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| What does the spending review mean for science and innovation? | What does the spending review mean for science and innovation? |
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| The research community was braced for bad news in today’s spending review, with the unprotected Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) expected to face severe cuts. With expectations managed downwards, the announcement of a 17 per cent cut in the BIS budget was far better than feared. George Osborne then followed this with a commitment to protect the budget for science “in real terms so it rises to £4.7 billion.” | The research community was braced for bad news in today’s spending review, with the unprotected Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) expected to face severe cuts. With expectations managed downwards, the announcement of a 17 per cent cut in the BIS budget was far better than feared. George Osborne then followed this with a commitment to protect the budget for science “in real terms so it rises to £4.7 billion.” |
| Other research-related announcements in the spending review include: | Other research-related announcements in the spending review include: |
| So what does all this amount to? Should researchers be toasting the Chancellor for his foresight and commitment, or cursing him for his failure to invest more? We asked a few scientists and policy experts for their reactions. | So what does all this amount to? Should researchers be toasting the Chancellor for his foresight and commitment, or cursing him for his failure to invest more? We asked a few scientists and policy experts for their reactions. |
| Athene Donald, professor of experimental physics and master of Churchill College, University of Cambridge | |
| It is good to know that some of the more apocalyptic predictions for the research base have not come to pass as a result of George Osborne’s statement today: a mere 17% cut to BIS’s budget. For science, it is encouraging to see that, not only do we have flat cash promised, but we have flat cash in real terms. The erosion of the science ring-fence by inflation since 2010 has been a major cause for concern; the news that this time around the money will be held at £4.7m in real terms is therefore very welcome. We also learn that Sir Paul Nurse’s recommendations will be taken forward (all of them?) and the new body he wanted to see come in above the seven Research Councils, what he termed Research UK, will be set up. Of course, how much this is welcomed by the community in due course will very much depend on who gets the top job and what power the Ministerial Committee he also recommended retains for itself. Will this be the death of the Haldane Principle, as Pallab Ghosh seems to fear, or will it just mean that senior ministers stay well-informed about science? The statement today cannot tell us and, as on so many fronts, the devil will be in the detail to be worked up in the months ahead. | |
| Athene Donald is on Twitter as @AtheneDonald | |
| David Walker, head of policy at the Academy of Social Sciences | |
| Assuming no great changes in the social science share of revenue and capital within the overall science budget, the picture is broadly (though somewhat shrinking) status quo for the next five years. What that means is that the Economic and Social Research Council should, just about, be able to maintain its core commitments and backing for its big data investments, including Understanding Society, the longitudinal studies and projects on business data – but also that the success ratio in applications for research grants will get even tighter than its current 6 per cent level. But will the ESRC exist? Ahead, for social science, lies the major challenge of getting its voice heard as the research councils are restructured (phased out?) and replaced by the new superstructure of Research UK, proposed in the Nurse Review. Their vocal chords are going to have to be exercised even more if Research UK takes over grants to universities from Hefce – both within individual universities and, critically, to ensure the criteria for distributing grants recognise how social science is done, its impact and the fallibility of simply counting articles published in peer-reviewed journals with bibliometrics. Social science research may also be a casualty of the cuts in Whitehall spending. Research staff and research commissioning by departments and agencies are bound to feel the effects of the substantial reductions in ‘administration’ announced by the Treasury. While the relative increase in the budget for the Office of National Statistics is welcome, National Statistician John Pullinger and colleagues need resources to prepare for the decennial census due in 2021, maintain the quality of social and economic indicators and meet the need for better measures of wellbeing. | |
| David Walker is on Twitter as @exauditor77 | |
| Professor Stephen Curry, professor of structural biology at Imperial College and vice-chair of Science is Vital | |
