Science Research Funding in Universities (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Bilimoria (CB) [V]]

My Lords, the UK’s universities are internationally recognised as some of the best, along with America, in the—[Inaudible]—scientific research. The dual funding system that people have spoken about, including QR funding since 2010, has led to a deficit in funding that universities have had to make up by cross-subsidising, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said in his excellent introduction. I thank him and his committee for this superb report. We have seen a decrease in the percentage of research costs that universities have been able to recover from funders, including research councils and charities. The report says right up front that the Government need to address this deficit and commit to

“increasing QR funding each year by at least the rate of inflation.”

Can the Minister say whether this will happen?

I am proud to say that Cambridge University is the recipient of the highest number of Nobel prizes in the world. The University of Birmingham, of which I am proud to be Chancellor, has 11 Nobel prizes. We are fantastic. However, the international student fees that we are so dependent on need to be addressed, which I will come to.

The report also examines the Augar review’s recommendations. I was really surprised that the Augar review did not look at research. The report again says right up front that the committee is

“sceptical about the impact of many of the proposals made by the Augar Review on research funding in universities.”

Brexit is of course key, and the report highlights how much of a benefit Horizon 2020 has been for the UK and recommends that

“the Government should commit to associating the UK with Horizon Europe”.

Will the Minister commit to this, and that we will continue to receive the same amount of funding the we currently receive from the EU?

To date, we have spent 1.7% of GDP on research and development, compared with Germany at 3.1%, America at 2.8% and Israel at 4%. It is wonderful news that the Government have a target of 2.4% of GDP on R&D by 2027, but this will happen only if there is enough funding for the research. That needs to be addressed.

I have seen time and again how much more powerful collaborative research between universities is, with the weight of impact increasing by two or three times. Professor Alice Gast of Imperial College has said:

“The EU is the UK’s largest and fastest growing collaborator in research; over half of the UK’s international publications are with European partners.”


The report Brexit: the Erasmus and Horizon Programmes, published last year, says:

“The UK is the second largest recipient of Horizon 2020 funding and has received 15.2% of grants”.


It is therefore paramount that now we have left the European Union we continue to partner with Horizon Europe even as a third country.

On international students, I am president of UKCISA, which represents the interests of all 450,000 international students in the country. International students include EU students, who have brought in almost 15% of total income for UK universities. Could the Minister assure us that the EU students will still come in the numbers that we have had—130,000 of them—with the Immigration Rules being changed?

That brings me to immigration. We have to have Immigration Rules that are friendly to students. I am delighted with the reintroduction of the post-graduate work visa, which is wonderful news. I thank the Government. Could they make sure that the Immigration Rules are also fair and attractive for researchers, academics, academic staff and laboratory staff? Can he reassure us that those will also be good, let alone the fees that noble Lords such as the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, have spoken about?

International students bring indirectly or directly £26 billion into our economy, so there is no question about it—we need to invest in our R&D and we need to have that commitment from the Government that, if this investment shortfall is going to be there, we retain the fact that, with 1% of the world’s population, we produce 16% of the world’s leading research papers.