House of Commons - Science and Technology

Select Committee on Science and Technology Eighth Report

6 The hub and spokes model

Is the current situation sustainable?

113. We have already established that the funding streams for both research and teaching are insufficient to meet the costs incurred by most university STEM departments. One of the reasons for this is that England has a very high number of universities competing for relatively limited funds. Many of these universities seek to be amongst the best at both research and teaching, yet evidence and experience suggest that the total funding in the system is not enough to allow every institution to be funded to be excellent at both in every discipline. Thus RCUK told us that "not all HEIs [higher education institutions] can be research intensive and excellent at every discipline".[233] This situation was summarised by the Director General of the Research Councils, Professor Sir Keith O'Nions, in oral evidence: "I think when we moved to a system of 130 universities, which we have at the moment, very often it took some time for universities to figure out where they were going to go and whether the whole thing had to be academics spending 50 per cent of the time doing research and 50 per cent of the time teaching. It is absolutely clear that is not a situation which exists or, indeed, could be sustained into the future".[234]

114. Whilst the most successful universities flourish in competition with others, and win high levels of funding for the full gamut of their activities, those universities that are less successful frequently find themselves in financial difficulties. A Higher Education Policy Institute paper notes that "a number of weaker institutions find it difficult to flourish in any system that funds performance, especially when the performance for which rewards are available—most notably research—is in areas where they are least likely to succeed. And yet they feel obliged to put effort into these areas, thus damaging other activities, for little or no gain. Even student recruitment can be difficult, and they are vulnerable to the loss of Funding Council grant which is held back if students are not enrolled in sufficient numbers".[235] The Lambert Review also identified a perceived bias within the university system towards research, meaning that "instead of concentrating on their own areas of comparative advantage—which may be of real value to their local and regional economy—[universities] strive to be measured against a world-class benchmark".[236] As a consequence of the bias towards research, research funding comes under intense pressure and universities miss the opportunity to focus on other areas of strength that may yield them greater financial benefit.

The separation of teaching and research

115. The inability of the current system to sustain every university to carry out both excellent research and excellent teaching gives rise to questions that have been the subject of considerable controversy. If there is insufficient funding for every university to be excellent in research and provide high quality undergraduate teaching, should the functions of research and teaching be separated out between institutions? As one of our terms of reference, we asked for views on "the optimal balance between teaching and research provision in universities, giving particular consideration to the desirability and financial viability of teaching-only science departments".[237] Many witnesses told us that the research function of universities should not, or in some cases could not, be separated from the teaching function. Thus the Russell Group of universities said that there is "an essential and close link between the sustainability of high quality teaching and the successful prosecution of research activity".[238] The Society for General Microbiology stated that "a science degree [that] is taught in a university without relevant research activity would be valueless as far as potential employers and international comparisons are concerned. No student with a choice would choose to go to such a university. This is because of the limited opportunities that such a degree would afford students with respect to practical work and diminished quality of teaching staff that are not contributing to the development of their subject".[239] This view was borne out by one member of the student panel that gave evidence on 7 February, Ian Hutton, who told us that "one of the things that I wanted [was] to be taught by the people doing the research at the forefront of the subject".[240]

116. The main reason cited for the need to maintain the link within institutions between their research and teaching functions was the need to equip students with practical laboratory and research skills. This is undoubtedly true for those who wish to pursue a career in academic research or industrial R&D. However, not every STEM graduate will go on to pursue such a career. Many will go into teaching, or careers completely unrelated to science. This is increasingly likely to be the case as participation rates in higher education increase without a corresponding increase in academic and industrial career opportunities. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry told us that "as participation in higher education is widened towards the target of 50%, it is inevitable a large number of students will embark on higher education courses without having appropriate study skills and self motivation to complete the course".[241] Similarly, CBI stated that "the government's ambitions for 50% of school leavers to attend university will make it very unlikely that teaching can remain coupled with research in the long-term as the necessary growth in teaching resources in unlikely to be matched by growth in the level of support for research".[242] Furthermore, as is shown in chapter 3, several employers of STEM graduates have told us that graduates from research-intensive universities often lack the more practical skills required by employers. The reverse is also true. Astra Zeneca stated that "although not strongly noted for its research capability, Salford has excellent chemistry teaching departments and has provided Astra Zeneca with many excellent students and graduates".[243] There is clearly a need for a diversity of STEM degrees: some students need to have extensive contact with academic research in order to pursue their chosen career; others may benefit from a greater emphasis on practical and vocational skills and teaching-based learning.

