external stakeholders and make an impact in wider society.

Perhaps most strikingly, they are used by individual academics, with Twitter coming to feel like a necessity for early career researchers afraid of missing out on potential benefits in a hyper-competitive job market.

These platforms are now deeply integrated into the communications infrastructure of the sector in ways that are informal and unplanned but no less integral for that. To see the current turmoil at Twitter as irrelevant to higher education reflects exactly the disregard for social media that has enabled this systemic reliance to develop in such a strikingly ill-thought-out way. The realistic prospect of platform death—a fate that has befallen many social media firms in the past—foregrounds the institutional problem that has been allowed to develop.

Knowledge production

Consider academic participation at conferences, seminars and workshops. These events serve a crucial role in facilitating knowledge production by enabling the building of connections and exchange of work in progress. Universities often expect their research-active staff to participate in these gatherings in order to contribute to the visibility of the institution and the possibility of collaborations leading to research grants and auditable publications.

These are the instrumental outcomes that most concern universities but there is a deeper value found for academics in the intellectual communities reproduced through these events. Participation in these communities contributes to the conditions that make scholarship possible through fomenting collaboration and sharing knowledge.

It is hard to quantify the role these events play in knowledge production because they tend to be far upstream of discernible outputs (with the exception, perhaps, of conference proceedings). But it is nonetheless possible to reliably trace at least some causal role played by scholarly events in the eventual genesis of a publication or project.

The same is true for the use of social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn by academics, even if the path from tweet to blog to peer-reviewed article is even less likely to show up in routine practices of research evaluation.

In part, this is because our evaluative practices tend to exclude the preliminary work that makes an eventual publication possible (in the process individualising knowledge production and contributing to epistemic injustice) but the widespread assumption that social media is a trivial feature of academic life with significance for knowledge exchange but little else means there is little appetite to try to draw out these connections within the sector.

Digital acceleration

During the pandemic it was much easier to see the significant role played by social media, supplemented by videoconferencing platforms such as Zoom and Teams, because these were the only means through which collaboration could proceed when academics were confined to their homes. There was a sense in which the entire sector underwent an accelerated process of digitalisation driven by necessity rather than slow shift in cultural norms—one that is far from being reversed given the ubiquity of online meetings and normalisation of hybrid working.

It is curious, therefore, that the role played by mass commercial social media platforms in the research infrastructure remains wilfully ignored, with the partial exception of its relationship to the impact agenda. It is from this perspective that the possible unravelling of Twitter under Elon Musk poses a challenge for the sector.

Academic Twitter has become a vital means through which academics disseminate information, publicise their work and lay the groundwork for collaboration. Its importance has only increased in a landscape in which meetings are as likely to take place online as they are in person, posing particular challenges for early career researchers who find it more difficult to network at online meetings.

Leadership needed

While there is a real potential for a more sustainable social infrastructure for scholarship through platforms such as Mastodon, it will require a careful approach that looks beyond the existing horizon of research communications. Unfortunately, the tendency to regard social media as a trivial feature of academic life means such leadership has long been lacking.

In its absence, academics have been driven into the arms of corporate platforms not fit for purpose and encouraged to think narrowly in terms of their individual careers rather than the communal purposes being served by digital engagement within the sector. Unless universities, research councils and learned societies begin to intervene in these spaces in a strategic manner, it is likely we will see this dynamic repeated. And if the critical mass of academics that coalesced on Twitter during the 2010s begins to disperse across a range of platforms, then the communications infrastructure of the sector will be left in an even worse place than it is at present.

Mark Carrigan is programme director for the MA Digital Technologies, Communication and Education (DTCE) and co-lead for the DTCE Research & Scholarship group at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Social Media for Academics, published by Sage and now in its second edition.

The post Twitter thread appeared first on Research Professional News.

Focus on research culture obscures wider and deeper problems, say Paul Manners and Rory Duncan

Discussions of research culture have been going on for as long as we can remember. Many hours and minds have been given to pondering how to make research careers, mainly in universities, more attractive, sustainable and stable, and how to enhance the link between research and wider society. There is even a government plan, the R&D People and Culture Strategy, that provides, it says, a “call to action” for research organisations to make improvements. 

