Letter: Researchers routed 2

Hefce's betrayal of grade-3 departments has the effect of giving about £60 million more to the old university sector and taking £30 million away from the new.

This is irrational. New universities use research money more efficiently and have improved more. In 1996, they had less than 5 per cent of the available funding. After the 2001 RAE, they should have received 15 per cent. They will get only about 2 per cent - too little to sustain research in institutions where 70 per cent of active researchers are of national or international standard.

Morwenna Griffiths
Professor of educational research
Nottingham Trent University