The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is pleased to comment on the Scottish Executive Lifelong Learning Department Review of Scottish Higher Education. The RSE is Scotland’s premier Learned Society, comprising Fellows elected on the basis of their distinction, from the full range of academic disciplines, and from industry, commerce and the professions. This response has been compiled by the General Secretary with the assistance of a number of Fellows with substantial experience in this area.

Summary

The key points identified by the RSE include:

• The RSE believes that the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) has had real successes in establishing a Scottish system of higher education.
• SHEFC must seek to maintain progress within a sufficiently stable environment to avoid turbulent impacts upon the deliverers or the receivers of higher education.
• The Scottish Agricultural College could be brought within the ambit of SHEFC so that teaching and research not only interact between themselves but also with other providers of these services.
• The current position with the two Funding Councils and a common executive should continue for the present because the problems of each sector are significantly different.
• SHEFC should ensure that universities have excellent, competitive, facilities for teaching and research, while Government should alter the UK’s fiscal structure to encourage businesses to invest in research and development and to encourage venture capitalists to invest in new entrepreneurial activities.
• It is essential that SHEFC functions in the UK and wider scene and this should involve a greater liaison with the various Research Councils.
• The objective of increasing the intake of students from poorer homes is to be commended, but it would be invidious if this was achieved by lowering yet again the unit costs per student.
• There has been a large fall in the proportion of students studying physics, mathematics and engineering-subjects, which have traditionally been strong in the Scottish system. The Executive and SHEFC should deal urgently with this situation, by encouraging more students to go on to study these subjects and possibly considering ‘distinction awards’ aimed at retaining and encouraging some of the best students.

General

The RSE believes that the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) has had real successes in establishing a Scottish system of higher education. Higher education is complex and multidimensional and therefore its funding needs to be defined through the balancing of a large number of interests, represented by individuals of SHEFC’s Council itself. Properly run in a visible and accountable way, this operating environment provides the best mechanism to deliver Scottish Executive policies on economic prosperity and social inclusion that higher education institutions (HEIs) can fully support.

However, Scotland cannot do everything itself and must be a full player in UK and international partnerships. These partnerships, however, are dependent upon the quality of teaching and research in the whole of the Scottish higher education (HE) sector. The organisations and the policies that are required, therefore, are those that place the needs of Scotland in its international context and seek to maximise significance and impact. In addition, the role of the higher education sector in Scotland is multifunctional and requires the support of many government agencies, including Scottish Enterprise and the Research Councils. One of the key criteria for the measurement of SHEFC’s success should be, therefore, its role in managing the interfaces between Government, industry, and the HEIs.

The specific issues identified in the consultation paper are addressed below:

Section 1: Aims, objectives, targets and standards

Appropriate level of consultation
Following recent SHEFC consultations on proposals for Teaching and Research funding, there were wide ranging concerns expressed on these proposals from the higher education sector. The Society believes that while seeking appropriate level ofconsultation on proposals is one thing, the important issue is for the sector to feel that its views are listened to and taken account of.

Setting clear and comprehensive aims and objectives
One of the key roles of SHEFC is to translate the broad thrust of government policy into the funding provided to the HEIs. Higher education is a long-term business in contrast to the length of a parliament and, therefore, a strong, sensitive and sensible buffer body between the HEIs and government is essential. With the understanding of the guidance from the government in mind, SHEFC must seek to maintain progress within a sufficiently stable environment to avoid turbulent impacts upon the deliverers or the receivers of higher education.

In general, it could be said that what is good for the competitive position of Scottish HEIs in UK, and international terms, will be good for the Scottish economy. That, in various forms of application, is therefore a crucial test for defining policy or action. In addition, given that many institutions operate in a global market, it is important that the objectives set are not parochial because higher education is international and Scottish HEIs have succeeded very much because of their UK and international competitiveness in research and in teaching quality. With just 9 % of the UK population, Scotland wins 13 % of the Research Councils' resources for research and any policy that militated against this continuing success would have a detrimental impact on the Scottish higher education sector. In addition, while not discouraging individual initiatives, greater recognition should be given to achieving and maintaining the critical mass essential to develop and sustain excellence in any new developments in teaching and research.