Research culture certainly needs fixing. Toxic behaviours, precarity and exclusionary practices all demand attention. Besides the moral imperative, without a well-functioning system that attracts and develops diverse, talented people, research won’t be able to respond to the knowledge needs of society. 

But the issues gathered under the umbrella of research culture are better understood and tackled as symptoms of deeper, more pervasive structural problems. Unless we pause and reframe, we risk missing the wood for the trees.

Existential threats

Research plays a relatively minor role in the underpinning finances of higher education. For many universities, teaching accounts for approaching 90 per cent of revenue. And even for the research-intensives, it’s the biggest source of income. 

Solutions for research culture, then, must take account of the broader economic model on which universities are based, and this is in crisis. Income for teaching is fixed and dwindling in value as the cost of everything else inflates. Research is costing more, and funders’ contributions are not keeping pace. 

Universities respond to declining revenue by increasing student numbers if they can and by creating more efficient ways of delivering teaching. This risks introducing increased, and increasingly unsustainable, pressure on staff, one symptom of which is seemingly perennial industrial action.

If universities become unattractive and even more pressurised places to work, we’re in trouble, because the people we need won’t come. Research culture must be tackled in the context of these wider existential threats, or efforts to fix it will be fiddling while Rome burns.

The issue needs to be reframed: there is a crisis in professional culture right across higher education. This is not just about research, or even academic, culture—it’s about how we work collaboratively, with common purpose, to build and share powerful knowledge, and how we value expertise inside and outside universities. 

This is also an existential crisis about the knowledge needs of a rapidly shifting society and culture. We in universities have to challenge ourselves about whether our paradigms of knowledge production, in silos of research, knowledge exchange and teaching, are adequate for the wider needs of society. We must stop privileging academic expertise over the many other forms of professional and lived expertise needed to build and share knowledge effectively.

This is also a human-scale problem. Universities are at heart about learning—and this requires respect for and empathy with people’s cultural and emotional identities. It’s welcome that the research culture debate has brought this into focus.

Holistic frame 

A helpful first step could be to shift the language. ‘Culture’ is a nebulous term at best; focusing on ‘environment’ instead would make the issue tangible and tractable. Similarly, ending the fixation on research and starting to think about how to build learning environments fit for the 21st century, able to deliver on universities’ promises to make the world a better place, would give a more holistic frame to coordinate efforts. 

There are already wonderful examples of people developing new ways of organising and connecting learning and research to power each other, and of governance arrangements that allow inclusive, trustful decision-making that gives collaborators power and influence. 

There are places where fluid employment practices enable people, skills, cultures and ideas to be mobile, and where undergraduates are empowered as learning champions. Some faculties are experimenting with new ways of creative commissioning of projects and embracing new design practices.

Universities can also learn from other sectors that have navigated threats such as underfunding, shifting operating environments, changing user needs, obsolete and restrictive operating models and bureaucracy. Broadcasting, the cultural sector, charities and many businesses have implemented a level of transformation that, compared with higher education, is breathtaking.

So yes, let’s worry about research culture. But let’s not lose the plot. 

Paul Manners is co-director of the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement. Rory Duncan is pro vice-chancellor for research and innovation at Sheffield Hallam University.

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight and a version appeared in Research Europe

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Authorship records bring sobering evidence to debate over goals and approaches, says Gali Halevi

Efforts to increase diversity in research still meet resistance. Some academics argue that considering factors such as ethnicity and gender in hiring and promotion decisions, making efforts to attract under-represented groups to educational programmes, and implementing mandatory diversity statements and policies all introduce politics into decisions that should be solely based on intellectual excellence. 

In 2020, an essay published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie argued that, since the introduction of diversity training, a “candidate’s inclusion in one of the preferred social groups may override his or her qualifications”. It caused an outcry, and has been deleted. Those who support such initiatives believe that politics is already present, that it is essential to redress past inequalities, and that making research more diverse and inclusive will improve its performance.

Policies on conferences, which are crucial to form social networks and collaborations but can also be cliquey, are a particular flashpoint. A recent article in Inside Higher Education looked at this issue in the US mathematical community. It implied that disagreements around messaging and policies on equity, diversity and inclusion—and especially around official statements and action on these topics—had been a factor in ending the agreement between America’s two biggest professional bodies for mathematicians, the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) to organise the Joint Mathematics Meeting, the world’s largest maths conference. 

