UK sector must soothe ‘sores’ to fight cuts, warns ex-adviser

Universities must “cultivate champions at the heart of government” and address “sores that reduce enthusiasm for further investment”, as they fight to defend teaching and research budgets “inevitably under threat”, according to a recently departed Westminster adviser.

Ministers are expected to seek savings across departments to plug a £40 billion fiscal hole created when the Liz Truss government’s massive programme of unfunded tax cuts and energy spending alarmed the markets. New chancellor Jeremy Hunt spectacularly abandoned nearly all the tax cuts and scaled back the energy plan as he succeeded the sacked Kwasi Kwarteng.

For universities, that puts the spotlight on how they could make a case to government against paring back plans to grow the annual UK research budget to £20 billion, the £6 billion earmarked for association to the European Union’s Horizon Europe research programme or a domestic “Plan B” replacement, or the £1.4 billion Strategic Priorities Grant that includes support for the teaching of high-cost subjects.

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Iain Mansfield, head of education at the Policy Exchange thinktank, who left the Department for Education in July after serving as special adviser to an education secretary and two universities ministers, said research spending was “critical to growth”, but “sadly both the research budget and the Strategic Priorities Grant will inevitably be under threat as government searches for efficiencies”.

Mr Mansfield, the architect of stalled plans to control student numbers to tackle quality concerns and of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, said the sector’s current relationship with the government “could be characterised as transactional, with good cooperation on specific issues such as international students, but without a deep meeting of minds”.

“To weather the coming challenges, universities should seek to cultivate active champions at the heart of government, as well as taking genuine action to address the longstanding sores that create scepticism and reduce enthusiasm for further investment,” he suggested.

Ben Waltmann, a senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said freezing the English tuition fee cap, continuing until 2024-25 at least, “amounts to a substantial further cut” given inflation forecasts.

“Another way in which the government might make savings to the cost of HE teaching is reducing student numbers, or at least halting the trend towards ever higher student numbers. The government consulted earlier this year on student number controls and minimum eligibility requirements for loans – those would be two tools that could be used to achieve that,” Dr Waltmann said.

James Wilsdon, Digital Science professor of research policy at the University of Sheffield, said the envisaged increases in research funding might be seen as a “more subtle target for cuts” than the Horizon association budget. The increases “were notionally going to be steered by the now-downgraded ministerial science and technology council” and by the Office for Science and Technology Strategy led by Sir Patrick Vallance, who departs as chief scientific adviser next year, he noted.

Universities making a case on funding must, said Diana Beech, the London Higher chief executive and former adviser to Conservative universities ministers, “reframe” themselves as “agents for growth and investment” and, “instead of highlighting the insufficiency of student fees and research funding, put the focus firmly on what more we could do for the nation were we given the tools and resources to do so”.

Jess Lister, higher education policy manager at political consultancy Public First, said: “Universities need to be careful not to catastrophise their messaging while at the same time identifying areas of particular risk where spending cuts could cause long-term harm.

“It is possible to walk this line by talking, for example, about the impact of cuts on specific types of research work that will be easily understood as an obvious public good.”

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com