tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/comprehensive-spending-review-2015-22889/articlesComprehensive Spending Review 2015 – The Conversation2015-11-26T16:39:21Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/513442015-11-26T16:39:21Z2015-11-26T16:39:21ZScience and innovation: out of the frying pan and into the fire<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103353/original/image-20151126-28263-v6rdpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Funding squeeze over – for now.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-219643969/stock-photo-attractive-young-female-scientist-and-her-male-supervisor-pipetting-and-microscoping-in-the-life.html?src=jN-VKT29XH0Oo14H3Tf9Cg-5-86">foto infot</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scientists in the UK breathed a sigh of relief when chancellor George Osborne announced that the science budget – which had been threatened with cuts – will in fact <a href="https://theconversation.com/spending-review-2015-the-experts-respond-51063">be protected</a> in real terms over the next four years. </p>
<p>He also announced that the innovation budget will be frozen, but only in cash terms, which should nevertheless give confidence to research-intensive businesses as it signals to the rest of the world that the UK is still in the innovation business. That’s the good news. But as the details unfold, there are some worrying signs and down right scary prospects on the horizon – including the EU referendum. </p>
<h2>Devil in the detail</h2>
<p>The UK science budget has been declining by inflation for the past four years, which has seen it drop below the <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/factbook-2013-en/08/01/01/gerd_g1.html?itemId=/content/chapter/factbook-2013-60-en&_csp_=05468405e2c4e04d6c1de15d76545eb3">OECD and EU average</a> for research intensity. While the funding is now to be maintained in real terms, the budget is still very low. This means we are still threatened by other nations, including emerging markets like China that are investing strongly in R&D.</p>
<p>Then there is the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-and-autumn-statement-2015-documents">actual detail</a> of what is being proposed. For example, a big chunk of the science budget, £1.5 billion, will come from a new Global Challenges Fund. This looks like double counting money from overseas aid, meaning that a portion of UK research may be eschewed towards the funding priorities of the Department for International Development. Worthy goals, no doubt, but does this support the needs of the domestic economy?</p>
<p>There’s also the question of how Britain’s genuinely strong tradition of scientific discoveries gets translated into products and services. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/innovate-uk">Innovate UK</a> – the body in charge of commercialisation – has come out of the review as the slightly poorer cousin of the research councils with both cuts in real-terms and greater costs coming out of the Catapult centre programme. Combine this with a shift towards loan-funding from grants (a tricky proposition for income poor start-ups) and it is clear that Innovate UK will face considerable upheaval. </p>
<p>The chancellor also announced that he would implement the recommendations of a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nurse-review-of-research-councils">recent review of the UK research councils</a>, including bringing together the seven existing councils with Innovate UK agency into <a href="https://theconversation.com/research-funding-big-changes-on-the-horizon-leave-scientists-nervous-51057">one collective body</a>. This could make R&D in the UK more responsive, versatile and better integrated.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/103358/original/image-20151126-28263-15mwjql.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">George Osborne has said science is a personal priority. But is a tiny increase enough?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/altogetherfool/3542341781">altogetherfool</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>However, it is unclear exactly how politically neutral this body, Research UK, will actually be. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nurse-review-of-research-councils">Nurse review</a> was keen to stress that funding priorities should be set by experts and not by politicians and argued that by bringing all the funding agencies together there is scope to share budgets, influence government research and reduce reporting costs. Great in theory, but with the proposal of having a board appointed by the government and reporting to a ministerial committee, it is certainly possible to imagine political influence flowing the other way.</p>
<p>Some level of such influence has <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-anxious-about-the-future-of-research-funding-42957">already been spotted</a> in the decision to fund the <a href="http://www.graphene.manchester.ac.uk/explore/graphene-city/sir-henry-royce-institute/">Royce Institute in Manchester</a>, following apparent considerations about the desirability of the place from a clustering and economic development perspective, over a purely scientific assessment.</p>
<h2>Brexit threat</h2>
<p>Yet these issues are perhaps nothing compared to the prospect following the fast-approaching referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU.</p>