Mathematical fallout

The AMS, which focuses on mathematical research, is seen as less in favour of mandatory policies—in 2019, an AMS vice-president wrote an article arguing against them—while the MAA, which focuses on mathematical teaching, is in favour. 

As evidence of inequality and bias continues to emerge, bibliographic data can add another layer of evidence to this debate. Scholarly journals have only recently begun collecting diversity data on their authors— an initiative covering 50 publishers and 15,000 journals launched last year. Some countries, such as Germany, have restrictions on collecting such data. But, even when author ethnicity is not known, it can be inferred by comparing bibliographic data with other sources.

By comparing the ethnicity that people report to the US census, for example, with last names, we can work out the proportion of people with a particular name identifying in different ethnic groups. This fraction can then be applied to authorship data to estimate the make-up of different fields.

In a report published last year, the Institute for Scientific Information used this method to analyse publications by US-based authors in several scientific fields, including mathematics, between 2010 and 2020. Depending on the field, we were able to match 75-80 per cent of author names to census data. 

The mathematics dataset contained 48,080 publications and 17,909 unique names. For accuracy, we only analysed papers with solely US authors. 

No change in ethnic diversity

The data show clearly that ethnic diversity in mathematical research has hardly changed in the past decade. There has been a slow increase in authors of Asian and Pacific origin, but other groups are showing stagnation and low rates of participation in mathematical research. 

White mathematicians make up the largest group, estimated at 47 per cent of authors in the field, followed by authors identifying as Asian or Pacific Islander, the proportion of whom rose from 15 to 19 per cent over the decade. 

Black and Hispanic authors are severely under-represented in US mathematics. Respectively, these groups make up 12 and 16 per cent of the US population, but they account for just 4.6 per cent and 3.8 per cent of authorship in mathematics research, a figure that remained static through the decade. The proportion of Native American or Alaska Native authors, at 0.28 per cent, is much lower than this group’s 1 per cent share of the population. 

Debate around policies and statements is legitimate. But the data, in mathematics and in other fields, make a strong case for recognising the lack of diversity and creating opportunities for participation by under-represented groups. 

Diversity is not just a question of equity and social justice, important as these are. It has been shown to lead to accelerated innovation and improved decision-making. Whether through education, mentorships, training or creating advancement opportunities, all academic disciplines should be working to become more diverse and inclusive, to ensure that they produce impactful research. 

Gali Halevi is the director of the Institute for Scientific Information. Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate, ISI’s owner

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

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Disarray in government will make it harder for research to deliver benefits, says John Whitfield

When Frank Lampard was sacked as manager of Everton football club last week, one of the pundits’ talking points was how having six permanent managers in as many years had left the club lacking cohesion and direction. What chance did the latest boss have, when he was working with a ragbag of players chosen by half a dozen predecessors?

Other institutions hoping to recapture a successful past also find themselves mired in short-termism and acrimony early in the year.

Faced with poll numbers promising relegation, Tory MPs charged Rishi Sunak with getting a tune out of a mix of policies handed down from Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron—or rather, George Osborne—Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, each with its advocates and opponents among his MPs. Small wonder Sunak gives little sense of what he wants from his government beyond its continuation.

Against this unpromising backdrop, core R&D policy has so far fared pretty well. A ruling party that has shown little respect for arm’s length bodies, a penchant for giving cash to its supporters and an urge to reduce red tape might be expected to change UK Research and Innovation or the Research Excellence Framework in ways that left researchers pining for what they used to moan about. 

But while UKRI does not look like a happy ship, there seems little appetite to do anything drastic to it. Similarly, no one in government is taking aim at the REF. Science minister George Freeman deserves credit for keeping some good policies on track—treating, for example, the Office for National Statistics’ upward revision of UK R&D intensity as a reason to aim higher rather than go home. It seems likely he has also been keeping some bad ones at bay behind closed doors, too. 

Less than rosy outlook

In just the past few weeks, however, there has been plenty of evidence that if you look a little further out, where R&D is supposed to interact with the wider world, things are less rosy. January’s joint call by university mission groups for a parliamentary investigation into the Office for Students was an unusually blunt and public expression of disquiet that promises interesting times ahead for higher education. Home secretary Suella Braverman continues to give the impression that if she can’t stop people crossing the Channel in small boats, repelling the international students who keep universities solvent is the next best thing. 

