Universities

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, for securing this important and timely debate, and for her excellent introduction to the topic. I declare my interest as an emeritus professor of biology at Oxford University and as the cofounder and chairman of a university spinout company providing software to the financial services industry.

I wish to speak about research in our universities. As has often been repeated, we have a number of truly world-class research universities in this country. Only the US has universities of comparable stature. There may be many reasons for that, but one point to note is that the institutional structure of research in the UK is more similar to that of the US than, for instance, that of France and Germany, where research institutes take a bigger share of the research landscape.

When the late Lord May of Oxford was government chief scientist, he analysed the relative performance of the UK in science and showed convincingly that we outperform most other countries in scientific quality and output per pound. He speculated that one of the reasons might be that we invest in research in universities as opposed to separate research institutes. As Gordon Moore, the creator of Moore’s law and the former CEO of Intel, put it: invest in research in universities and you get three bangs per buck—research, innovation and education—but invest in institutes and you get only two.

I shall make one simple point about investment in research in our universities: the quality of research in our top universities today is a reflection of investment made decades ago—not last year, not in the last five years, but probably during at least the last 30 years. You cannot simply turn research on and off; it is a long-term venture and therefore deserves a long-term strategy. That is true whether you are talking about the basic discoveries of pure research or their translation into outcomes that save lives, save the environment and are a source of prosperity. It took Dorothy Hodgkin, Britain’s only female Nobel laureate, 35 years of research at Oxford University to elucidate the structure of insulin. The Oxford malaria vaccine was the result of 20 years of research effort.

If we look to the future, we see that the system that has brought us success in the past is under serious threat. In 2022-23 there was an estimated £5.3 billion deficit in university research funding. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, has said, research in universities really is reliant on cross-subsidies from other activities, and that is not really sustainable.

There are two main reasons for the deficit. First, research is not funded at full economic cost. The estimate in the blueprint report is that about 69% of FEC is recovered by universities. Secondly, as has been mentioned, the QR funding stream is not sufficient to fill that gap; it has declined by 15% over the past decade. Across the university sector, the cross-subsidy for research from overseas students and from other activities accounts for over one-third of research income, compared with only one-sixth of research income from UKRI, the major government funding agency. Paradoxically, the more successful a university is in securing research funding, the bigger the gap that has to be filled. Last year Oxford University secured £789 million of research income, the highest of any university, but that poses a massive financial problem for the university in cross-subsidising that income from other sources.

The truth is that we are not investing enough public money in research. Our public investment in R&D is 0.5% of GDP, which places us 27th out of 36 OECD nations—less than the OECD average of 0.6% and substantially less than countries such as South Korea, Germany and the United States, which invest between 0.66% and 0.99% of GDP.

It may be several decades before we see the full effect of the squeeze on university research, and by the time it becomes acute it will be too late. However, there are already warning signs. Between 2016 and 2020 there was a 17% drop in the UK’s share of highly cited papers, one of the key metrics of our performance. If our research quality and output drops, so will our future economic performance. Wealth creation in the future will depend on brain, not brawn. Crucially, it is likely to come from unexpected discoveries motivated by pure curiosity.

I end with three questions. First, does the Minister agree that we need to take a long-term view of research in our universities, with a long-term commitment? Secondly, does she agree that our public spend on research is too low? If we are not prepared to create more jam, should we try to spread the jam less thinly? Thirdly, does she have a view on what proportion of publicly funded research in universities should be ring-fenced for pure curiosity-driven research, which is likely to be, in unexpected ways, the source of future prosperity?

Higher Education Funding

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Krebs]

That this House takes note of the current challenges of higher education funding.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to introduce this debate. I thank my fellow Cross-Benchers who voted for it. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Tarassenko, who has chosen to give his maiden speech during the debate; I very much look forward to hearing what he has to say, alongside the contributions of other noble Lords.