| Who knows how many of the postcards sent in by the supporters of the Science is Vital campaign the Chancellor George Osborne actually read? In all likelihood, very few – if any. But it does look as if the message got through: science remains vital to the UK and the R&D budget will be protected in real terms between now and 2020. That’s a better settlement than the flat cash deal in 2010 and a better settlement than was feared in the run up to today’s announcement. | Who knows how many of the postcards sent in by the supporters of the Science is Vital campaign the Chancellor George Osborne actually read? In all likelihood, very few – if any. But it does look as if the message got through: science remains vital to the UK and the R&D budget will be protected in real terms between now and 2020. That’s a better settlement than the flat cash deal in 2010 and a better settlement than was feared in the run up to today’s announcement. |
| Although the full detail has yet to emerge, it appears that the £500m increase by 2020 will be achieved by incorporating a £1.5 billion Global Challenges fund that will also be counted within the government’s overseas aid budget. This enables the government to stick by the commendable commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on overseas development. But the settlement begs a couple of big questions. For one, if George Osborne sees such value in public R&D investments, why not make a similar long-term commitment to research spending as a percentage of GDP, to the G8 average figure of 0.7% for example? | Although the full detail has yet to emerge, it appears that the £500m increase by 2020 will be achieved by incorporating a £1.5 billion Global Challenges fund that will also be counted within the government’s overseas aid budget. This enables the government to stick by the commendable commitment to spending 0.7% of GDP on overseas development. But the settlement begs a couple of big questions. For one, if George Osborne sees such value in public R&D investments, why not make a similar long-term commitment to research spending as a percentage of GDP, to the G8 average figure of 0.7% for example? |
| For another, how will the Global Challenges fund – which represents a hefty 6% of the R&D spend over the next five years – be allocated? By research councils? Or by the new over-arching body, Research UK, envisioned in the Nurse report? Will it support curiosity-driven research that might lead to discoveries or new technologies to address? Perhaps is it appropriate to direct 6% of spending to this area – to tackle climate change or emerging diseases? These and other questions deserve serious and open debate in the weeks and months to come. | |
| Stephen Curry is on Twitter as @Stephen_Curry | |
| Dr Jenny Rohn, Principal Research Associate, UCL Division of Medicine and chair of Science is Vital | |
| As a practicing cell biologist working on infectious diseases, I exist in a complex ecosystem in which research funding is the key nutrient. From critical levels of antibiotic resistance to outbreaks of emerging pathogens, the time to invest in such research has never been more critical. But since the cash freeze of 2010, the nutrients have become increasingly scarce. | |
| I have seen great lines of research stalled, labs shut, and colleagues leave the country - or research altogether. We scientists are always asked to do ‘more with less’, but I’ve seen with my own eyes that there is a theoretical threshold below which a lot of work with great potential has fallen - and floundered. | |
| At the face of it, today’s settlement for UK science seems like a lifeline researchers across the nation should be happy about. But though it could have been much worse, I’m still worried about science’s long-term health. As this infographic from Scienceogram predicts, the real-terms protection and modest boost bestowed to us by George Osborne will still leave us worse off in 2020 than we were in 2010. What we really badly needed was a robust real-terms investment - and a long-term plan. | |
| What’s more, once the dust settles and the details emerge, it may turn out that the fence around the science budget is more porous than it was before, and that additions to this budget will dilute its overall value. To those researchers at the coal face who rely on grants to keep up their excellent and important work, this might be as damaging as a bona fide cut. The scientific community will watch and wait to see how it pans out. But today, we’ll breathe a momentary sigh of relief, and do so in the knowledge that we fought hard to make our voices heard. | |
| Jenny Rohn is on Twitter as @JennyRohn | |
| Stian Westlake, executive director of policy and research at Nesta | |
| I suppose we should be glad that science funding has been spared anything worse. Keeping science funding level in real terms in the coming 5 years is more generous than most people expected (assuming there are no nasty surprises in the fine print). | I suppose we should be glad that science funding has been spared anything worse. Keeping science funding level in real terms in the coming 5 years is more generous than most people expected (assuming there are no nasty surprises in the fine print). |
| But science does not equal innovation. And wider innovation funding seems not to have fared well. Innovate UK, which allocates about £600m of innovation support money, will see its funding cut in real terms (the “flat cash” settlement science received under the Coalition). While the increase in spending on Catapult centres is welcome, if it simply comes from within the overall Innovate UK pot, something else will lose out. | But science does not equal innovation. And wider innovation funding seems not to have fared well. Innovate UK, which allocates about £600m of innovation support money, will see its funding cut in real terms (the “flat cash” settlement science received under the Coalition). While the increase in spending on Catapult centres is welcome, if it simply comes from within the overall Innovate UK pot, something else will lose out. |