One signal success of SHEFC, has been the Metropolitan Area Networks (MANS) that were installed in the mid-1990s and gave Scottish HEIs a position of international standing. Their use and importance is now clearly to be seen not only in multimedia teaching but also in the support of modern research (such as genomics) that requires the manipulation of large data sets.

Achieving an appropriate balance between the autonomy of HEIs and the need for accountability and the delivery of Scottish Executive objectives
It could be argued that the Higher Education Review overemphasises the importance of the Funding Council being responsive to the Scottish Executive and says too little about the imaginative contribution to future developments in higher education which SHEFC should be promoting to present ‘customers and stakeholders’. In this context, not only should SHEFC help deliver Scottish Executive objectives, but it should aim to promote excellence throughout the HE sector so that Scottish HEIs and graduates compare favourably at international levels. Only in this way can the sector contribute meaningfully to the knowledge-based economy on which the future prosperity of the nation depends.

The Society would endorse, however, the essential need to maintain the autonomy of higher education institutions and the importance of courts and other governing bodies within institutions. This is particularly relevant to institutions which have substantial non-SHEFC funding. Obviously, where public funding is involved it is necessary to ensure accountability and ‘value for money’, but the higher education sector will not flourish if the focus on accountability is greater than that of the desired outcome of education and research. In addition, uniformity among institutions should be resisted because both teaching and research are stimulated by diversity and freedom for different centres to follow different directions

Effective information collecting systems
Higher education information collecting systems have had a major impact on both institutions and individual staff. The Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA) and the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) impose a major load on university academic and administrative staff, with a recent Association of University Teachers survey showing that academic staff on average spent 25% of their time on administrative tasks. One step which would decrease the load would be to lengthen the interval between assessments. This would of course be a disadvantage to departments hoping to improve their gradings in the short term but mechanisms to deal with this problem might be possible.

Ensuring the views of stakeholders are taken into account
Building bridges at the teaching, basic research, applied research and exploitation levels to encourage university-industry interactions is of key importance, and more might be done to ensure that SHEFC is aware of what the views of stakeholders, such as students and industry, are.
Ensuring staff are involved and have the skills and support needed
The Review document shows a 41% decrease of public funding per student between 1976 and 1995, while the administrative burden on staff over the past decade has increased dramatically. The consequence of these changes has been that the stress on academic and other staff has increased substantially. If Scottish HE is to compete internationally it needs to be resourced at a similar level to its rivals, and this applies equally in relation to the pay of academics. PhD numbers and the growth of universities could become constrained by an inability to recruit sufficient numbers of staff with appropriate qualifications.

Section 2: Governance, accountability, openness and responsiveness to stakeholders

Existing relationships
Scotland is in an enviable position within the UK in being small enough for people to work together. This has been one of SHEFC’s strengths, in that its members can sit round a table with University Principals and discuss common interests. Unfortunately, this has not always worked in practice. Further, it has tended to reinforce a rather isolationist position in terms of joint initiatives with other Funding Councils. It could, therefore, be time to rethink SHEFC’s role, both in terms of HEIs and in the wider context.

One particular anomaly, which could be addressed in the future, is the Scottish Agricultural College and whether it should be brought within the ambit of SHEFC. It is particularly important that teaching and research not only interact between themselves but also with other providers of these services.

Balance of membership
The balance of SHEFC membership will always be a matter of debate, but it has improved with time. It is important that at least some of its members are actively connected with higher education teaching and research. One of the strengths of SHEFC is that many of its staff have been drawn from the universities themselves.

Section 3: Working in partnership

The relationship between SHEFC and SFEFC
There is an increasing tendency to blur the distinction between higher and further education, despite the fact that their missions are very different. While the two should work closely together, it is desirable to keep separate funding for FE and HE to avoid "academic drift" in FE colleges, which ought to be providing most of the post-school vocational training. The Society believes, therefore, that the current position with the two Funding Councils and a common executive, should continue for the present because the problems of each sector are significantly different. The common executive of SHEFC and SFEFC, however, has been stretched because of the size of the task and the separate issues in both sectors.

The way SHEFC works in partnership to further Scottish Executive objectives
The Society supports the need to develop further the mechanisms for exploitation of research, but SHEFC should not provide support for entrepreneurial activities at the expense of investment in basic research. SHEFC should make sure that universities have excellent, competitive, facilities for teaching and research, while Government and the Scottish Executive should encourage businesses to invest in research and development and to encourage venture capitalists to invest in new entrepreneurial activities. Nevertheless, the opportunity to develop much closer liaison with Scottish Enterprise and with the newly appointed Science Advisory Committee for Scotland should be fostered.