When I proposed the debate, my title was “The Crisis in Higher Education Funding”, but the Table Office, in its wisdom, preferred the more neutrally worded Motion we are debating today. While recognising the importance of all HEI providers, I will talk particularly about universities in England. As I started to think about today’s debate, I wanted to begin with a fact, so I asked myself: how many universities are there in England? I contacted the Higher Education Policy Institute, and its chief executive said to me:

“That is a fascinating question and almost impossible to answer”.


His best guess is around 150. I checked with the Higher Education Statistics Agency—HESA—which said that, unfortunately, its open data does not list universities. However, it tells us that there are 285 HEI providers. The Office for Students has 121 universities in England on its register. There are 141 members of Universities UK, most of which are in England. Can the Minister, in her response, tell us how many universities there are in England? She is quickly texting to find out.

Regardless of the precise number, we should be in no doubt that our universities are facing a funding crisis. This is not a case of “Crisis? What crisis?”. The interim chair of the Office for Students, Sir David Behan, has referred to a “significant” funding crisis and has said that universities “can’t just carry on”. In its insight briefing of May this year, the OfS notes that 74 of England’s universities will run a deficit in 2024-25 and that the forecasts of recovery in future years made by universities are based on overly optimistic assumptions, so that by 2026-27 nearly two-thirds are likely to be in deficit. The OfS concludes:

“The current financial climate could mean that some universities and colleges face closure”.


It refers to

“the unplanned closure of a university, perhaps in the middle of an academic year, without arrangements in place to support students to complete their courses”.

The OfS clearly takes this seriously, as it has launched a £4 million tender for auditors to analyse what the document describes as “market exits”. Universities themselves are responding to the crisis. Estimates suggest that about 70 universities have in place redundancy programmes or are closing courses or departments.

The main factors leading to this funding crisis are well known and include the following. First, the student fee has not increased since 2016 and therefore has been eroded by about 30% in real terms. The Russell group estimates that its members lose £2,500 per year for every home student they teach. Secondly, most if not all universities have become dependent on income from overseas students to subsidise the rest of their activities. Thirdly, the number of overseas applicants for taught master’s courses has dropped following changes in the visa rules that prevent them bringing families with them.

In addition to these three core reasons, there are other factors. Many universities, for example, have ageing buildings that require upgrading to meet net-zero requirements. Government grants to universities have gone down from 30% to a mere 13% of income in the past 10 years. In my own university, Oxford, out of a £1.6 billion income, 11% comes from government grants. Furthermore, research funding from the Government and from charities does not cover the full costs so, paradoxically, the more successful a university is at winning research grants, the further into deficit it goes. The Russell group estimates that only 69% of full economic research costs are funded. UKRI has said there is a £5.3 billion black hole in research funding. Does the Minister agree with that number? If so, does she think it matters?

Given that we know the main causes of the crisis, what are the options for responding to it? Should the Government take the view that universities are independent institutions that manage their own finances, and that the crisis will be resolved by market forces, or should they take a strategic view of the future shape of universities in this country? So far, the signals have suggested that the Government are inclined to the first of these, a laissez-faire policy, but I hope the Minister will tell us that that is not the intention.

Discussion in recent months has concentrated in particular on whether the Government would allow individual universities to go bust. For instance, on 15 August on “Channel 4 News”, the Minister was asked:

“Are you willing to see a university go bust? Because there are some institutions – you’ll know where they are – that are at that point now”.


The Minister replied:

“Yes. If it were necessary. Yes, that would have to be the situation. But I don’t want that to be necessary. I want us to find a way for there to be financial stability for universities, and most importantly, for the students that they are serving into the future”.


The Minister says that she wants to secure financial stability for universities. How might this be achieved? One answer would be simply to spend more public money on universities. Figures on the Statista website show that our public expenditure on higher education, as a proportion of GDP, is lower than any other country in Europe apart from Luxembourg, about half that of the United States and under half that of France and Germany. Nevertheless, I doubt whether the Minister will tell us that the Government’s response to the crisis is to inject more public funding.