117. As well as a bias towards research, the reluctance to separate out the teaching and research functions of some universities seems to be based, in the majority of cases, on the perception that departments that focus on teaching are unlikely to be abreast of current developments in research and are unlikely to challenge their students. The validity of this assumption is open to challenge. Professor Michael Sterling, Vice Chancellor of Birmingham University, told us that "I think there is a difference between staff that are working themselves at the cutting edge of research and clearly that is an advantage compared with staff that are not. The intermediate category is that those staff that are teaching are aware of where the leading edge of research is even if they are not doing it. That is what I would call scholarship".[244] The University of Central England also made the distinction between research- and scholarship-active teaching staff: "university-teaching is stimulated by the development of subject knowledge through research. Not all teachers need be research active and not all researchers need be RAE-active. All teachers need to be 'scholarly active'".[245]

118. Whilst links with research may be essential in training future generations of researchers, scholarship-based teaching may be sufficient to train students who wish to pursue other careers, such as teaching in schools. Professor Peter Main of the Institute of Physics told us, for example, that "it might be possible to have institutions teaching the subject to this sort of common basic level and then people could leave those teaching only institutions and possibly become school teachers—it might be another route to improve school teachers—whereas the ones who wanted to go off and do professional research and become professional scientists would move to the research institutions".[246] Furthermore, the Society of Chemical Industry (SCI) told us that "departments that concentrate on teaching could play a big part in encouraging young people into science".[247] Many students benefit from exposure to research during their undergraduate degree, particularly if they want to go on to pursue a career in research. However, research-intensive departments are not essential to train all STEM students. It is an inevitable, if inadequately foreseen, consequence of the drive towards higher levels of participation in higher education that it is unsustainable for every student to be taught in a research active environment. This is unfortunate, but not necessarily damaging, provided that all STEM students are taught on the basis of scholarship, if not research. We recommend that the Government and universities recognise that teaching-focussed departments are not only accepted, but supported sufficiently well to ensure that they retain good quality staff and a commensurately high status.

Collaboration

119. In the light of the distinction between scholarship, teaching and research, the term "teaching-only departments" is unhelpful, since it implies complete isolation from contemporary research outputs. Not only is scholarship properly informed by research, but there is no imperative for departments that focus on teaching to cut themselves off from departments in other institutions that conduct research to a very high standard. Thus the Director General of the Research Councils stated that "with appropriate connectivity and so on I think high quality teaching can take place outside the research intensive universities".[248] Connectivity between universities is precisely what is lacking in the current system. The Education and Skills Committee heard from Professor Philip Tasker of De Montfort University that, "currently, higher education is characterised through competition. Most universities see their neighbours more as a threat than an opportunity for collaboration. This is encouraged by the funding mechanisms that are competitive".[249] The frequent lack of collaboration identified by Professor Tasker is one of the major obstacles to a system in which the responsibility for providing teaching and research for undergraduate students is shared between institutions where necessary. Collaboration can provide a solution to the problem of failing provision in some subjects. As was set out in paragraph 18, universities in the South West collaborated to ensure that, when Exeter University's chemistry department closed, overall capacity in chemistry in the region was not reduced. Universities are not islands. If the way to healthy provision of STEM subjects in English universities lies in collaboration between institutions, they will need to work together in the national and regional interest.

