The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is pleased
to comment on the European Commission's Communication on The Role of
the Universities in the Europe of Knowledge. This response has been
compiled by the General Secretary, Professor Andrew Miller and the Research
Officer, Dr Marc Rands, with the assistance of a number of Fellows with
extensive experience in this area.
This is an interesting Paper that asks some very penetrating
questions about the nature of universities. The document makes clear
the ever increasing demands on universities, not only from increase
in student numbers, but also in terms of research, consultancy, economic
regeneration and growth, and social and cultural activity.
The European Universities Today
In a world where new ideas, new processes and new technologies can be
communicated and implemented with unprecedented speed, the capacity
of a society both to create and introduce beneficial innovation is vital
to its economic success and its social and cultural vitality. Most of
this innovative capacity is derived from research, which is primarily
transmitted into society by graduates, Ph.D. students and post-doctoral
research associates (who not only carry on the business of society in
industry, government, finance and the professions) as well as through
spin-out companies and direct links with industry. A society that fails
to create new intellectual capital through basic research will be a
derivative society, dependent upon inspiration from elsewhere and unable
to play a leading role in global development. Europe should not submit
itself to that fate.
Successful research, whether in the sciences, humanities
or social sciences, depends upon a culture that values curiosity, scepticism,
serendipity, creativity and genius. Without individuals with those values
and the potential to embody them, internationally competitive research
will not develop. The co-location of research and teaching in the same
institution is essential. Students need to develop these values and
capabilities during their education. They can only be acquired if the
educational environment itself is one that embodies them through deep
familiarity with the practice of research that addresses the boundaries
of human knowledge.
Research-based universities are now universally regarded
as important drivers of economic development. Although they are most
effective in this where there are mature R&D-based industries able
to "pull" on the research base, the example of the USA demonstrates
that research/university "push" can also be a powerful driver
of regional development and the creation of R&D based industry.
It is primarily for these reasons that the USA continues to allocate
about 2.5% of GDP to support tertiary education and 2.7% of GDP to support
research, and why other countries (e.g. China, Singapore, India) are
committing major sums to enhance universities and their research roles.
In contrast, European investment in Tertiary education is an average
of 1.2% of GDP, and 1.93% of GDP in research. It makes little sense
to speak of a "Europe of Knowledge" unless there is a change
in the level of investment.
The great days of European research and European universities
were through the 19th century until the mid-20th century. Since then,
almost any indicator of research and university excellence shows that
they have been in relative decline. This is not because of the democratic
extension of the opportunity for university education to an increasing
proportion of the population, which has been a universal phenomenon,
but because European governments have permitted funding per student
to fall to pay for the increase in numbers. Research funding has also
grown at rates less than that of our competitors, and the financial
flexibility/viability of the universities has been severely eroded.
In the 20th century, governments world-wide recognised
the value of universities in satisfying a diversity of social needs:
as providers of trained personnel and creators of useful knowledge in
supporting what came to be termed "the knowledge economy";
in providing credible credentials; in promoting mobility and social
justice; and in supporting cultural engagement. This recognition has
led national and regional governments to become the principal funders
of universities, often associated with demands for accountability through
processes of quality assurance that have been demanding and bureaucratic,
and requirements for universities to respond to specific political imperatives.
The diversity of roles that universities are now called
upon to play requires a dynamic and flexible university system, in which
all institutions have generic attributes, but which individually focus
their activities in different parts of the higher education spectrum,
and are able to collaborate effectively across it. They must also be
funded in such a way that they can effectively carry out their particular
role. The concepts of the European Higher Education Area and the European
Research Area cannot be effectively developed without articulating the
desirable spectrum of university roles in Europe. The two end-points
and the intervening mid-point of such a spectrum might be:
- Universities that offer highly vocational education
in restricted or broadly-defined fields supported by appropriate applied
research and with strong links to industry, commerce and the public
sector in its region.
- Universities specialising in undergraduate and
taught masters education but with some doctoral research, that sustain
a sufficiently broad disciplinary range to permit curricular flexibility
and evolution, and with a commitment to scholarship that ensures that
teaching is based on experience and not second hand knowledge;
- Universities that are major contributors (in some
cases, the major contributor) to national research efforts, with a
very high proportion of taught postgraduate and doctoral training,
and that aspire to the very highest international standards of research
and research-based teaching.