A second option might be to reverse the visa restrictions and encourage more overseas students to come and participate in taught master’s degrees, and allow them to bring their families. According to HESA and the OfS, one in six universities earns more than a third of its income from overseas student fees, and it has been estimated by one source that at least a quarter of the total income for the sector comes from international student fees. There is the question, however, of whether it is appropriate for our universities to be dependent on the cash cow of overseas students. That is worthy of debate, and other noble Lords may wish to raise it. I do not have time to go into it, but I hope the Minister will tell us whether it is the Government’s view that dependence on this cash cow is central to their strategy for the future of the university sector.

A third option, raising the student fee from £9,250 to over £12,000, in line with inflation, would be highly unpopular and might well deter UK students from attending university. The average student debt on graduation is said to be £45,600, and the Sutton Trust reports that, for students from the poorest families, this rises to over £60,000. According to government figures, graduates pay 9% of their income once they are earning over the threshold for starting to make repayments. This is really a swingeing tax on young people. Indeed, if one considers the student loan fee as a graduate tax, those who have done introductory economics will be familiar with the Laffer curve, which might suggest that revenue to universities might actually go down rather than up if fees were increased.

However, I want to suggest that, while the Government should act to help solve the short-term crisis, there is a longer-term question: is the university sector as a whole fit for purpose? Could the crisis be turned into an opportunity to rethink the size, shape and role of the university sector? Once we know how many there are, we might be able to ask, “Is that too many or is that too few?”

The Secretary of State for Education herself has said that it may be time to “reform the system overall”. We know from history that universities are very adaptable. They have adapted in the past and, if government policy changed, universities would adapt to whatever change the Government produced. I very much hope that the Minister will tell us that the Government intend to take a strategic view of the university sector, instead of leaving it entirely to the market.

If she does, perhaps I might make one suggestion—one among many possibilities. A key objective should be to encourage greater diversity of purpose among universities. The current funding arrangements for universities tend to drive them towards convergence. They are essentially competing to climb up the same ladder and I question whether this is desirable. There is of course already considerable diversity of mission among universities and government policy could be deployed to support and encourage greater diversity.

We all know, because it is often said, that the UK has some “world-leading” universities in research and teaching. The Minister said in her Channel 4 interview:

“We’ve got world leading universities in this country. We’ve got four out of the top ten universities in the world. We’ve got 15 out of the top 100 universities”.


I believe she was referring to the recent QS rankings in which Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge and UCL were in the top 10. We are the only country other than the United States to have four in the top 10, and the 15 in the top 100 include two Scottish universities, which is not relevant to today’s debate but nevertheless a very important mark of distinction.

But, even if you take a generous view of what “world-leading” means and go further down the ranking list, a majority of English universities would not be counted as “world-class” or “world-leading”. That does not, however, diminish their importance. Some may be world-class in particular subject areas, while others might be fulfilling important roles such as technical and vocational skills training for the economy and providing training for professional qualifications such as nursing. We should celebrate and encourage this diversity of mission and ensure that government policy supports and steers it.

Suppose, for example, that we were to accept that England could afford to support a relatively small number of research-intensive universities—I put a number in my speech notes but I will not give it because that is a hostage to fortune—with global aspirations for attracting talent, being at the forefront of research in many fields and spinning out companies that will create wealth in the future. Suppose that, at the same time, we were to agree that many other universities should have, as a major part of their mission, training and skills for the local economy, working in partnership with business and complementing the excellent work of FE colleges, to build sustainable skills-based jobs in the area, alongside providing professional qualifications. This initiative could be a genuine contribution to economic growth and to supporting disadvantaged communities. Of course, the reply will be that some universities are already doing that. So what I am calling for is nothing radically new but a more overt recognition of the diverse role that universities can play and the development of government policy to support this diversity.

In summary, my proposal is that the Government should not simply stand back and allow market forces to determine the future size and shape of our university sector. Education is a public good and therefore should be shaped by what the country needs and shaped by the Government rather than by the random exigencies of the market. I have put forward one idea. There may be others for encouraging diversity of mission.

As an aside, some noble Lords may be aware that in the United States, facing declining student enrolment numbers, universities including Stanford have diversified into becoming retirement homes—university-based retirement communities. I just float the possibility that we might be able to solve the social care crisis and the university funding crisis with one manoeuvre. I am not being too optimistic there but just floating a thought.

