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by Rob Thornton

Will 2012 see science and engineering Catapult-ed into the spotlight?

Barely a week into the new year and we’ve already seen a small flood of announcements in science and engineering (although you may have understandably missed them due to another truly historic if appallingly belated event happening as well).

So what’s been happening?  The UK Science Minister David Willetts has announced that the next Catapult technology and innovation centre will be dedicated to space applications, as well as outlined his vision for privately funded science and technology graduate universities.  Pretty good, right?  Well, not to be outdone, the Sector Skills Council for Science, Engineering and Manufacturing Technologies (Semta) has announced the launch of the Apprentice Ambition – a scheme which aims to double the number of advanced and higher level apprenticeships by 2016.  And if that wasn’t enough, the Royal Society has called for schools to use cutting edge science to inspire young people!

“Not a bad start to the year,” you might say!  But what do all these developments mean in reality?  How much impact are they likely to have?

The Advanced Manufacturing Park in Sheffield is part of the first Catapult centre announced by the Government.

The Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield is part of the first Catapult centre announced by the Government.

The launch of the latest Catapult centre, part of a £200m programme announced by Prime Minister David Cameron last year, illustrates the Government’s apparent strategy in science and technology – to focus on headline specialisms where they believe the UK can be world-leading (such as high value manufacturing, cell therapy, offshore renewables and space technology) but arguably at the expense of a broader research base for innovation.  Whether this strategy will provide sustainable long-term growth, or merely a short-term boost remains to be seen…

David Willetts is hoping to emulate leading US universities in creating institutions where new innovations are not just conceived, but transformed into businesses, jobs and economic growth (as typified by university-industry collaborations such as the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre above… oh wait…)  Criticism aside, this idea does present some interesting opportunities for attracting more private investment into research, but you do have to question the motives of a Government who have previously cut vast sums of money from research budgets.  I wonder how much fees will be at this new type of university and more importantly, who will be expected (or able) to pay them?

Semta envisages over 170,000 manufacturing jobs being created over the next 5 years.

We’ve said before how inspiring and supporting the next generation is crucial for an engineering and manufacturing resurgence, so it’s great to see some real initiatives and great ideas aiming to do just that.  The £5m secured by Semta being targeted at apprenticeships is by no means enough, but is a good step forward all the same.  And the grants being given by the Royal Society to take cutting edge research into schools just makes me want to grab some liquid nitrogen, a lab coat, safety glasses and gloves (mad scientist anyone?) and show off the ‘cool effects’ (get it?) that cryogenic treatment has on bits of metal!  …On the other hand there’s just a small chance that I’m not exactly who they’re after…

by Rob Thornton

Is a PhD worth pursuing?

A friend of mine recently pointed me towards an article in The Economist, with the eye-catching title (for one, who is himself studying for one) ‘The disposable academic – Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time’.  Obviously my initial reaction was along the lines of, ‘Thanks Dave, what a great motivational article you’ve found for a young researcher,’ (though perhaps slightly less politely put than that) but I soon found myself seriously considering what the article had to say.

So, is a PhD worth pursuing? If you ask The Economist, the short answer is – no.  However, I disagree, and in particular I find the narrow definition given by the article to how much a PhD is ‘worth’ to be very short-sighted indeed.

“The earnings premium for a PhD is 26%. But the premium for a master’s degree, which can be accomplished in as little as one year, is almost as high, at 23%… The premium for a PhD is actually smaller than for a master’s degree in engineering and technology”

So, clearly individual earnings is the measure by which we must measure how much a PhD is ‘worth’.  In fairness I suppose I shouldn’t have expected anything else from ‘The Economist’.  In my opinion, if you choose to undertake a PhD primarily for financial gain, you are not only doing it for the wrong reasons, but you are taking a major gamble.  Of course it is possible that you will earn substantially more if you are able to find a job in your specific area of research, but in a lot of cases that may well not happen.

‘Why’ I hear you ask?  A PhD is supposed to represent a substantial, new piece of research, suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed context.  As such, it’s very difficult to predict what, if any employment will be available as a result – it may be that your research forms an entirely new field of work, or that your PhD represents only a fragment of a much larger project – either way, it may well not be viable to hire someone into such a role on a commercial or long-term academic basis.  That’s not to say that research is a ‘blind’ or random endeavour; far from it in fact.  However, the purpose of fundamental research is not simply to prove that something will work, but also to show what will not work – and strangely enough, there aren’t many jobs going in things that don’t work!

“Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings.”

The idea that someone undertakes a PhD just to become an academic is outdated in my opinion.  The reasons for doing a PhD are far more varied than a singular simplistic hope of personal financial benefit – people undertake research simply for the love of the subject, to extend understanding of a particular field or to try and create new opportunities for themselves.  In my experience very few are determined to become academics from the outset and I don’t believe this is limited to those in science and engineering.  For a broader perspective, I asked some other postgraduate students at The University Of Sheffield for their own opinions as to why people undertake a PhD:

“The first priority, I would guess, is precisely one’s desire to engage in a different hierarchy of values: instead of thinking of money as the ultimate sign of success, we appeal to academic excellence in the form of the accrual and dissemination of knowledge and/or wisdom. Of course, we do not completely opt out of the need for money. We merely transform it into a standard of sufficiency, where we aim for ‘enough’, and instead seek to grow by a standard of excellence – that of being a truly genial researcher and/or teacher.” – Josh Forstenzer (Political Philosophy)

“My reason for doing a PhD was the sense of despair I felt looking down the list of graduate jobs. I just felt like I wanted to do something that had “intrinsic value”. I’m also interested in my thesis – there are not many opportunities in your life to pontificate about power, ideology and language!” – Sam Browse (English Language)

Incidentally, both write their own blogs, and have some very interesting things to say on a variety of issues, hence the links above!

