Research fund plans ‘ threaten 8,000 jobs’

University lecturers and learned societies made stinging attacks yesterday on the government’s plan to concentrate research funding on elite institutions.

The Association of University Teachers gave the Guardian a study which predicts that 8,000 jobs are endangered by the threat to the funding of departments graded 4 in the most recent research assessment.

And in a rare joint letter 11 leading academic associations wrote to the education secretary, Charles Clarke, to express their “dismay on moves to focus government funding for research in only a small number of higher education institutions or departments”.

Funding for departments graded 4 – classified as having “national excellence in virtually all research and some international excellence” -has fallen from pounds 208m in 2001 to pounds 118m this year, accompanied by a small drop in the numbers of staff working in them.

The government has warned that it cannot guarantee future provision for grade 4s as it concentrates more on those rated 5, 5* and the new 6*, which already receive the lion’s share.

The letter is signed by Ian Forbes (Academy of Social Sciences), David Clarke (British Computer Society), Michael Bassey (British Educational Research Association), Roger Trigg (British Philosophical Association), Peter Morris (psychology education board of the British Psychological Society), Joan Chandler (British Sociological Association), Nicholas Sims-Williams (Philological Society), Wyn Grant (Political Studies Association), Rita Gardner (Royal Geographical Society), Kenneth Fincham (Royal Historical Society), and Peter Green (Royal Statistical Society).

It says: “Progress in research in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities depends on diversity. Focusing research in only a small number of institutions or departments would be profoundly damaging for the sector, the economy, and society as a whole.

“Pre-eminent departments need to be strongly supported to allow them to compete internationally, but not at the expense of other departments and institutions . . . concentration of research funding in a few institutions will cause ossification across the sector.”

Last night statements supporting the joint letter were issued by the British Medical Association and the organisation of vice- chancellors, Universities UK.

The AUT study says there is a threat to the long term future of 8,000 staff in 500 grade 4 departments. Sally Hunt, its general secretary, said: “Our nation’s research is being concentrated in a handful of universities with no regard for diversity or regional balance.”

In education, business and management studies, environmental sciences, and built environment, fewer than a fifth of researchers were rated 5 or 5*.

The study says that some regions have no assessed research in particular subjects. In the north-east, for instance, there is no research in pre-clinical studies, anatomy, or pharmacology. Education research in the east Midlands, environmental sciences in London, and geography and philosophy in the north-west are all under threat.

A spokesman for the Department for Education and Skills said: “In the next three years we will increase the money going into research by 30% in real terms, but our main international competitors are strongly concentrating resources in order to build their own world class research bases. To compete we must do the same.”

* Oxford has broken with 900 years of tradition by selecting an outsider as its vice-chancellor. John Hood has been vice-chancellor of Auckland University in New Zealand since 1999, after having spent 18 years in business. He is the first vice-chancellor who is not a member of congregation, the university’s parliament of academics and senior staff.

Read the AUT study and academic societies’ letter at EducationGuardian.co.uk