I look forward very much to hearing what other noble Lords have to say on this and to the Minister’s reply. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate. I particularly thank my noble friend Lord Tarassenko for his excellent maiden speech and thank my noble friend Lord Mair for confirming that you cannot have too many engineers. I was beginning to worry about the balance on the Cross Benches but, fortunately, another newly appointed Cross-Bench Peer, my noble friend Lady Freeman, is, like me, a zoologist; she tells me that I taught her when she was an undergraduate at Oxford. So the balance is maintained, and I am grateful for that.

With the level of expertise in the contributions, we have been very fortunate to have the wisdom and experience of two excellent former Universities Ministers —thank you very much—as well as many other noble Lords who have worked in the higher education sector and have direct personal experience.

I do not intend at this late hour to summarise the many points that were made, but I turn to the Minister’s response, for which I thank her very much. Partly it was “wait and see”, because she said that the Government are reviewing the options for dealing with the current crisis. We have to hold our breath and hope that they come up with a solution. In the here and now, I hope I understood correctly that, on the question of research running at a deficit, the Government are minded to look for ways to increase cost recovery, so that the black hole that UKRI has identified can eventually be filled in. That I welcome very much.

I think the Minister said that she agreed with me that the time is right to take a strategic view of the higher education sector, rather than simply leaving things to the vagaries of the market. I very much welcome that. The third point I picked up was that, although the Government want to be welcoming to overseas students —in my academic career I have taught and supervised graduate students from many different countries, and they have hugely enriched my academic experience and the quality of work that goes on in this country, so I am all in favour of them—they do not intend to change the cost of visas or the current visa restrictions. It will be interesting to see how the message, “We welcome you, but actually we are not removing some of the barriers stopping you coming here”, plays out.

At this point, I simply once again thank all noble Lords who have participated, thank the Minister for her reply and close the debate.

House adjourned at 6.44 pm.

International Higher Education Students

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government absolutely agree that we need a diverse population of international students. The noble Lord mentions India and Nigeria; those were two of the countries that were specifically targeted in our International Education Strategy, and we are delighted to see how successful it has been.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords—

[Lord Morgan (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not lamentable—

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, it is not just international students who are important to our universities but international research funding. In this context, does the Minister agree with the analysis that shows that, in the two oldest universities in this country, Oxford and Cambridge—I declare an interest as a retired Oxford professor—funding from the European Union has fallen from £130 million a year to £1 million a year? What is the Government’s assessment of the impact of this loss of £129 million a year, and what are the Government going to do about it?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I cannot argue with the noble Lord’s figures; I do not have them directly in front of me. Obviously, the balance in the relationship between government and universities, as autonomous institutions, is a delicate one, which both sides respect. He will be aware that we are delighted at the EU’s recent openness to working with us on the Horizon programme.

National School Breakfast Programme

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, first, we very much look forward to the general election and at the moment it is the Labour Opposition who are blocking it. Let us deal with the core issues. We know without dispute that children growing up in a home where adults are working are around five times less likely to be in poverty than a child in a household where nobody works. Since 2010, 3.7 million more people are in work. There are 1 million fewer workless households. Children are benefiting from this, and I am very proud of our track record.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, according to the Food Foundation, there are 3.7 million children in this country living in households where a healthy diet is unaffordable. Does the Minister agree that that is a disgraceful situation for one of the wealthiest countries in the world? Can he tell us what the Government are doing to address this problem?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I come back to my answer to an earlier question. As I said, there is the top line and the micro line. Why are these families struggling? I disagree with the noble Lord opposite that it is down to austerity. I think it is down to learning more about parenting. At a meeting of a committee looking at holiday hunger, one mother said that her children go to the fridge and help themselves to food whenever they want it, whereas at school there are regular, fixed mealtimes. It is simple things such as this. We want to help parents to understand that they need to produce structure and to know how to cook healthy and affordable meals.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 11th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I wish briefly to reiterate a point made by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about primary education. As we know, universities are now taking great pains to ensure that they have relationships with senior schools to enable students to know more about going to university, giving them confidence to look at university education. As we also know, unless they have not only aspirations but good primary education, they will not be able to fulfil those aspirations in future. It is important that universities nurture relationships with primary schools so that primary school children have a vision of what they might want to aspire to in future. I know that there are some excellent organisations and charities, such as IntoUniversity, which work with primary school children to enable them to take advantage of all the opportunities that come in the future. Of course, we cannot mandate the director to do everything and he will not have the capacity, but I hope the Government are thinking about working with universities or asking the Office for Students to work with primary school children as well as those in senior schools, because that is where the flame—the aspiration—begins.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, I want very briefly to endorse the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Cambridge, on the role of access and engagement in postgraduate education and training, particularly in relation to taught and vocational master’s degrees, where there is virtually no funding from the Government any more and people have to rely on their own resources. However, if students from less well-off backgrounds are to benefit from their university education, for many career paths they will need to undertake a higher degree, particularly taught master’s degrees. I hope that we will hear something more about that from the Minister.