<p>But is this really a threat to science? Look at Switzerland, it is a successful research nation and isn’t part of the EU. While it is hard to predict the outcomes of the negotiations following a Brexit, the example of Switzerland is not a promising one. After a recent vote on migration fell foul of EU free-movement legislation, Switzerland’s access to the research area was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/nov/11/whatever-you-do-dont-become-switzerland-swiss-academics-tell-uk">swiftly downgraded</a>. This crisis since been partially patched up, but not before the Swiss government had to reach into its pocket to fund the gap. The UK is in a similar position, like Switzerland we receive more than we put in.</p>
<p>Participation in EU research programmes, with all their bureaucracy, are arguably not the most efficient model for getting research done. But as <a href="http://www.intrasme.eu/">research</a> led by Coventry University and Innovation Bridge Consulting found, this isn’t what matters most to businesses. In a survey of businesses in emerging technologies, the key benefit of using European funding was not the actual research outputs, but the networks, contacts, exchange of expertise and relationships that follow from working together. Europe actually provides a massive low-risk testing ground for new alliances. </p>
<p>This is hugely important. With limited domestic funds for investment the UK needs to use all the levers it has to compete and one area where Britain excels is attracting international <a href="http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/science-and-technology/oecd-science-technology-and-industry-scoreboard-2015_sti_scoreboard-2015-en#page136">R&D business investment</a>. Yet should the UK’s relationship with the EU falter then it is not merely EU countries which may think twice about investing in UK science, but also decision-makers in San Francisco or Shanghai that benefit from the access to a broader market of talent. </p>
<p>The chancellor has come out of the Spend Review riding high, benefiting from some slight-of-hand, but also from some genuinely farsighted decisions. However as the European negotiations reach their moment of truth in December, he may find that the challenge of turning the UK into an innovation dynamo has only just begun.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Brooks does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Science and innovation in the UK may seem out of the woods following the spending review. But the EU referendum and changes to how funding is organised are potential threats.Richard Brooks, Research Associate - Centre for Business in Society, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/512722015-11-26T11:30:51Z2015-11-26T11:30:51ZWinners and losers in George Osborne’s spending review<p>George Osborne always plays the role of the smiling conjurer who pulls the rabbit out of the hat and steals the scene with aplomb. In his 2015 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spending-review-2015-a-country-that-lives-within-its-means">spending review and autumn statement</a>, the surprise announcement was that cuts to tax credit will not be as stringent as expected – although housing benefit claimers are the losers. Concealed within the chancellor’s hat are cuts of more than 50% in grants to local government and tense optimism about the growth, employment and pay forecasts on which everything depends. </p>
<p>The chart below gives the main winners and losers in the spending review over the period up to 2019-20. Cuts are legion. The winners are the big players – the NHS and pensions – both accounting for about a fifth of total spending – which receive real increases of 3 to 4%. </p>
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<p>Pensioners will <a href="https://theconversation.com/spending-review-2015-the-experts-respond-51063">benefit</a> from the transition to the new flat-rate pension from next April onwards, increasing spending in this area by some 4%. </p>
<p>International development has a 21% increase, although some of the new money will be spent to aid security objectives and <a href="https://theconversation.com/if-aid-budgets-are-used-to-help-refugees-at-home-is-it-still-foreign-aid-47331">some in the UK on Syrian refugees</a>. The new Single Intelligence Account for the security services also got a 17% increase and the Cabinet Office a 4% increase, but all are small players, together accounting for a little over 3% of total spending. </p>
<p>The middle-sized defence budget (about 5% of total spending) gains 2.3% – <a href="https://theconversation.com/britain-boosts-military-spending-heres-what-it-will-be-buying-51009">which reverses the downward trajectory</a> of recent years.</p>
<p>Low-waged earners – including those on the government’s new “living” wage to be introduced next year – can take some relief from the fact that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-tax-credits-49904">widely-trailed cuts to tax credit</a> will not be introduced. Under the plans, Osborne’s “welfare cap” – a limit on the amount to be spent on welfare – will <a href="http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/11/george-osborne-falls-into-his-own-welfare-cap-trap/">be breached</a> for the next three years, although spending will fall to the cap level by 2019-20, when it will be some 5% lower than it is currently. </p>
<p>In addition, housing benefit faces further cuts, which reduce the amount paid to renters in <a href="https://theconversation.com/spending-review-2015-the-experts-respond-51063">social housing</a>, so that benefits will in many cases not cover rent. </p>
<p>Everyone else is a clear loser, and the Treasury demonstrated that “we are all in this together” with a 24% cut. The other big losers are the small departments of environment (15%) HM Revenues and Customs (18%), the local government communities budget (29%), transport (37%) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills at 17%. The devolved administrations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland received cuts of 4 to 5%.</p>