These are all vital roles. They must not be seen as
part of a hierarchy of excellence but as a system of excellence in diversity.
Ensuring that the European universities have
sufficient and sustainable resources
Increasing and diversifying universities'
income
How can adequate public funding of universities be secured, given
the budgetary constraints and the need to ensure democratic access?
Issues of funding continue to dominate the discussion in Europe as a
whole. The primary funding in Europe still comes from the public purse,
and there needs to be a debate, ideally informed by recent economic
data from Australia, Scotland and elsewhere, on the relative advantages
of higher education to society as a whole and to the individual. The
Royal Society of Edinburgh believes society benefits from the graduates
produced through higher education, not only in terms of technological
and professional skills but also in having a well informed and critical
population. In the modern competitive world a large graduate population
is essential for economic survival. Nevertheless, there is a case for
making students contribute financially towards their higher education,
when their annual income allows them to do so, principally because it
is an investment from which they can expect to benefit financially in
future.
How can private donations be made more attractive,
particularly from a tax and legal point of view?
The building up of endowments will be difficult for the great majority
of universities in Europe. Although many universities have made strenuous
and professional efforts over recent years to attract such funds from
alumni, success has been modest and even the wealthiest universities
have limited resources of this kind. Private donations could be made
more attractive, however, by the removal of taxes on gifts.
How can universities be given the necessary flexibility
to allow them to take greater advantage of the booming market in services?
For many years now, the UK Government has promoted a change in culture
within the university community, encouraging greater dialogue, partnership
and collaboration with business and industry, and the Royal Society
of Edinburgh has played a role in supporting this. Most attention has
been focused on the transfer of technology and knowledge out of universities,
with less being done on the transfer into companies and innovation within
companies. The response of industry has been patchy: for example, small
to medium-size enterprises (SMEs) have not sought to take as much advantage
of links with academia as might be hoped. In many of these SMEs the
barrier to knowledge uptake is that the companies are not able to analyse
their business process in a way that allows them to envisage technological
solutions. Moreover, there is a paucity of university staff with the
knowledge, ability and time to undertake the kind of business or process
analysis required to interact successfully with these companies.
Using the available financial resources more
effectively
How can the maintenance of democratic access to higher education
be combined with a reduction in failure and dropout rates among students?
The UK has a relatively small drop-out rate, however, post-18 education
has become increasingly focused on a traditional university model, leading
to a serious loss in diversity of provision in terms of the duration
and style of study and subject matter, and the traditional degree has
become the only acceptable qualification. The imposition of "one
style fits all" has made it more difficult to match students aptitudes
and aspirations with appropriate courses.
With 40% of the new jobs in the present decade likely
to be in the associate professional and higher technical echelons, the
development of work-focused vocational qualifications should be an important
component of the process of expansion. Nonetheless, for these vocational
qualifications to be fully effective, society will have to change its
attitude to such vocational programmes and not only recognise the enhanced
status of these qualifications but reward the graduates accordingly.
Employers will have a key role in this process.
How can a better match be achieved between supply
of and demand for university qualifications on the labour market, through
better guidance?
Guidance to students about the range of opportunities in the job market
is vital, but manpower planning has a history of failure. It must not
be assumed that university education is generally for a specific job.
It is designed to develop capacities that are of wide applicability.
In addition, prospective students are far more intelligent
and far-seeing than they are normally given credit for, and they do
understand that poorly paid employment in science and engineering-based
industries, requiring years of intensive and difficult study, is not
intrinsically attractive. This, coupled with poor school teaching, especially
in mathematics and physics, is leading to a major crisis in all developed
countries. The economic solution: far better pay for scarcity-subject
teachers and far higher salary levels in the science and engineering-based
industries appears to offer political and commercial problems that have
proved insoluble hitherto. Unless they are solved, universities will
continue to abandon core science subjects, as many already have, and
move into areas where they can be sure of filling their places.
Is there a case for levelling out the duration
of courses for identical qualifications?
