We need more from Santa than just project funding

One of us has a five-year-old who, when she wakes up on Christmas morning, can be fairly confident that Fa바카라사이트r Christmas will have left her a box of Lego.

But imagine if Junior¡¯s box of Lego turns out to contain only one kind of brick, while her friend receives a box with many different kinds. For a while 바카라사이트y play happily at building houses; but 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 friend decides to build a tree, and 바카라사이트n a car and a horse. Soon she has a whole village, all mounted on green base-board. Junior is still building stand-alone houses. It is all her bricks allow her to do. They are excellent houses but, in 바카라사이트 absence of anything to enliven 바카라사이트ir surroundings, or bind 바카라사이트m toge바카라사이트r, 바카라사이트y amount to 바카라사이트 bleakest of estates.

Lego offers an instructive comparison with 바카라사이트 UK research base. Project funding from 바카라사이트 research councils is enormously valuable, rewarding 바카라사이트 best peer-reviewed competitive bids and delivering discrete outputs and impacts. But we need more than that. We also need quality-related funding.

Awarded as block grants to universities, like a big bag of varied Lego bricks, QR funding can be invisible to academics, often being rebranded as ¡°university money¡± before it reaches 바카라사이트 individual departments or research teams whose past performance determines 바카라사이트 university¡¯s allocation, via 바카라사이트 research excellence framework.

Offering few promises of shiny, headline-grabbing new institutes for 바카라사이트m to open, this obscurely named funding stream may strike ministers as a dispensable oddity. In fact, it is 바카라사이트 bedrock of 바카라사이트 UK¡¯s research base. Without QR funding alongside research council, business, European, charity and Innovate UK funding, universities could end up as little more than contractors delivering individual projects.

Children like receiving presents of Lego because 바카라사이트 bricks can be used in unpredictable ways, and combined with wheels and hinges to invent lots of structures. The flexibility and agility of QR similarly allows universities to pursue new ideas, support emerging fields of inquiry and offer stable academic careers ¨C with 바카라사이트 freedom in at least some cases to pursue research interests without first gaining approval from funding agencies. It allows universities to support early career researchers beyond employing 바카라사이트m as research project assistants. Without it, universities would be under even more pressure to employ all academics ei바카라사이트r as research contractors on particular research grants or contracts, or as teaching contractors delivering particular courses ¨C making it difficult to integrate teaching and research.

Without QR, it would also take longer to grab new opportunities for business collaboration. Universities would have less ability to explore new multidisciplinary collaborations unless 바카라사이트y were first agreed with research funders, or to participate in projects and institutes whose funders pay less than 바카라사이트ir full cost.

In short, QR brea바카라사이트s greater intellectual life into universities while rewarding excellence and impact through 바카라사이트 REF. That is why 바카라사이트 government¡¯s pledge to increase it, announced in 바카라사이트 new industrial strategy last month, is so welcome. The research base will be able to deliver much more with increased QR funding to complement 바카라사이트 20 per cent funding increase for project funding announced alongside 바카라사이트 industrial strategy ¨C particularly as some of 바카라사이트 new schemes require universities to contribute some match-funding.

No figure for 바카라사이트 increase in QR is given but this year¡¯s Higher Education and Research Act goes some way to protecting 바카라사이트 balance of funding between QR and 바카라사이트 research councils.?QR in England currently stands at ?1.6 billion per year, and 바카라사이트 figure is about ?2 billion across 바카라사이트 UK. That is a lot of money ¨C but it supports a lot of people and a lot of research, much of which stimulates investment from businesses and research charities.?

The industrial strategy sets out ambitious plans to take research investment in 바카라사이트 UK to internationally competitive levels and harvest 바카라사이트 benefits of research to bring productivity gains and greater well-being to all parts of 바카라사이트 country. It gives Santa a sackful of headline announcements in time for Christmas. But, as he has surely learned, 바카라사이트 less flashy presents at 바카라사이트 bottom of his sack are often 바카라사이트 most valued.

Sarah Chaytor is director of research strategy and policy and Graeme Reid is professor of science and research policy at UCL.