120. If universities collaborated better, it would be possible to ensure that all students received both good teaching and exposure to research, in some cases by arranging visits or transfers to, or joint working with, other universities in the same region. Some examples of cooperation between institutions within a particular region already exist. Ed Metcalfe, Head of Science, Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management at the South East England Development Agency, told us that "Plymouth, with its foundation degrees out in local FE colleges and then feeding it to the centre, has worked extremely well. That is a very successful programme".[250] The White Rose Consortium in Yorkshire provides a good example of the successes to be yielded from collaborative research between universities. The collaborative model is commonplace in the United States. Several submissions made reference to this. Senior scientists from the pharmaceutical industry, for example, stated that, in the US, "universities derive enough income from teaching to fund undergraduate activities […] Many of the smaller colleges are renowned for producing high quality graduates who often transfer to major research departments (e.g. Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, MIT etc.) to pursue postdoctoral-level work".[251] The Director General of the Research Councils stated that "looking at some of the private and state funded universities in the US, they are very proud to attract an extremely good core bench across Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and so on. They have first class teaching, they attract good staff and they stop at the Masters level of teaching. They hold their heads high and are proud of what they do and in no sense do they feel they are second rate because they are not research intensive". However, he also told us that "I do not think we are quite at that point yet in the UK, where, being a non-research intensive university which has a very high quality of teaching, all of those are simultaneously holding their heads high and confident in the way they are going forward. You may find many exceptions to that, but culturally I do not think we are quite at that point".[252]

121. Collaboration between universities often takes place on an informal basis. The best way to ensure its effectiveness would be to formalise the arrangement through the wholesale adoption of the "hub and spokes" model of provision. The key characteristics of this model are:

HEFCE ensures that there is at least one department in each core STEM subject within each region that is funded at the highest (currently 5*) level for its research. This department becomes the research "hub" of the region for its subject. The choice of hub would be decided in regional competition against national standards of excellence. The system would not preclude other departments within the region from competing for funds to become research hubs too. The only constraint, within the limits of the total funding available at a national level, would be the need to have at least one hub per region.

Other departments in the region could choose to specialise in other areas of provision, such as teaching or knowledge transfer, according to their strengths. They would bid for teaching funds or funds from the Higher Education Innovation Fund accordingly. Departments choosing to specialise in teaching would receive a premium over and above the level of the basic teaching grant to reflect their teaching status. Of course, this aspect of the model relies upon the self-sufficiency of teaching funding (see paragraphs 104 to 111), and on the ability of departments choosing to focus on knowledge transfer to secure additional funding from industry.

Undergraduate provision would be coordinated at a regional level by HEFCE and the Regional Development Agencies. Students from teaching-intensive departments would be able to gain research experience at one of the regional research hubs. This was a possibility alluded to by Professor Tom Blundell of the Biosciences Federation: "there will have to be some arrangement between institutions, perhaps on a regional basis, so that people can move to the research-led part perhaps in the third year to make it a proper degree".[253] Researchers from research hubs might be contracted to provide a certain number of lectures or seminars in other departments. Similarly, staff from teaching-intensive institutions might be contracted to help teach students from the research hubs.

Departments not applying for research hub status could nonetheless bid for research funds, from the Research Councils and other research project funders, and from a ring-fenced pot of HEFCE money roughly equivalent to that currently distributed between departments graded 4 or lower. Research funds would be allocated on merit, through open competition, and would have some basis in the amount of Research Council income won by the department in question.

Research hub status would be allocated at a departmental, not institutional level. It would be possible, therefore, for a single university to contain research hubs in some disciplines, but to have teaching-intensive status or a focus on knowledge transfer in others.

122. Support for a collaborative model of university STEM provision came from a wide variety of organisations and individuals. Dr Michael Bolton of Manchester University told us that "specialisation by individual Universities makes sense and can be based on both traditional strengths and geographic location".[254] The Regional Development Agencies told us that the hub and spokes model "could increase the visibility, accessibility and responsiveness of the research base to business needs and near market research. The possibilities for staff in the spokes to carry out research in the hubs transfer could have a beneficial effect in raising aspirations".[255] Professor Ian Diamond of RCUK emphasised that collaboration could even invigorate research taking place outside the main research hubs: "where there are pockets of excellence and where there are particularly junior pockets of excellence we do try to enable there to be, for example, something like hubs and spokes models which have the best junior able to be part of some of the critical masses of larger centres, particularly where there is expensive equipment that is required to be used to take forward research. There are huge possibilities so long as we make that happen".[256] The Director General of the Research Councils told us that, by focussing on areas other than research, knowledge transfer could potentially be greatly enhanced in some departments: "universities which are not research intensive, which are not getting a significant proportion of research council or Higher Education Funding Council money [could] have a role in terms of innovation and working with RDAs and other businesses and so on".[257]

