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Funding is slashed at top research colleges
Anna Davis05.03.09
SOME of London's most prestigious universities will miss out on vital funding after having research grants reduced today.
Imperial College, UCL, and King's College London are among those allocated grant increases below the rate of inflation - effectively cutting their funding for research and teaching.
Other universities, including the London School of Economics, will lose out on money because of changes to the way grants are handed out. The Higher Education Funding Council for England set aside money for science subjects, but LSE does not offer traditional science courses.
LSE's funding has been cut by 13 per cent and it has to look for alternative sources of funding.
Sir Roy Anderson, rector of Imperial College, said the grant changes would affect important research that could help the UK out of the recession.
"At a time when the UK is looking to its science, technology and medicine powerhouses for ideas and innovations to help lead the economic recovery, it can't have been intended that we could be reducing the share of research funds to institutions which have demonstrated sustained excellence across successive research assessments.
"Spreading our resources more thinly, at a time when budgets will come under increasing pressure, can serve only to reduce UK higher education's contribution to solving some of these critical research issues.
"It is surprising that Imperial College London, ranked top of all UK institutions for its proportion of research judged world-leading or internationally excellent, should suffer a real decline in its allocation of research funding."
Shadow universities secretary, David Willetts, said: "The cut in funding for some of our leading institutions is a mess of ministers' own making. It is the wholly predictable result of their policy to spread money too thinly and it is a great pity that our world-class institutions like Imperial and the LSE have lost out, especially when we need them so badly at tough times like this."
Almost £8billion was allocated to universities and colleges today for 2009-2010, an overall increase of four per cent on last year. This included £4.8billion for teaching and £1.5billion for research.
Sally Hunt, from the University and College Union, said: "Gordon Brown is right to earmark science as a key area, especially during the current recession. However, in order for science to play a key role in helping lift the UK out of recession, it has to be properly supported in our universities."
The funding council's chief executive, Professor David Eastwood, insisted the announcement represented "a good settlement" for universities.
He said universities should not have been surprised that part of the research funding was reserved for science, but acknowledged they would need to "plan prudently and invest selectively".
Universities secretary John Denham said British higher education would remain "world class": "By 2011 funding for higher education will be 30 per cent higher than in 1997."