| More challengingly, £165m of its grants are to be changed into loans and “new financial products”. It’s possible that this may not make much of a difference (Finland and Israel, both countries that do innovation well provide funding that has to be repaid under some circumstances), but it will be a challenge to design funding terms that meets the Treasury’s goals for repayable but that are still enticing to businesses. | More challengingly, £165m of its grants are to be changed into loans and “new financial products”. It’s possible that this may not make much of a difference (Finland and Israel, both countries that do innovation well provide funding that has to be repaid under some circumstances), but it will be a challenge to design funding terms that meets the Treasury’s goals for repayable but that are still enticing to businesses. |
| Merging Innovate UK into the new Research UK gives me pause for thought. Nesta’s research on innovation agencies suggests they do well when kept some distance from government; if the merger involves greater centralised control, or subordinates innovation to the agenda of science, that could present a problem. Optimistically, it might offer a way of aligning aspects of science funding with societal and economic needs (though I don’t hold my breath). Again, the devil is in the detail. | Merging Innovate UK into the new Research UK gives me pause for thought. Nesta’s research on innovation agencies suggests they do well when kept some distance from government; if the merger involves greater centralised control, or subordinates innovation to the agenda of science, that could present a problem. Optimistically, it might offer a way of aligning aspects of science funding with societal and economic needs (though I don’t hold my breath). Again, the devil is in the detail. |
| There are other interesting morsels scattered through the budget. Increases in innovation spending by DECC and MOD, a new fund for research into global challenges (a nod to Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton’s ideas on how best to help poor countries?) and centres for research into dementia and “cyber” (the spirit of 1996 lives!) all look like good news. But it’s not always easy to tell where the money is coming from, how much of this is truly new, and whether it makes up for the reductions at Innovate UK. | There are other interesting morsels scattered through the budget. Increases in innovation spending by DECC and MOD, a new fund for research into global challenges (a nod to Nobel Laureate Angus Deaton’s ideas on how best to help poor countries?) and centres for research into dementia and “cyber” (the spirit of 1996 lives!) all look like good news. But it’s not always easy to tell where the money is coming from, how much of this is truly new, and whether it makes up for the reductions at Innovate UK. |
| On the whole, it looks like once again, innovation has emerged as the poor relation to science. This is an age-old British failing, and one that Chancellor would do well to reconsider in the future. | |
| Stian Westlake is on Twitter as @stianwestlake | |
| Nicola Perrin, Head of Policy at the Wellcome Trust | |
| I am relieved that the Government has protected the current level of investment in UK science in real terms – an outcome which is much more positive than we had feared at times over the last few months. The devil may well be in the detail, and we will obviously be examining the full implications of the spending review over the next days and weeks as further information about the departmental settlements becomes clear. But my initial reaction is that there are both positives and potential negatives in today’s announcements. | |
| On the plus side, the Chancellor’s commitment to science was again clear. He explicitly recognised the importance of backing science, with medical research in genomics, drug-resistant infection and dementia all mentioned specifically. Despite cuts of 25% to the Department of Health, the R&D budget there has been protected. The budget for Innovate UK has not been ‘tucked under’ the ring fence, as some had predicted, but it has been protected, and although some of this funding will be switched from grants to loans, some grants to small companies will still remain. Maintaining this diversity of funding for SMEs is critical. | |
| One the other hand, something we will want to explore in more detail is the impact of a greater proportion of the science budget funding coming from Overseas Development Aid (ODA). The new £1.5 billion Global Challenges Research Fund initially sounds positive, helping to ensure that UK research tackles global challenges and addresses the problems of those in developing countries. But it will be important to consider the implications of Research Councils needing to identify research that is “ODA-eligible”, and we are aware that it has not always been easy to get similar money out of the door, for example with the Newton Fund. | |
| This will presumably be something for the new Research UK to consider. It was good to hear the Chancellor commit to implementing the recommendations of the Nurse review, and we will respond to the detail through the HE Green Paper consultation. However, the significant changes to universities and the research funding landscape that are proposed by Nurse and the Green Paper may well have much more fundamental consequences to UK research than today’s announcements. | |