123. The hub and spokes model has the potential to resolve some of the difficulties currently being experienced by some university STEM departments. Where a region has two small departments teaching the same subject, both of which are experiencing low student numbers and financial difficulties, it may be better to merge their provision to ensure continuing capacity in that subject in the region, than to be forced to close both. Whilst it has not been proved that larger departments make efficiency savings (see paragraph 97), if they can prevent loss of capacity at a regional level they are to be welcomed. This opportunity was identified in evidence to this inquiry by Astra Zeneca, which told us that "there is merit in encouraging universities to collaborate in order to capitalise on their relative strengths. The concept of regional universities collaborating in chemistry or physics for example may offer a genuine solution, e.g. the East Midlands".[258] In some cases, the pooling of resources would make the difference between the long term viability or otherwise of threatened STEM departments.

124. It could be argued that the hub and spokes model would compromise the autonomy of universities. To a certain extent, it is inevitable that this autonomy will be compromised if the Government makes any attempt at all to ensure that the interests of individual institutions do not compromise national or regional interests. We have argued that it is reasonable, and indeed necessary, to ask universities to take account of national or regional interests in the decisions that they take. Indeed, as we explain in paragraphs 78 to 84, the Government already limits the choices that can be made by universities through the funding mechanisms that it uses to support higher education. Nonetheless, we believe that there would be ample scope within the hub and spokes model for universities to exercise their independence from Government. By allowing them to play to their strengths, the model actually gives universities greater freedom from games-playing and enables them to realistically determine their own strategic direction.

125. The hub and spokes model of university provision would allow STEM departments to capitalise on their areas of strength, whether they are research, teaching or knowledge-transfer, whilst still ensuring that undergraduates received a rounded education in the discipline of their choice. By collaborating on their provision of STEM courses, departments would make more efficient use of resources, and thereby ease the financial difficulties currently being experienced by many STEM departments. We recommend that the Government encourages the acceptance and implementation of this model throughout the system via HEFCE, the RDAs and Universities UK, and by means of the funding regime for higher education.

Practicalities

126. The hub and spokes model will not work if it is implemented on an ad-hoc basis. It needs to be centrally coordinated, with input from the regions. To a certain extent, HEFCE already fulfils this function. Professor Steve Smith, Vice Chancellor of Exeter University, told us that "we have found HEFCE to be an enormously supportive broker. They have worked with us and other universities in the region to come up with a solution which actually increases the number of funded places for chemistry in the south west".[259] He added that "the outcome of what they have done in our case has been to strengthen science provision in the region by allowing us to spend the same amount of money on science but on fewer subjects and putting extra resource into Bristol and Bath which enables them to make their chemistry provision more sustainable".[260] In addition to HEFCE, the Research Base Funders' Forum's Functional Sustainability sub group has been carrying out work on the health of disciplines, which could be used in support of a hub and spokes model. In January 2005 the sub group, which includes representatives from the Research Councils, met with the Funding Councils to propose and discuss suitable metrics for evaluating and monitoring health of research disciplines. During the summer of 2005, the Funding Councils and the Research Councils will work together to identify strategies for taking the issue of the health of disciplines forward.[261]

127. We recommend that a Regional Affairs Committee is established within HEFCE to coordinate the implementation of the hub and spokes model within the regions. The Committee should contain representatives from each of the Regional Development Agencies, who would each be responsible for ensuring the implementation of decisions taken by the Committee within their region. The Committee should draw upon the valuable work being carried out by the Research Base Funders' Forum on the health of disciplines, giving this work some practical effect. HEFCE's Regional Affairs Committee would also be responsible for monitoring the implementation and success of the hub and spokes model in the regions.

233 Ev 197 Back

234 Q 252 Back

235 Bahram Bekhradnia, HEFCE, Government, Funding Councils and Universities: How Should They Relate?, February 2004, p 11 Back

236 HM Treasury, The Lambert Review of Business-University Collaboration, December 2003, p 84 Back

237 Press notice 12 of Session 2004-05. Back

238 Ev 85 Back

239 Ev 143 Back

240 Q 23 Back

241 Ev 172 Back

242 Ev 245 Back

243 Ev 119 Back

244 Q 447 Back