<h2>Massive inequalities for local government</h2>
<p>Local government is unfortunately omitted from the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/spending-review-and-autumn-statement-2015-key-announcements">Treasury’s summary</a> of key announcements, which is confined to central government departments. But local government accounts for nearly 10% of spending and is credited with an increase of 22% in locally raised revenues. In return for this, they received by what is far and away the largest cut of all, of 56% in central government support to local government.</p>
<p>The settlement is at the limits of what can be achieved.</p>
<p>The overall local government spending cut is presented as 6.7%, on the assumption that councils will make up the shortfall locally. The means offered are: the retention of the proceeds of the sale of assets (mainly of land and housing) and the powers to vary the business rate and to increase council tax by 2% to fund social care. There is also some extra funding for local care and house-building programmes, and efficiency savings through devolution of responsibilities to elected authorities.</p>
<p>Central government support for councils totals some 28% of spending, but the amounts gained by individual councils vary from nearly half to about 10% of their expenditure. In general, councils with larger central support tend to be those in deprived areas and with a larger proportion of older people. These are the councils which face the heaviest demand and they will find it hardest to raise revenue locally because the money is simply not there.</p>
<p>The Local Government Association points out that councils have already experienced <a href="http://www.local.gov.uk/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=b9880109-a1bc-4c9b-84d4-0ec5426ccd26&groupId=10180">a cut of nearly 30%</a> since 2010. In the areas most harshly affected some may well fail to meet statutory responsibilities in providing care for vulnerable children and adults.</p>
<h2>Will the gains be sustained?</h2>
<p>In relation to the NHS, the increase over the period just reaches the minimum expert assessment of what is needed and <a href="http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/george-osborne-agrees-multi-billion-nhs-spending-boost-11364021014003">assumes some £22 billion in efficiency savings</a>. The NHS has made huge savings in recent years and it is very unclear whether this pressure can be sustained indefinitely.</p>
<p>It is also unclear how the expected gains of at least £5bn of extra tax revenue will be achieved as HMRC experiences further cuts of 18% and already <a href="http://economia.icaew.com/news/march-2015/fifth-of-hmrc-staff-want-to-leave">faces problems in retaining highly paid staff</a>. </p>
<p>The predictions for growth, employment, wage levels and short-term benefit levels which underlie the whole plan may prove to be optimistic. The <a href="http://budgetresponsibility.org.uk/category/topics/economic-forecasts/">Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts</a> government accounts will return to surplus by 2019-20. This is what makes it possible to mitigate the cuts to tax credit claimants and still achieve spending targets. </p>
<p>But the future is always uncertain and OBR’s growth estimates exceed the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/478521/PU797_Forecasts_for_UK_economy_343_Nov_2015.pdf">average of independent forecasters</a> from 2017 onwards. The chancellor may be pushing his luck.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Taylor-Gooby receives funding from Norface and has received funding from ESRC both of which may be affected by the Autumn Statement and Spending Review. He is a member of the Labour Party. </span></em></p>Defence wins, NHS survives and local government faces massive regional inequalities.Peter Taylor-Gooby, Professor of Social Policy, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/511612015-11-24T11:27:26Z2015-11-24T11:27:26ZThe value universities add to society<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102876/original/image-20151123-18233-11bsxuv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making the case for state funding of universities. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Students via wavebreakmedia/www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/aug/24/why-the-secrecy-mr-javid-tell-us-more-about-the-mckinsey-review">pointed</a> questions have been asked of universities about what value they add to the society that funds them. Would society suffer from lower levels of public expenditure in universities – and what would make greater public expenditure worthwhile? </p>
<p>To their credit, successive British governments have entertained a wide range of answers and strategies when addressing these questions. Ahead of a comprehensive government spending review on November 25, two major policy statements were published in just this spirit. </p>
<p>First, a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/474227/BIS-15-623-fulfilling-our-potential-teaching-excellence-social-mobility-and-student-choice.pdf">government green paper</a> on teaching excellence looked at the social value of academic training, followed by <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/478125/BIS-15-625-ensuring-a-successful-UK-research-endeavour.pdf">recommendations</a> by the president of the Royal Society, Paul Nurse, about the architecture of academic research funding. That these reports are quite different in conception and character points to a much deeper problem.</p>