The standard of attainment must be the yardstick for an award, not the
period of study. This question also pre-supposes that the starting point
for the students is the same. In the case of England, student ‘A’
levels were seen as having a level of specialism equivalent to first-year
study in many European universities, and the normal length of study
in England for Chartered Engineer status through an M.Eng. degree is
four years. However, in Scotland, with its separate education system,
it is five years, and students from such courses are highly valued by
industry. There is, however, in this context a clear role for professional
bodies to organise trans-Europe validation. Some attempts are being
made in this area in some subjects, for example in chemistry via "Eurochemist"
designation and the Tuning Project and the Eurobachelor concept and
agreed syllabus
How can the transparency of research costs in
the universities be enhanced?
A lot of work has been done in the UK on the real costs of research
by the UK treasury transparency review , and this work needs urgently
to be extended to the rest of Europe in order to understand the extent
of hidden subsidy. This is a real problem. European universities increasingly
compete for research contracts on a Europe-wide basis, and countries
such as the UK, where there is far less subsidy for indirect costs,
are seriously disadvantaged.
Applying scientific research results more
effectively
How could it be made easier for universities and researchers to
set up companies to apply the results of their research and to reap
the benefits?
Commercialisation of research covers a multitude of processes itself,
including the encouragement of start-up companies with concomitant entrepreneurial
training for both students and staff, university spin-outs by staff
who have originated potentially valuable intellectual property, licensing
of university Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) to third parties, pull-out
activity by external entrepreneurs, the formation of intermediate institutions
designed to facilitate communication between business and university
researchers, SME interactions and consultancy work. It is frequently
not obvious, in any given case, which will be the most effective way
of commercialising university discoveries, and spin-out companies are
usually only one option. In general, universities in Scotland will only
seriously explore this option with the member(s) of staff concerned
if such staff are clearly prepared to put substantial efforts into the
company, and that these efforts are compatible with the other objectives
of the department, such as success in the UK Research Assessment Exercise.
The fundamental requirements for success in a spin-out are: high-quality
technology; a good business plan; high-quality management and, above
all, the passion to make a success of the venture on the part of the
staff.
Issues of IP are often difficult to resolve. Universities
seek to recover the often onerous direct and indirect costs associated
with the development of IP and its protection through patenting or other
means. In addition, given that not all investment in IP is successful,
universities frequently seek an element of risk-related profit as well.
However, universities also recognise that they are usually not the most
effective vehicle for exploitation of IP. They will wish to own the
research (for publications, RAE ratings and further research) but will
normally wish to have agreements on the exploitation of IPR with commercial
partners in which the interests of all parties (the university itself,
the academic staff involved in the invention and the commercial vehicle)
can be fairly accommodated. This position is now common amongst universities
in the UK, though skill in handling IP certainly varies across institutions.
However, in continental Europe the situation is much more complex, and
IP is still guarded far too jealously for sensible and fair agreements
to be possible Further information on these issues can be found in the
joint Scottish
Higher Education Funding Council/Scottish Enterprise report on Knowledge
Transfer and in the Technology
Ventures Scotland report Bridging the Gap.
Is there a way of encouraging the universities
and researchers to identify, manage and make best use of the commercial
potential of their research?
Whilst some leading research workers may excel at knowledge transfer,
this is the exception rather than the rule, and is likely to remain
so, with few academic staff having skills in knowledge transfer. There
is, therefore, a need to recruit/train a cohort of people who regard
technology transfer as a significant part of their job purpose and who
have the required skill and ability to work with industry. That will
not (and perhaps may never be) the prime driver of university staff
who are rewarded and applauded professionally for their skills in research
and teaching. It should also be appreciated that the majority of knowledge
transfer is undertaken through teaching graduates who then take up jobs
in industry and other organisations. Similarly, it should be recognised
that enhanced engagement is a two-way process and the business community
should also be encouraged to engage with the university sector.
Appropriate infrastructure and personnel in commercialisation
departments is another important issue. There is anecdotal evidence
of a linear relationship between the volume of research and benchmarks
used to measure a university’s commercialisation success. Therefore
small universities need to be exceptionally lucky to get enough financial
reward to justify the financing of a technology transfer office, unless
they share the cost of commercialisation. It is the size of the research
base rather than the quality of the technology transfer office that
is the primary factor (for example, experience from the large universities
has been that most royalties came from 1 or 2 products.) At present,
each university in Scotland has its own industrial opportunities team.
Consideration should be given to the possibilities of collaboration.
