HEFCE launches post-RAE consultation

by William Cullerne Bown

The consultation on replacing the Research Assessment Exercise with a metrics-based approach, at least in the sciences and medicine, has just been launched by the HEFCE.

HEFCE's published a Consultation document and two reports that it has been looking at, a general one from the bibliometric team at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and a smaller one on interdisciplinary research from Evidence in Leeds. The main web page for what's now termed the "Research Excellence Framework" is here.

There'll be more here later in the day, but my first impressions are that there are few surprises in the proposals. Outside of six subject groupings (three for medicine, three for the rest of science), "light touch" peer review will be retained. In the sciences, universities will choose the staff to submit and assessment will then be based on bibliometrics, research income and numbers of postgraduate students.

There's no mention of selecting papers, so although it's not stated, it seems HEFCE is leaning towards assessing all publications, which could have a big impact on the willingness of academics to publish work they expect to get a low citation count, often for users. This isn't tackled directly, but HEFCE's flagging behavioural consequences as a concern and asking people to suggest additional metrics that could allow it to measure the value of research to users. 

Rather alarmingly for those who hoped the end of the RAE would eliminate a huge swathe of work, HEFCE talks about increases in workload in the short term. The issue seems to be in verifying who has actually published what, despite the promise of new technology.

And HEFCE's already flagging that the timetable for doing all of this is short and that it may struggle to find the expert resources it needs to make it all a success.

Colin Macilwain leaves Nature for editor’s chair at ResearchResearch

by William Cullerne Bown

Well this feels like a big day. I'm stepping down from being the Editor at ResearchResearch and Colin Macilwain's taking over.

In fact, it feels like such a big day that we've even put out a press release.

Colin (left) joins after fourteen years at the journal Nature, including five years as news editor.

Nothing's happening until January, and even then I'll still be writing. In fact, I'm looking forward to spending more time with my interviews. But it still feels strange.

In the press release, I say, “Colin is an inspiring journalist. He knows more about research policy around the world than almost anybody. His concern for accuracy, relevance and - ultimately - truth has been there for everyone to see week after week in Nature. He’s a leader and I’m sure our news, both on paper and online, will flourish under his guidance.”

And anyone who knows Colin knows that's all true.

Aimless

by William Cullerne Bown

A review by the Ministry of Defence’s top civil servants has concluded that R&D at the department, on which the UK spends £2.6 billion a year, has “no unifying vision or clear strategic direction”.

"Maximising Defence Capability Through R&D" was posted unannounced by the MoD on its website earlier this month. It was written by a team co-chaired by Roy Anderson, the MoD’s Chief Scientific Adviser, and Peter Spencer, the Chief of Defence Procurement.

The review team found that R&D management is segmented, with little re-use of crosscutting technology. Development is not managed as a programme and there are no metrics to assess performance.

Interpretations of what counts as R&D differ across the MoD, leading to a lack of clarity.

The value and utility of R&D outputs are rarely measured in their own right, in part because payment milestones are not always linked to development achievements.

The review team spent part of their time looking at a sample of individual projects. Several had not been exploited successfully, nor were they likely to be in the future, thanks to lack of coordination between R&D sponsors.

The team also found that there is no central repository of knowledge and findings from MoD-funded R&D and no formal mechanism for disseminating R&D findings for possible use on other projects. The quality of road mapping and technology planning was variable, especially for immature and cross-cutting technologies.

The majority of MoD’s R&D spending results in intellectual property owned by industry to which the government enjoys user rights. This is not catalogued centrally and the team found little evidence of localised IP management. As a result, the MoD does not sufficiently value past R&D or realise its full potential benefit.

In a forward to the report, Paul Drayson, the defence minister, promises change will now be "vigorously pursued”. But that seems a pretty wimpish response to what is in reality a damning verdict on recent years at the MoD. It seems the top brass have been going into the technology battle without a plan of any kind. Feeble.

Research as subsidy

by William Cullerne Bown

Returning from the big Lisbon conference on the European Research Area, my colleague Laura Hood brought an intriguing snippet back from Brian Ager, director general of big pharma's trade association, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.

