Give Scotland a seat at top table of UK research, MPs urge

Scottish universities should be given a seat at the top table of the UK’s main research funder, MPs have urged.

A wide-ranging report on the future of higher education, published by the House of Commons Scottish affairs committee on 28 May, highlights that several English universities are represented on the board of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). However, no Scottish institutions have a place.

During the inquiry, Alastair Sim, director of Universities Scotland, told MPs that Scotland’s voice within UKRI was “still something that needs vigilance”. Mr Sim and other witnesses highlighted that Research England – the main provider of quality-related research funding south of the border – was closely integrated into UKRI in a way that the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and other agencies in devolved nations were not.

Mr Sim told MPs that integrating Research England into UKRI was not “necessarily the best thing to do” because it gave “a kind of instinctive closeness to a subset of UK institutions within UKRI just because there are some institutions they work more closely with than others”.

James Conroy, professor of religious and philosophical education at the University of Glasgow, told MPs that the SFC was an “afterthought” in terms of how UK-wide funding was delivered.

The committee says that institutions such as the London School of Economics and the University of Cambridge have representatives on the UKRI board, and that a Scottish representative should be included also. They call for the SFC to be represented on the UKRI executive committee.

Pete Wishart, the committee’s chair, said that it was “time to address disparities on the UK’s main research funding body”.

“The fear is that the lack of Scottish representation makes it more difficult to align the priorities of the Scottish institutions with UKRI,” said Mr Wishart, MP for Perth and North Perthshire.

“We want to see the deserved and rightful representation of Scottish higher education achieved by the inclusion of positions for a Scottish university and the Scottish Funding Council on UKRI decision-making bodies.”

Elsewhere, the report raises concerns about Scottish universities’ reliance on international student fees to make up their shortfall in teaching funding, and calls on the Westminster and Holyrood governments to support diversification of income streams, particularly away from potentially volatile recruitment regions such as India and China.

It also calls for the Turing student mobility scheme to fund inward placements to the UK to more closely resemble the European Union’s Erasmus+ scheme, which it replaces.

And it says that the cost of visas for international researchers coming to work in Scotland and the UK more broadly should be reduced.

A UKRI spokeswoman said: “We thank the committee for their recommendations and we will consider the contents of the report carefully.”

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com