It is worth noting that Scottish Enterprise has had a significant impact in encouraging the collaborative working of universities in areas crucial to economic development, for example the Alba Project, and the development of biotechnology clusters. The Proof of Concept and other schemes have provided a channel from idea to market that was missing a decade ago and barriers to commercialisation have moved more from the HEIs themselves to the funding of early stage companies. The continuation of such initiatives will be important for the success of Scotland. As a result of this and other developments (for example, the Synergy partnership between Strathclyde and Glasgow), Scottish HEIs are working closer together and while additional money is clearly a powerful incentive, many practical and psychological barriers have been overcome. In fact, Scottish universities perform as well as any in the world in terms of commercialisation and numbers of spin-off companies. Data collected by the University of Edinburgh Research & Innovation Services, show that Scottish universities are as efficient as US universities per $ of grant income in getting to the stages of disclosure, or in being awarded a patent, and actually substantially more efficient in producing a spin off company.

SHEFC’s involvement of the wider community in responding to social and economic needs
In terms of SHEFC’s links with the wider community, it is important to avoid duplication with the activities of the Scottish Executive and of the institutions themselves.

Relationship between SHEFC and other funding bodies in the UK
It is essential that SHEFC functions in the UK and wider scene. Among other things, this should involve a greater liaison with the various Research Councils, including the present Arts and Humanities Research Board. It would also be timely for a dialogue between the Funding Councils and research funding charities regarding the need for full payment of overheads for research.

Annex 1: The Context for Higher Education

The objective of increasing the intake of students from poorer homes is to be commended and the corresponding additional 2,800 FTE places by 2003/4 is in keeping with this widening of access. However, it would be invidious if this was achieved by lowering yet again the unit costs per student. In this connection, it is relevant to point out that although there have been significant improvements in funding of HE since 1999, the proportion of GDP spent on HE in the UK and Scotland is considerably less than in other OECD countries.

Increasing the proportion of entrants to HE from the poorer socio-economic groups is also an issue of financing students from that background, for example in terms of maintenance grants, where the remedy lies principally with the Executive itself. There is also an issue of academic preparation during secondary school, where pressures are put on HE either to remedy educational short comings that should have been addressed in secondary education or to lower entry requirements to accommodate such short comings. The Society believes that the first necessary action must be to improve the quality of the academic offering at secondary school level and that HE should not be expected to compensate for any deficiencies of the latter. There is also an insufficient provision of vocational education in institutions which should be catering specifically for it. Finland, for example, has recognised the error of the continuing expansion of HE and is cutting back, while increasing resources in FE and polytechnics and in school science teaching.

In addition, while the total number of graduates from HEIs has increased considerably from 94/5 to 99/00 it is very disturbing to note that the proportion taking science subjects (biological sciences, physical sciences, maths, IT and engineering) has dropped from 25.7% to 22.6%. In particular, there has been a large fall in the proportion of those studying physics, mathematics and engineering-subjects which have traditionally been strong in the Scottish system. It is therefore incumbent on the Executive and SHEFC to deal urgently with this situation by encouraging more students to go on to study these subjects and possibly considering ‘distinction awards’ aimed at retaining and encouraging some of the best students.

Additional Information

In responding to this inquiry the Society would like to draw attention to the following Royal Society of Edinburgh responses which are of relevance to this subject: Review of Postgraduate Education (February 1999); Funding for the Future: A Consultation on the Funding of Teaching (March 1999); Devolution and Science (April 1999); The Independent Committee of Inquiry into Student Finance (September 1999); A Framework for Economic Development (March 2000); Funding for the Future: Stage 2 Consultation Paper on the Funding of Teaching (April 2000); Research and the Knowledge Age (April 2000); A Science Strategy for Scotland (July 2000); The Are We Realising Our Potential Inquiry (July 2000; January 2001); Postgraduate Support (August 2000); Review of Teaching Funding (March 2001); Review of Research Policy and Funding (April 2001) and Review of the supply of scientists and engineers (August 2001). 

January 2002

Further information is available from the Research Officer, Dr Marc Rands