Cuts in Culture conference live blog - 2 of 3

Welcome to Research Fortnight's Cuts in Culture live blog from Bafta. Our second session today is Funding Innovation.

Our speakers are the chairman of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and UCL professor, Alan Wilson, chief executive of Arts and Business, Colin Tweedy, and director of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, UK branch, Andrew Barnett. Their chairman is chief executive and secretary of the British Academy, Robin Jackson.

News, instant analysis and comment on  what was said. Read from the bottom up.

Pfizer closure shows UK's weakening commitment to research

To lose 6,000 skilled jobs in science R&D may be regarded as a misfortune for the coalition; to lose another 2,400 and a world-class research facility looks like carelessness.

A knowledge economy needs Big Society science

Ministers aren't the only ones who have yet to grasp the need for a new contract between scientists and society. Tom Wakeford reveals the smoke-and-mirrors behind some recent research-council 'engagement' programmes, and says it’s time to debate some core values. 

 

LWEC's future lies in partnerships

To many observers, cross-research council funding programmes were particularly vulnerable to government cuts. So how did they do? Andrew Watkinson of the cross-council funded Living With Environmental Change programme says growing pressure on funding makes partnership working increasingly important for LWEC and others. 

The MRC begins 2011 in a strong position

It has been a rollercoaster and, at times, highly emotive year for science. Pre-spending fears of savage cuts were briefly substituted by a communal sign of relief after the event. Then the reality sunk in. And now it is about making the best of what we've got.

That's certainly been my sense of the feeling across the medical and health-research community ahead of this week's announcement of the science and research-budget allocations. But then we have perhaps had more time to run through the emotions than other areas of science.

Knowledge transfer wins, capital budgets hit in science budget allocations

The government today announced detailed spending plans for the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the seven UK Research Councils for the period 2011-12 to 2014-15.

The plans were unveiled by universities and science minister David Willetts at a briefing in London this morning. As expected, they amount to a 12 per cent budget cut in cash terms over four years.

Almost all of the seven research councils have announced capital spending budgets cuts as much as 50 per cent. The plans also indicate a stronger focus towards funding research that meets UK strategic policy priorities and a move towards yet more concentration.

However, there are rewards for researchers working in knowledge transfer. The Medical Research Council will be able to keep its patent income and there is also protection for the popular Higher Education Innovation Fund. The Science and Technology Facilities Council meanwhile has been able protect its budget for international activities from currency fluctuations.

The STFC’s budget has been split into three streams for the spending review period, meaning that in future its “grants” pot will no longer need to be raided to meet currency-related shortfalls in its international subscriptions.

The Natural Environment Research Council will place less emphasis on participation in international scientific projects, instead devoting much more space to spelling out how the research council will meet national objectives, such as building competitive advantage for the UK.

The Economic and Social Research Council said that it would deal with the cut by scrapping a small grants scheme and concentrating grant support on large projects costing more than £200,000.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is concentrating its resources on four main themes—manufacturing, energy, the digital economy and healthcare technologies.

The MRC is the only one of the UK’s seven research councils to receive an increase in funding, which when taking into account inflation should result in a real-terms freeze over the next four years.

The Arts and Humanities Research Council is to address its funding reduction by channelling more money than ever before into cross-council priorities, critical mass within universities and the pursuit of ‘impact’.

Meanwhile, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council has confirmed plans to cut its own administration costs by 25 per cent. This will partly be achieved through attempts to reduce demand for grants by capping the number of applications allowed from institutions or departments that “fall consistently below an appropriately modelled percentile,” says the delivery plan. The council says it will seek a reduction in applications of at least 10 per cent.