The RSE in partnership with Scottish Enterprise has
also run a successful series of Enterprise Fellowships since 1997. These
one-year Enterprise Fellowships have equipped post-doctoral researchers,
or younger lecturers, with the hands-on business knowledge to enhance
the commercialisation potential of their own research. They encourage
the establishment of new start-up companies and allow young researchers
to devote time to develop their research from a commercial perspective.
In Spring 2001, Scottish Enterprise commissioned SQW Ltd to carry out
an independent review and evaluation of the 13 Enterprise Fellowships
that had been completed at that point. Its report concluded that: "The
Enterprise Fellowship programme is shaping up to be an excellent contributor
to economic development in Scotland. It is enabling progress to be made
in the commercialisation of university research and the establishment
of technology-oriented new businesses." The companies which
these Enterprise Fellows have created to date include: Intense Photonics,
Microemissive Displays, Surfactant Solutions, Edinburgh Biocomputing
Solutions, Photonic Materials, Kymata and Intrallect. In recognition
of this, Scottish Enterprise announced this year a major expansion in
the number of Enterprise Fellowships to be run by the RSE, with funding
of £5.5 million for a further 80 new Enterprise Fellowships in
Scotland.
Consolidating the excellence of European universities
Creating the right conditions for achieving excellence
How can the consensus be strengthened around the need to promote
excellence in the universities in conditions which make it possible
to combine autonomy and management efficiency?
There is rarely any real difficulty, at least in UK universities, in
attracting very high calibre staff to the most senior management positions,
since such positions offer considerable potential for developing universities
in clear and strategic ways. However, the position of Head of Department,
and to some extent that of Dean as well, is one that is poorly rewarded
and increasingly onerous. Different universities will approach this
in different ways, but a reduction in the number of departments, methods
for pre-identifying and pre-training new Heads of Department, and continuous
professional development, especially in newer areas such as risk management,
coupled with significantly better pay, are going to be essential components.
Of course, this pre-supposes that highly decentralised
models will become the norm in European Universities. This is likely
to happen, simply because the complexity even of purely departmental
activity is now such that centrally administered systems are bound to
fail, probably in the shorter rather than the longer term. Industry
tends to see strong management as good management, however, in great
universities, ideas and creativity flow upwards and the role of managers
is to ensure that finances are sound and to help when they can.
Is there a way of encouraging the universities
to manage themselves as efficiently as possible while taking due account
simultaneously of their own requirements and the legitimate expectations
of society in their regard?
Guardians of public funds demand strong accountability, not only for
outcomes but also, wrongly, for processes. Autonomy is vital if a university
is to play a strong role in society and the economy. A consensus is
needed about accountability that focuses on outputs and judges universities
by their results.
What are the steps which would make it possible
to encourage an interdisciplinary approach in university work, and who
should take them?
Teachers, researchers, students and academic managers are the best judge
of the utility of inter-disciplinary work and can develop where it has
value. It is however important that assessment regimes and research
councils do not create structures that inhibit such work. For example,
the Research Assessment Exercise in the UK was judged through conventional
disciplinary categories, which inhibited evolution of academic activity.
Similarly, the availability of funding for interest driven basic research
seems to be necessary to foster such activity. The more directed and
focused funding for research becomes the less likely interdisciplinary
work is to thrive.
Developing European centres and networks of
excellence
How can providers of university funds be encouraged
to concentrate their efforts on excellence, particularly in the area
of research, so as to attain a European critical mass which can remain
competitive in the international league?
The funding of research infrastructure does require substantial resources
and not all universities can aspire to the same model. Evidence from
competing countries also suggests that size matters and that bigger
and more professionally managed organisations appear to produce better
results and play an important role in economic development. For example,
in an extremely short space of time Dundee University have gained world
recognition and attracted some of the worlds leading authorities in
the biomedical field.
However, the notion of "European critical mass"
in an area of research needs to be treated with some caution and it
would be a mistake to imagine that a small number of quite large institutions
of very high quality can exist in isolation. They need to rest on a
base of institutions, perhaps less prestigious, but where capable staff
can do valuable work and in which new staff can make a reputation and
possibly be recruited to the top establishments.
How should this excellence be organised and disseminated,
whilst managing the impact of the steps taken on all institutions and
research teams?