Ager was understandably unhappy about the long delays in reaching a deal between pharma firms, the Commission and member states over the Innovative Medicines Initiative. The IMI is supposed to pool public and private funds in a new, industry-led organisation to fund R&D. It's one of a series of Joint Technology Initiatives that sound nice in principle but which are bogged down in arguments over the exact terms of the deal - eg who should own the IP on resulting discoveries? This, of course, is precisely the kind of substantive issue that has already killed Plan A for the EU's Galileo satellite navigation system. So, while Ager's frustration is understandable, so is the slow progress. The EU is discovering that there ain't no deal until there's a deal.

But the thing that intrigued me was Ager's warning that, in response to the IMI, the US is already preparing its own initiative, and that this could siphon away potential investors.

Away from civil aviation, where it's been entrenched for decades, this is the first time I've seen such open competition between governments on hi-tech projects. This seems to suggest that the global competition that we're getting used to for research talent is expanding into other dimensions. It revealed in a rather crude way the attempts by big firms to play governments off against each other. And it reinforces the view that public R&D funding is, in increasingly important ways, just the last subsidy allowed by the WTO.

Manchester pushes on for a 'Big 5'

by William Cullerne Bown

Will Manchester make it? Oxford and Cambridge have always been there. Imperial and UCL have pushed on to make it a Big 4 of UK research universities in recent years. And now Manchester under John Gilbert (left) is bidding to make that a Big 5.

You can shake your head and say, "Too late". But Gilbert apparently doesn't know when he's beat. Manchester is now competing strongly with the others on research council grants. And the latest in his lengthening line of star acquisitions is John Sulston, winner of the medical Nobel, who is going to chair a new research institute focusing on ethical questions in science and technology.

Debating the TSB with David Hughes

by William Cullerne Bown

From each issue of Research Fortnight we're highlighting one article to be debated here at Exquisite Life. This week it's David Hughes critique of what's been going on at the Technology Strategy Board. He helped set the thing up, so is in an interesting position to judge progress. But that doesn't mean you'll agree with his conclusions. So please use the Comments option at the end of his article to kick off the debate.

And this week we've actually posted four articles from Research Fortnight analysing the Sainsbury Review. So there's nothing to stop you commenting on those pieces from Luke Georghiou, Jonathan Adams or Rebecca Boden instead if you find them more interesting.

CSR Update

by William Cullerne Bown

Apologies to those of you who came on Tuesday evening looking for our CSR update. We were here writing (and got the news out to subscribers yesterday afternoon in the Research Day UK email), but ran into technical difficulties with our blog hosts, TypePad. These are now resolved, so on with the show.

We've now got the press release from DIUS and responses from RCUK and CASE.

Stephen Cox at the Royal Society put this out: “The government have put down a clear marker in support of science. They are determined to see science play a key role in the economy and in improving the general health and welfare of people in the UK and beyond. The UK already has a world leading position in research excellence. Today’s announcement will allow the current volume of research to be properly funded, the scientific infrastructure to be maintained and the UK to keep its leading position.”

As the dust settles

by William Cullerne Bown

Overall, the tone of the reaction today - emphasised off the record - is that most readers have found the review worthy but dull. I seem to find it more interesting than most (see Sainsbury's new ideology), but am also more sceptical about the likelihood of the important bits being implemented.

I started the day wondering how it would compare with Ian Taylor's task force report for the Conservatives. The answer is, it's a dead heat: they've both come up with a headline promising £1bn for their preferred hi-tech funding agency, the Technology Strategy Board in Labour's case and the Innovative Products Agency in Taylor's.

Universities I think will be most directly interested in the HEIF language. We've known for a long time that a switch from competition to formula was coming, but now we have a political steer on the kind of formula to expect.

The review invents a new category of institution, the "business-facing university". No vice-chancellor these days is going to accept that theirs is anything but a BFU, and Universities UK has politely pointed this out already. But the language is still significant. Basically, I think it means that the cap limiting how much the Russell Group can get will remain, ensuring that smaller but increasingly respected places such as Hertfordshire, De Montfort and Manchester Met will get strong support. HEIF will remain a broad church with around 75 per cent of institutions getting significant funding. My bet is that the Comprehensive Spending Review on Tuesday will push HEIF's budget to around £150m by year three.

