Anxious wait

Around £1.5bn a year in research funding is at stake as officials at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) work out what money will follow December's research assessment exercise (RAE). The national project to judge the quality of British research revealed a much wider spread of top researchers than before. With over half the research (54%) submitted in 2008 deemed to be either world-leading (4*) or internationally excellent (3*) - and found in 150 of 159 universities - the funding that follows will inevitably be more thinly spread.

Vice-chancellors of big, research-intensive universities are particularly worried. The Russell group claims that without continued "selectivity" - at the moment 29 universities receive 82% of Hefce's research funding - world-class universities with the capacity to compete globally will be jeopardised.

But vice-chancellors who have met with the higher education minister, David Lammy, suggest he is less interested in hearing about research funding than what universities can do to help the country out of recession.

"Ministers understand the importance of research selectivity and concentration and having world-class universities, particularly as a mechanism to accelerate out of the bottom end of the recession and gain advantage. But whether that will translate through, we don't know," says Professor Michael Arthur, vice-chancellor of the University of Leeds. "Other VCs are saying this is classic Russell group protectionism, but take it to its extreme and you end up with lots of universities in the middle and nobody at world-class level. That would be bad for the country.

mperial College London was rated one of the top universities in the UK, with most of its research deemed to be of the highest quality. But funding predictions suggest it could be one of the biggest losers, mainly because its medical school did not do as well as last time round.

Michelle Coupland, Imperial's strategy and planning, RAE project director, says: "The college is proud to have the greatest concentration, at 73%, of research assessed as world-leading and internationally excellent and this must be rewarded in the funding that results. It is no accident that the UK is home to four universities regarded as among the global top 10. The world's most pressing problems can be solved by these top universities, since they have recognised strengths across a broad range of disciplines.

"These universities have demonstrated consistent excellence in successive exercises and investment in them will thus enable the UK to maintain a globally competitive edge."

Soure: The Guardian