A healthy system must be dynamic and flexible. Depending upon the regional
distribution of concentrated specialist institutions could limit the
expectations for regional economic growth and cause further imbalance
in demographics between regions. Too much concentration also runs the
risk of an overly great focus of people and resources into a narrow
range of topic areas. This may be good for the research output but will
have detrimental effects on the range of available knowledge and skills
to the economy. In the UK, increasing research selectivity may also
have developed a pattern of research that owes more to very high levels
of scholarship and ‘safe’ research than to highly innovative
and imaginative, but risky research, with its longer term benefits.
Evidence for this can be found in the recent "Chemistry
at the Centre" report commissioned by Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council and the Royal Society of Chemistry in the
UK, with increasing evidence that high-risk areas of interdisciplinary
research, such as chemical biology and materials chemistry, are being
neglected.
Nevertheless, there should be continuing examples
of the kind provided by CERN, ESRF and ILL where a major facility can
only be funded by a truly co-operative effort. However, even there it
is the case that data produced in large facilities can be exploited
by small groups of researchers distributed around Europe, i.e. there
is a combination of a very large facility with substantial sized groups
able to exploit it on site, and small groups or even individuals who
are able to apply their own skills to data collected in such a facility.
Wherever it is the case that individuals do not need access to large
pieces of sophisticated equipment, it should be possible for critical
mass to be achieved in a distributed fashion so long as adequate opportunities
exist for bringing together researchers to debate and discuss their
work at regular intervals.
Excellence in human resources
It is vital that research careers are made more attractive to bright
young graduates. In the US, the prospect of postgraduate research is
a positive one for young graduates. Research careers are seen as exciting
and stimulating, largely because of the strong support for basic research,
which permits young US researchers to take on the most demanding research
challenges that are often beyond the resources available to even the
most seasoned researchers elsewhere, and because of the climate of confidence
based on past success which encourages them to do so.
Europe needs fellowship programmes and it needs to
ensure that a research career is attractive because of the research
opportunities it offers. This means that the level of funding of the
projects on which such careers are built needs to be increased. In relation
to efforts to persuade heads of government to commit to raising R&D
expenditure to 3% of GDP, a calculation has been made of a pro-rata
increase in the number of researchers required. This is a mistaken approach.
There must be an increase in the expenditure per researcher, which in
Europe is very low compared with our competitors. In relation to fellowships,
the model of the UK Royal Society University Research Fellowships is
advocated. They are prestigious fellowships, keenly sought, with a long
tenure (5 years renewable to 8 or 10 years), good salaries, strong research
support, and flexibility for family and natal arrangements. They are
creating a new cohort of highly professional and creative researchers.
The point is also made in the Paper that there are
fewer posts for researchers in Europe, particularly in the private sector,
than in the USA or Japan, but it then suggests that this issue might
be addressed by recruitment of more women into Science and Engineering
professions. If these posts are unattractive and few in number, then
it is hard to see why they should be attractive to women any more than
to men. The problems identified in this section are as much associated
with low innovation and R&D spend by European companies as anything
else and attempts to address this type of issue by increasing European
mobility is to confuse ends with means. Scientific and technical careers
will be more attractive where those entering them can see the prospects
of continuity of funding. Mechanisms to support researchers in stepping
from one project to another are still in short supply and a system of
transition grants could be useful in facilitating this; these should
include the opportunities for further development of skills for researchers
during the course of their careers.
Broadening the perspectives of European universities
A broader international perspective
How can European universities be made more attractive to the best
students and researchers from all over the world?
Movement of university scientists from country to country depends on
a number of factors including salary, facilities and conditions of employment.
Domestic considerations and family, however, are also major considerations.
UK universities find it easier to attract scholars in Arts and Social
Sciences from abroad than they do scientists and engineers as the resource
demands are much more easily satisfied for non-scientists.
In a context of increasing internationalisation
of teaching and research, and of accreditation for professional purposes,
how should the structures, study programmes and management methods of
European universities be changed to help them retain or recover their
competitiveness?
