Business to fund less university research?

Tags: higher education,research,university

The Council for Industry and Higher Education have just released their interim report on how UK HE can meet international business demand, and what effect this might have on investment.

Setting aside the extremely valid, but often-dodged question about whether university research departments really ought to be about providing industry with research that they do not want to do at their own facilities, then the interim conclusions are somewhat worrying.

After a period of steady increase in funding from 1992 to 2001, business investment in research has remained, as the report says, 'relatively static', which, of course, actually means it has fallen.

The CIHE suggests that the UK may have to go towards forms of research that do not necessary provide immediate returns, but which try to anticipate the future, or which address more fundamental issues. They also suggest that the UK may need to be prepared to do more research on very near-market applications that may be very heavily commercial in nature.

As The Lambert Review also stated, the report acknowledges how important the pharmaceutical industry to research funding in this country, and notes that increasing R&D spend is being diverted outside the UK, and, indeed, the EU to China and India, which have large numbers of skilled, cheap scientists and less regulation that even the notoriously regulation-light UK.
Currently, over 50% of all R&D money from business to universities comes from the pharmaceutical industry, and from a small number of large companies all based outside the UK. When the pharmaceutical industry goes through tough times, such as now, R&D spending is one of the first things to go - as it did in the early 90s. Ironically, that cut is one of the key reasons why the industry is suffering the problems that it is, but that is a separate issue.

UK universities need to diversify. Too much reliance on such a small group of funders is not healthy, and unless they find new ways of raising money and new fields of research, the necessary adjustment will be brutal and forced upon the sector. One excellent way is proposed in this report, and that is to be much more effective in engaging with the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) that drive innovation and growth.

The full report is due to deliver next year - watch with interest.

It is now out - read about it here - May 2006