[Lord Willetts]

Before the noble Lord sits down, of course, he and other Cross-Benchers are absolutely right about the importance of access to postgraduate education. I am sure he would not want to miss the opportunity, therefore, to welcome the extension of student loans to master’s students, so that they will be funded on a greater scale than has ever been possible before.

[Lord Krebs]

I certainly welcome that, but it still leaves open the question of the accumulated debt.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)]

My Lords, we are effectively talking about the criteria that will be used by the relevant offices to register, deregister and reregister universities. There is not much in the Bill that tells us what the criteria are—I have an amendment later that will bear on this question. If, for example, a university put considerable and unusual effort into access provision, or indeed did nothing at all, would that affect the need to reregister, or would it enhance the position of a new institution wanting to register as participating in the whole higher education system? This is a plea for more information. Who will provide advice to the relevant offices, whether it is the Office for Fair Access or the Office for Students, in the work they carry out? This could be a crucial way of extending access.

When I was at the University of Edinburgh, the most important access work that we did was to work with a local further education college and provide a one-year programme taught jointly by the university and the college. Marvellous students went through there, one of whom ended up, interestingly, as the chair of the Scottish Funding Council for higher education. She was someone who went through this programme, came through the university and benefited from it. I should like to think that when we are discussing the quality of the education provided, this is exactly the kind of point that might be brought out and whose significance should be made something of.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Krebs Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see the Minister for Universities standing listening to our debate on this important issue. We are grateful for his attention to our comments. I will make two points from examples of my own experience; sometimes the House benefits greatly from that. I am very much aware of what the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, just said about Germany in the 1930s and the effect of government on the universities, which affected German universities for a long time after the war.

In the mid-1970s, I was a visiting professor for a year at a university in Belgium—one of the oldest universities in Europe. The department in which I worked was one of the world’s leading departments in reproductive physiology, to which came Spaniards, Italians, Brits, Americans, somebody from Australia, a large number of people from South America and some people who managed to get out of the Eastern bloc. The department worked on a major world problem—that of contraception at a time when the World Health Organization predicted that there might be as many as 100 billion people on the globe by the end of the next century. In addition, at that time in vitro fertilisation was not possible. It was a Catholic university. The head of the department, who was probably one of the most famous leading scientists and clinicians in reproductive biology in Europe, faced a considerable threat from the Church in that city. Eventually, with government support, not only was he passed over but he had to leave that environment as a result of the extreme pressure which came partly from government and partly from the Church. That kind of thing could happen again. The head of the department ended up mostly in private practice. The numerous foreign students from all over the world left that department and its huge prestige was also lost. Therefore, freedom of speech and expression in universities should be written into the Bill. I hope that the Government will look at this issue very carefully and perhaps encompass it in a definition.

The amendment refers to universities making “a contribution to society”. I work at Imperial College London and the huge contribution that has been made to society through connections with schools is extremely rewarding. As we spread our word, that has made a massive difference to the aspirations of young people, not only in the East End of London but right across the United Kingdom. More and more universities are becoming involved in developing greater connections with society. That is important for undergraduates and school students. It is vital to extend those connections. That is another reason why the wording to which I have referred, or something similar, must be included in the Bill.