| The Wellcome Trust is on Twitter as @wellcometrust | |
| Dr Rebecca Lumsden, Head of Science Policy, Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry | |
| Initial reading of todays’ Spending Review suggests that the Chancellor and Treasury have heard the messages the broader life science community have been delivering all summer – that sustained and stable government funding for science and innovation is essential for maintaining the UK’s “Premier League” status in the life sciences and thereby attracting inward investment into the UK. With announcements that the science budget is protected in real-terms until 2020 and a flat-cash settlement for Innovate UK, instead of the potential 25-40% cuts that had been rumoured, the broader research and innovation community may be forgiven for a sigh of relief tonight. Added to that are additional funding commitments including protection of the R&D budget within the Department of Health, which includes the National Institute for Health Research, which is essential in delivering clinical research within the NHS. | |
| Compared to some of the deeper departmental cuts announced in the Budget we must welcome the Government’s recognition of the importance that world-leading science brings to the economy and UK patients. However, without sight of the full details we should wait before celebrating until the full impact of the spending review on science and innovation spending can be calculated. For example, we need to hear more details on today’s announcement for a new ‘global challenges fund’, which claims a sizeable £1.5 billion of the existing science budget. | |
| In addition, the proposed review of the Research Excellence Framework, the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy and the integration of Innovate UK into Research UK, just as the Nurse Review findings are implemented, are likely to cause upheaval; some thought needs to be given to ensure that this doesn’t derail the UK’s global competitiveness in science and innovation. The Spending Review may have delivered sustained funding, but we also must ensure a stable research environment if the UK is to continue to compete globally. | |
| The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry is on Twitter as @ABPI_UK | |
| James Wilsdon, chair of the Campaign for Social Science and professor of science and democracy at the University of Sussex | |
| The Campaign for Social Science welcomes the relative protection given to the science budget in the spending review, but it’s premature to see this as a good outcome for the long term health of the UK’s research base, until we have the full details on which to base an evidence-informed judgement. | The Campaign for Social Science welcomes the relative protection given to the science budget in the spending review, but it’s premature to see this as a good outcome for the long term health of the UK’s research base, until we have the full details on which to base an evidence-informed judgement. |
| In 2015-2016, the science budget allocation was £4,691m, so a headline commitment to “protecting today’s £4.7 billion science resource funding in real terms”, in an almost zero-inflation environment, means no more than continued flat cash. We also need to understand what is being tucked into that £4.7 billion, and how much will be transferred across from DfID’s aid budget – for example, the £1.5 billion for the Global Challenges Fund – and with what constraints. | In 2015-2016, the science budget allocation was £4,691m, so a headline commitment to “protecting today’s £4.7 billion science resource funding in real terms”, in an almost zero-inflation environment, means no more than continued flat cash. We also need to understand what is being tucked into that £4.7 billion, and how much will be transferred across from DfID’s aid budget – for example, the £1.5 billion for the Global Challenges Fund – and with what constraints. |
| Similarly, the Chancellor’s commitment to implement the Nurse Review leaves open lots of questions about how the newly merged body – Research UK – will operate in practice. Will its new cross-disciplinary fund be top-sliced, and how much will this erode existing research council budgets? Will the non-loan elements of Innovate UK’s budget be included? And how will the quality-related elements of the dual support system be protected? | Similarly, the Chancellor’s commitment to implement the Nurse Review leaves open lots of questions about how the newly merged body – Research UK – will operate in practice. Will its new cross-disciplinary fund be top-sliced, and how much will this erode existing research council budgets? Will the non-loan elements of Innovate UK’s budget be included? And how will the quality-related elements of the dual support system be protected? |
| On top of the many questions posed in the HE green paper, and the considerable scope for flexible interpretation of Nurse’s recommendations, we now have an additional review – announced today – of the Research Excellence Framework. Will this be an in-house exercise within BIS, or an open, transparent process, to which the research community can submit evidence? A huge amount is still up in the air, and until all of the pieces land, and can be properly assembled, we won’t really know where we stand. | |
| James Wilsdon is on Twitter as @jameswilsdon |