Levelling up and its near—albeit semi-mythical—relative, the industrial strategy, are equally underpowered and incoherent. Eyebrows must have been raised in universities at the protests from local government over the inefficiency and indignity of having to submit competitive bids to win a share of a limited pot of funding. Perhaps instead councils could be judged on what they’ve achieved in the past seven years and funded accordingly? 

On the industrial side, battery manufacturer Britishvolt, which might have given the north-east a boost, has gone into administration. Except some of it might be rescued by an Australian company. The Oxford-Cambridge arc, which was going to be the UK’s Silicon Valley, is back on the agenda after being ditched in 2017 because it looked like giving the southeast too much of a boost. Except it involves building a train line, which feels optimistic, and last Friday Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the whole country is going to be the next Silicon Valley.

And health policy is the mess to end them all. Last week’s report from the House of Lords Science and Technology committee pointed out that the demands of patient care are crowding out research and innovation in the NHS, and university medicine and the pipeline of clinical researchers are under threat. 

This might seem like a worry for another day, to be parked outside A&E at the end of a queue of ambulances. But better integrating research is one way to prevent the NHS becoming a provider of last resort in permanent crisis mode. 

The sense of wasting the future is painful, both in terms of lives and health—research-active hospitals have better patient outcomes—and of what a research-enabled NHS might contribute to the UK’s economy and society.

Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting would do well to add research and innovation to his emerging agenda for reforming the NHS.

Look back more than a couple of weeks, and, despite Hunt’s warm words you can find evidence of a similar lack of cohesion in policy on energy and climate, education and skills, or business investment. The research community would do well to use its position of relative security to engage with these issues, if it wants to turn increased funding into the benefits that policymakers expect. Otherwise, problems that seem remote could soon be spilling over its borders. 

John Whitfield is opinion editor of Research Fortnight

This article also appeared in Research Fortnight

The post Policy polycrisis threatens UK’s R&D ambitions appeared first on Research Professional News.

Back page gossip from the 1 February issue of Research Fortnight

Playing away

Saturday 21 January saw Scottish Premiership side and one-time Uefa Cup finalists Dundee United host Lowland League University of Stirling in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup. 

Stirling were the first university side to make it to this stage of the competition for 50 years. They earned their place by beating the mighty Albion Rovers 1-0 in the previous round, the wee Rovers having knocked out the University of Glasgow as part of their own cup run.

The Stirling team is entirely made up of students registered on the university’s scholarship programme—all must undertake a degree or other qualification like the rest of the student intake. 

Dundee United played in a Europa Conference League qualifier this season, and their side contained some famous faces including former Scotland and Premier League striker Steven Fletcher and Aziz Behich, who starred for Australia at the Qatar World Cup.

Stirling are no mugs and picked up their third British Universities and Colleges Sport Premier North title the week before, beating Durham and pipping Newcastle and Nottingham to the silverware. 

The student side did well to frustrate their professional opponents and the home fans until United scored their opener on the stroke of half-time. In the end, they went down 3-0 to the Scottish Premiership side.

The match was given added piquancy by Douglas Ross, leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland—the one who flip-flopped endlessly over his support for Boris Johnson—officiating as assistant referee. In the end, he took much more of a slating than the University of Stirling.

When the final whistle blew, the Stirling team took the applause of the travelling support—who waved flags provided at the turnstiles by the university—while the clearly relieved United fans offered a chant implying that time spent in the ivory tower was not solely restricted to mental masturbation.

The United fans might improve their vocabulary by responding to the recruitment advert that the University of Stirling took out in the matchday programme—you should have heard what they said about Ross.

Stirling head coach Chris Geddes told BBC Sport that the team was “disappointed to lose. Hopefully it’s an education for our guys.”

Artificial intelligence

There has been much talk about the possible implications for universities of rapidly evolving artificial intelligence platforms such as ChatGPT, which could allow students to exploit the technology to write essays.

One academic at Soas, University of London, has a plan to turn the tables.

Global development professor Michael Jennings and his colleagues hope to fight bots with bots. Should a student submit an AI-generated essay, they will receive generic marker feedback also from the bot.

In test runs, the results from ChatGPT have been all too plausible. Jennings commented: “Of course, the next challenge is to see how it handles writing a Research Excellence Framework submission.”

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