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, it is perhaps not surprising that those of us who are academics are concerned about definitions because one of the things we always teach our students is to define their terms. Hence, I support this amendment which seeks to define what we are talking about. At the same time, we should recognise that over the centuries universities have changed. In England, between the 12th and the 19th centuries, there were just two universities—Oxford and Cambridge—which served largely as institutions for educating people for careers in the Church or in canon law. The modern university as we understand it, an institution which combines research and teaching, was essentially invented in Germany by Alexander von Humboldt in 1810, when he founded the University of Berlin. However, in spite of the changing details of what universities do, they have certain enduring qualities and properties that we should cherish and ensure are retained during the passage of the Bill.

I offer two quotes. We have already heard one excellent quote from the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf. One of my quotes is from the then Poet Laureate, John Masefield, when he was offered an honorary degree by the University of Sheffield in 1946. He said, among other things about a university:

“It is a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see; where seekers and learners alike, banded together in the search for knowledge, will honour thought in all its finer ways, will welcome thinkers in distress or in exile, will uphold ever the dignity of thought and learning, and will exact standards in these things”.

That is the spirit in which, during the passage of the Bill, we should consider what a university is. My second quote reverts to perhaps the most famous treatise on universities, written by John Newman in the middle of the 19th century. I will not attempt to read the whole book to your Lordships, but just one brief quote. He says that,

“a University training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political power, and refining the intercourse of private life”.

These are high-flown ambitions for universities, but ones that we should uphold today, not resorting to a purely instrumental view of universities that are there for economic benefit and training in technical skills.

[Lord Willetts (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in the Bill as a visiting professor at King’s College London, chairman of the advisory board of Times Higher Education and adviser to 2U.

We heard at Second Reading, and have already heard this afternoon, the deep concern in the House about the autonomy of our universities. I am sure that in the process of our discussions we will want to find ways of enhancing the protection of the autonomy of our universities. However, this clause is not the right way to set about it. As we have heard, this clause is the first attempt ever in British primary legislation to define what a university is. It is an ambitious project, and if I were to set up a committee to define a university, I could think of none more distinguished than the Committee in this House this afternoon. It has, however, the paradoxical effect that the first clause we are debating is a set of obligations on universities; it is formulated as a series of “musts” that universities have to do. It reflects a view of the university that is rather narrow and traditional. Of course, it is absolutely right that academic freedom is there, but it also says, for example:

“UK universities must provide an extensive range of high quality academic subjects”.

When I was Minister, I was proud to have given university status to institutions that focused on particular subjects—the Royal Agricultural College, for example, which is now a university. Are we really going to put into law a requirement that there must be an extensive range of subjects before an institution can be a university? That sets back a set of reforms not only from my time as a Minister; it goes right back to the Labour Government of 2004.

There is a long list of ways in which universities,

“must make a contribution to society”.

I do not know quite what this “must” is, but it says that they have to contribute “locally, nationally and internationally”. Does that mean that if a relationship with a local authority leader in the area breaks down, you can turn up and tell the university that it is in breach of its obligations to contribute locally? My personal view is that we should be protecting universities by putting obligations on Governments and regulators to respect their autonomy, not trying to define universities and put obligations on them.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Krebs Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 6th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Krebs (CB)]

My Lords, at academic conferences this is known as the graveyard slot and I thank you all for sticking with it. I particularly thank the noble Viscount the Minister as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and Jo Johnson for making time to meet with me to discuss the Bill. Sir John Kingman, the chairman of UKRI, has also been very helpful.

I shall spend my few minutes talking about Part 3 of the Bill on the architecture of research funding. This is an area in which I have a particular interest having spent a large part of my life leading a large research group at Oxford University and having served as the chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council.