The main issues currently are language and cultural ones. There is little
appetite overseas for learning one of the many European languages, with
the notable exceptions of Spanish and English, which are seen, with
Mandarin and Arabic, as the primary languages of commerce and economic
development in the future. Universities in Scotland are working with
colleagues in other European universities to devise courses that will
be primarily given in English, but which will involve residence in more
than one European country. We believe that such courses may well be
attractive to those from overseas, but we are also conscious that European
heterogeneity, enormously valued as it is within the EU, remains something
of a barrier for overseas students from many (though not all) parts
of the world.
Local and regional development
In what areas and how could the universities contribute
more to local and regional development?
Universities can play a number of key roles in regional development:
- Excellence in the research base and its spin-off
activity can attract R&D intensive companies, possibly with a
manufacturing base in the region, to create their own R&D capability.
Such activity can snowball and it is important that regional development
agencies and universities develop shared strategies to achieve this
outcome. This is one of the key points of modern economic geography,
as exemplified in Richard Florida’s recent book: ‘The
Rise of the Creative Class’. Companies are no longer interested
primarily in tax breaks or regional subsidies: they are primarily
interested in being in areas where there are substantial numbers of
creative people, and many of these areas are clustered around successful
universities, already major employers of creative and innovative staff.
- Universities, sometimes acting as consortia, can
be very effective in providing access to technologies and know-how
to indigenous SMEs. To make this effective requires a knowledgeable
interface body, which should be funded through a regional development
body or regional development aid.
- Masters programmes in key technologies can kick-start
activity in a region, acting as a beacon for attraction of companies
whose principal problem lies in manpower supply in the technology.
- Continuing investment in upgrading people's skills
and regional knowledge resources to provide a well-educated and trained
work-force.
What ways are there of strengthening the development
of centres of knowledge bringing together at regional level the various
players involved in the production and transfer of knowledge?
Engaging with industry is, inevitably, an interactive process: the simple
linear models of innovation have long been discredited. Instead, universities
have been active, with research councils, regional development agencies
and other funders in developing forums in which not only two partnerships
between HE and industry are forged, but three-way partnerships in which
regional government is also active as a player. This model is more common
in countries such as Germany, where the Länder have seen this as
a key weapon in regional competitiveness, and is becoming the norm in
countries such as Scotland, where Scottish Enterprise is becoming increasingly
active in promoting such partnerships, most recently through the planned
Intermediary Technology Initiative. There are also a great variety of
institutions, besides the universities that are able contribute to the
transfer of knowledge. Places like Research Institutes and botanical
gardens already work closely with universities, and can contribute to
addressing the increasing demand for higher education in Europe. Therefore,
mechanisms to support the strengthening of ties between universities
and other academic institutions similarly need to be developed at a
regional level.
An important requirement is to develop a shared understanding
of the way in which "centres of knowledge" can contribute
to economic development. There are numerous research studies which demonstrate
the efficacy of the research base in areas where there is R&D intensive
business able to "pull" research findings out of the research
base. But increasingly, there is awareness of the way in which areas
that lack such "pull" (and Scotland is one), that the "push"
of such ideas from the research base can be important in promoting development.
It is vital, however, that this is done sustainably. A wholesale shift
from basic to strategic/applied research could be damaging (e.g. as
was tried in Norway) to the maintenance of innovative capacity. A creative
balance between them is vital. Once a shared understanding of the process
has been developed, politicians, development agencies and consortia
of universities can be readily persuaded that such initiatives are in
their mutual interest.
How can greater account be taken of the regional
dimension in European research, education and training projects and
programmes?
Subsidiarity suggests that the EU is too high level a body to be involved
in fine tuning regional processes, particularly as many problems are
not generic but specific to regions. However, support for the development
of knowledge clusters as part of regional economic aid, particularly
around major research universities, would be appropriate. The EU could
also play a significant role in developing and publicising economic
development data and models.
Additional Information
In responding to this consultation the Society would like to draw attention
to the following Royal Society of Edinburgh responses which are of relevance
to this subject: Commercialisation Enquiry: Final Report (1996); Devolution
and Science (April 1999); The Independent Committee of Inquiry into
Student Finance (September 1999); A Framework for Economic Development
(March 2000); A Science Strategy for Scotland (July 2000); Review of
the supply of scientists and engineers (August 2001); Research and Knowledge
Transfer in Scotland (September 2002); Review of Research Assessment
(December 2002) and The Future of Higher Education (May 2003).
May 2003
Further information is available from the Research Officer, Dr
Marc Rands |