<p>From the standpoint of the state’s balance sheet, a university is basically a provider of two or three social services: teaching, research and maybe the sort of thing that Americans call “extension”, such as public engagement and practical applications, which typically happen off campus. </p>
<p>Of course, the state is rightly concerned about all these things – but it understands them largely as separate matters. You would never guess from the state’s balance sheet that all of these services might be performed by the same entity, sometimes even by the same members of that entity – a university.</p>
<h2>Teacher-researchers</h2>
<p>Efforts to determine the value added by universities to society often fail to recognise the university’s corporate integrity. Yet university administrators are reminded of this point whenever they make an academic hiring decision. Academics do not simply teach and do research: they are teacher-researchers. It is the value added to society by nurturing this complex role that should be at the forefront of the state’s thinking about the criteria used to fund universities.</p>
<p>After all, even advanced technical training can be provided more efficiently than by attending university. There are also more efficient places to work to produce innovative research than a university. Nevertheless, the corporate integrity of the university rests on the idea that teaching and research should be conducted, if not by the same people, then at least by people in regular contact with each other. </p>
<p>It follows that the value added by universities to society should be judged by the difference that this idea makes to the quality of the training and research provided – with the understanding that the market is open to other providers specialising in either training or research exclusively.</p>
<p>A university-based education does more than just enable students to pass exams and acquire credentials. It exposes them to cutting edge research in their chosen field of study – even if that research is soon likely to render the “correct” answers they give on their exams obsolete.</p>
<p>University-based researchers take their work to be of value not merely to like-minded researchers but, at least in principle, to any interested intelligent person, including those sceptical of the fundamental premises of that research. These matters are reflected in, say, regularly updated course outlines and ongoing public engagement. But it would not necessarily be reflected in evaluations by students of their course lecturer or, for that matter, academic peer evaluation on which research publication is based. </p>
<p>So does such the teacher-researcher role add sufficient value to society to be worthy of sustained and dedicated funding? Flesh-and-blood academics all too often fall short of performing this distinctive hybrid role. But here the state’s balance sheet bears a major share of the blame. </p>
<p>As long as universities derive a significant part of their income from addressing teaching and research as separate matters, administrators will try to game the system to maximise each function separately in their hiring decisions and internal allocation of resources. </p>
<p>In effect, the university will <a href="https://theconversation.com/ranking-universities-on-excellent-teaching-will-be-better-for-everyone-44256">be segregated</a> into “teachers” and “researchers”, both on short term contracts and neither with an incentive to engage with the other’s activities. This tendency may be the biggest long-term threat to the university’s corporate integrity, insofar as the its unique selling point is its staff who are both teachers and researchers at once.</p>
<h2>Honour to Humboldt</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/102874/original/image-20151123-18264-cl4mq8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Prussian philosopher Wilheim von Humboldt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_von_Humboldt#/media/File:W.v.Humboldt.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
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<p>But why should the state, as the custodian of society, be interested in sustaining the teacher-researcher role that underwrites the university’s corporate integrity? The answer is a version of the original one put forward by Wilhelm von Humboldt, the great philosopher-administrator of the modern university, 200 years ago. His <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Wilhelm-baron-von-Humboldt">vision</a> contributed to a successful strategy for propelling Germany onto the world stage at a time when it was playing catch-up with the economic and political innovations emanating from Britain and France.</p>
<p>There is much talk <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/mar/18/britain-needs-innovation-economy">among politicians</a> – but also increasingly scientists – about the need to foster a “climate of innovation”, but fidelity to the concept requires more than using the word “innovation” a lot and boosting each and every crazy idea to “paradigm-shifting” status. Rather, it involves the public’s exposure – both in and out of the classroom – to people who embody the dynamic rush of intellectual life yet manage to bring it into focus so as to live up to the Enlightenment motto: “Knowledge is power”. </p>
<p>These people – “academics” in Humboldt’s original sense – inspire by pointing the way forward. They routinely move others away from their comfort zones, as they move themselves from their own. It is in this deep sense that universities provide a “climate of innovation” which merits continued state support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steve Fuller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As budgets get squeezed, universities are fighting to prove their worth.Steve Fuller, Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.