As others have already reminded us, the UK performs extraordinarily well in scientific research. We publish 16% of the world’s most highly cited papers with about 4% of the world’s scientists. That is in spite of the fact that our publicly funded research is relatively poorly funded, accounting for about 0.5% of GDP compared with 0.77% for the G8 and 0.67% for the EU as a whole. To put it in context, our total R&D spend, public and private, per capita is just below that of Slovenia. The Autumn Statement announcement of an extra £2 billion per year is welcome as a small step towards catching up with our competitors.

However, this success leads me to ask two questions: first, why are we so successful; and secondly, in what ways will the Bill make us even better? No one really understands why we are such a successful scientific nation. The fact that English is the international language of science gives us an advantage—think what it would be like if we all had to publish our papers in Mandarin— but also we have been traditionally non-hierarchical in our universities and research institutes, open and welcoming to talent from all over the world, and we have heard much about the autonomy of the research councils—the Haldane principle—that has allowed peers, the scientists themselves, to determine the priorities in individual grants. Also, unlike some other countries in Europe, we have fostered teaching and research together in our great universities, feeding off each other.

As an aside, I remind noble Lords that when we talk about our Nobel prize winners we should remember that many of them, including my father, were immigrants from other countries. It is also worth noting that three of the last five presidents of the Royal Society have come to this country from overseas. Whether or not current attitudes towards people from overseas will prevent us luring global talent in the future remains an open question.

Secondly, given that we are successful, what is the problem that the Bill is trying to fix? It is not as though science is like the English football team: awash with money and pathetic in performance. Why does the funding landscape need a radical overhaul? We have already heard that, in part, the answer to this is Sir Paul Nurse’s review. In spite of all we know about our outstanding performance, he identified what he saw as a number of deficiencies, including, as we have heard from other noble Lords, the absence of a sufficiently strong voice for science at the highest level in Whitehall and the difficulty of getting research councils to work together—the noble Earl, Lord Selborne, has already referred to this and I can vouch for it from my time as chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council. It has also been said that we are traditionally relatively weak in commercialising the products of scientific discovery, although I think that this has changed dramatically in the past few decades. For example, in my own department at Oxford, two spin-out companies, NaturalMotion and Oxitec, have between them been sold for around $700 million in the last three or four years.

Will UKRI help to put right such deficiencies as there are in the research funding system in the United Kingdom? I believe that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. One can argue for seven, or another number, of independent research councils, and one can argue for a single overarching body such as the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Germany or the national funding agencies of Switzerland and the Netherlands, both outstanding scientific nations. However, having listened to the arguments, in conversations outside this debating Chamber and during this excellent debate, I think there is a case for giving UKRI a chance, but—and this is an important “but”—a lot of the devil will be in the detail.

We have already heard comments about the importance of providing clarification in the Bill, and I do not wish to repeat those arguments. However, a lot of this is to do with the wording. The Haldane principle must be clarified to protect autonomy; any changes in the architecture of the research councils must be subject to proper consultation; and balanced funding, as alluded to in the Bill, must be fully explained. The Bill must also be sensitive about the links between teaching and research. It is, after all, often the same people who are doing the teaching and the research, and we need to think carefully about the realities of their lives when we introduce new schemes such as the teaching excellence framework.

I end by echoing something that the noble Lords, Lord Winston and Lord Hunt of Chesterton, said about the fact that the benefits of scientific discoveries often occur in most unexpected and unforeseen ways. Rather than reiterate examples that have already been given, I want to quote Sir Andre Geim, who won a Nobel prize for the discovery of graphene at Manchester —note, a foreigner winning one of “our” Nobel prizes. He said this:

“The silicon revolution would have been impossible without quantum physics. Abstract maths allows internet security and computers not to crash every second. Einstein’s theory of relativity might seem irrelevant but your satellite navigation system would not work without it. The chain from discoveries to consumer products is long, obscure and slow, but destroy the basics and the whole chain will collapse. This logic dictates that we invest in blue-sky research to gain new knowledge. Without new knowledge only derivative technologies are possible”.

I end on this note to remind us that, whatever the architecture of research funding is in the future—and I think there is no single perfect model—we must, I repeat must, protect the funding for blue skies research and not be lured into the trap of thinking that more funding for the application of research will necessarily bring long-term benefits.