I'm extremely dubious about the schools agenda, and find it depressing to see the BBC and other media going with the flakiest part of the whole thing. Action's needed no doubt, but I don't think the government has the teachers or schools to do it. I'd like to see a survey of timetables in one or two inner city areas this year to see how many actually are offering the triple science option ministers have promised to any of their pupils.

I hope you've found Day 1 of our blog interesting. Check back next week for the big spending decisions, and reports from Laura Hood at the big Lisbon conference on the European Research Area. Meanwhile, why not add your own thoughts on the whole thing using the Comment option below?

Sainsbury URL

by William Cullerne Bown

And here's the report.

Recommendations accepted

by William Cullerne Bown

And here's the press release from DIUS saying the government accepts Sainsbury's recommendations.

Sainsbury's new ideology

by William Cullerne Bown

If implemented - and that's a big if - the recommendations in the Sainsbury review would set Britain's research and innovation policy off in a significantly new direction, albeit with some tentative steps at first.

The document is talking a language that's new to the British government, referring for example to a "National Innovation Ecology". It raises the prospect of using some of the big levers government has - but currently doesn't use - to promote innovation. These are things like market regulation, government procurement and the activity of all those non-techy government departments.

Conceptually, David Sainsbury seems to have bought into the more holistic, dynamic approach to innovation articulated at the European level by the former Finnish prime minister Esko Aho and at the University of Manchester by Luke Georghiou. But the recommendations are still nervous. There's nothing, for example, with the ambition to match Aho's EU plan for "Lead Markets" where all the lever's at the disposal of ministers are used to stimulate a native hi-tech industry in an emerging sector.

The main policy tool for doing all this seems to be the Technology Strategy Board, to which Sainsbury wants to give a flood of new powers and influence. The issue is going to be whether the rest of government will wear it. David Hughes, who when he was at the DTI was the inspiration behind the TSB, is writing about this for us in next week's issue of Research Fortnight.

Rate of return

by William Cullerne Bown

Now the embargo has expired we can start publishing our analysis. A fuller rundown and reaction will follow, but first let's deal with the venture capital thing.

It's a bit difficult to understand in the text (page 97). What happened was that in 2001 the DTI gave £20m to Capital Dynamics to invest in hi-tech firms. Other investors put in another £106m, bringing the total managed by Capital Dynamics to £126m. The review says "returns to the fund have been impressive", which sounds good.

But hang on. The fund had a profits target to meet, an internal rate of return of 10 per cent. It hasn't made it. As a result, if I've got this right, the government is now starting to pay out compensation to the other investors. The review says this could be up to £20m.

The review makes a plea for tolerance. "It should be recognised by the Government, however, that returns to such investments will not be immediate, requiring a long-term commitment to deliver funding. Funds’ success measures should reflect this," it argues.

But it seems to me that the hard-nosed people in the Treasury are more likely to conclude that the experiment has failed and the taxpayer is picking up the bill.

I'm tempted to say that if the halfwits at Capital Dynamics can't manage to get a 10 per cent IRR, then they should give the money to someone who can, Tom Blundell perhaps.

Presentation, presentation, presentation

by William Cullerne Bown

Number 10 has made some interesting arrangements for the launch of the Sainsbury review this morning. It starts with Gordon Brown, David Sainsbury and Ian Pearson answering questions from a hand-picked group, mainly venture capital folk as far as we can tell. Then the Prime Minister goes off and the hacks are allowed to quiz the junior staff. It's a recipe that's bound to irritate the press pack.

And it has left me with a question as I sit down to start reading the review. Will it tell us what has actually happened to the millions that the government has entrusted to the VCs at Capital Dynamics to fund hi-tech firms?

Sainsbury Review out tomorrow

by William Cullerne Bown

Well the Sainsbury review is coming out at last. It was supposed to be June, now it's October. The launch is at Number 10 tomorrow morning, which presumably means Labour thinks it has a pre-election bullet in its hands. It'll be interesting to see how it measure up against Ian Taylor's proposals for the Conservatives, published last month.

Meanwhile, welcome to the blog. Here's a picture of me. If there's an election, it's going to get quite busy...