Clearly, there are many different reasons for undertaking a PhD, and many different possible outcomes from your research.  An important point that The Economist fails to mention, is that PhDs are an incredibly cheap source of high-level research, that forms the basis of new innovations, technologies, processes and ideas that fuel our national economic and social development – in my opinion that is the real value of a PhD, not some narrow-minded and short-sighted vision of personal financial gain.

by Rob Thornton

The future of higher education in the UK – revolution or catastrophe?

Now that leaks are emerging concerning the fate of higher education funding in the UK, it is beginning to become clear what the ‘masterplan’ behind increasing tuition fees, reducing teaching funding and reducing research funding really is.  But will these changes ultimately improve the standard of teaching at our universities, create more specialist and demand-driven institutions and make our research efforts inherently more efficient?  Or simply saddle graduates with mountains of debt, discourage poorer families from considering a top university education for their children, and place an unfair burden on those that have recently been termed the ‘squeezed-middle’?  Will some less renowned institutions go to the wall?  And will the UK lose some of its most valued researchers?

Given the Government's insistence on spending cuts, what moves does the higher education sector have left to make?

In the whirlwind of media coverage on this issue (including, I feel obliged to add, footage of a number of my peers from Sheffield University Students’ Union outside Nick Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam constituency office) it is difficult to pinpoint any conclusive answer – the Government is clearly hoping for market forces to shape higher education, whilst the student movement is fighting any increase in fees at a time when student satisfaction has remained static.  The Russell Group wants higher fees and a market in HE but are worried about teaching and research funding cuts, a concern which is shared by academics and Vice-Chancellors across the country, while the institutions represented by the university think-tank million+ believe the impact will be much worse for them; without an international reputation to support them, they could get dragged into a divisive and destructive competition for students looking to pay lower fees, whilst facing the same teaching funding cuts as everyone else.

Given the Government’s market-driven approach, it is incredibly worrying to see reports suggesting that commercial firms and charities will not fill the funding gaps left by the proposed changes to the HE system.  Perhaps just as indicative of the severity of the situation, given the Russell Group’s aversion to criticising the Government recently, is when one of its own Vice-Chancellors warns staff that university cuts would be a “national tragedy”.  The head of Universities UK, Professor Steve Smith sent a similar message to Vice-Chancellors around the country, saying that the figures set out by the Browne Review “confirm our worst fears” – a £3.2bn or 79% cut to teaching funding and a £1bn cut to research.

“George Osborne’s aim of cutting Whitehall department budgets by between 25 and 40 per cent over five years could leave universities out of pocket by as much as £6.6bn” – Michael Savage commenting on statements by Universities UK in The Independent

Renowned scientist and Chair of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, John Krebs has warned that research funding cuts will lead to a new ‘lost generation’ of scientists, highlighting the lack of top researchers in their mid-50s thought to have been lost as a result of cuts during the Thatcher years.  It seems common sense to suggest that cutting funding to research will just cause our best scientists to take their research elsewhere, namely the better funded institutions of our competitors in the United States, France and Germany.  In all this there does appear to be some respite for those of us of a STEM persuasion though – both the Browne Review and the Government have suggested increased subsidies for ‘strategically important’ subjects, although it appears this is at the expense of almost all funding for Arts & Humanities.  This is presumably one of the factors that is expected to result in smaller, specialised institutions as suggested by a recent Times Higher Education report, with ‘non-profitable’ departments being re-organised, merged or closed as a result of the loss of teaching funding.

Regardless of specific provisions for particular social groups or specialisms, all stakeholders and users of the higher education system in this country have grave concerns that need addressing before these monumental changes are pushed through Parliament.  With organisations, businesses, services and individuals from across the country fighting their separate corners after the Comprehensive Spending Review is published on the 20th October, half the battle for students, universities and higher education will simply be, to be heard at all.

I’ll leave some final thoughts to Professor Geoffrey Crossick, on his report entitled, ‘The future is more than just tomorrow: Higher education, the economy and the longer term’.

by Rob Thornton

Changes to research funding – the risks of short-sighted decisions

On October 20th, the UK Government will publish the Comprehensive Spending Review called by George Osborne after the General Election earlier this year. Cuts of 25-40% are widely expected for all Government departments, leading to fears of lasting and damaging effects to public services and the economy.  But what are the likely implications for research in science and engineering?


Paul Stevenson - http://www.flickr.com/photos/pss/4876189045/

Universities, along with the science and engineering professions are bracing themselves for potential cuts to higher education and research funding – for which Vince Cable‘s Department for Business, Innovation & Skills has responsibility.  Already having suffered an £836m cut in June (including £200m from higher education, £233m from the UK centre for medical research and £82m promised for university teaching budgets), it needs to make savings of a further £5bn to meet its target.

So how will this be achieved, and what effects will it have on research and innovation in the UK?

One idea, that Vince Cable outlined in a speech at Queen Mary, University of London was to refocus funding towards the 54% of research deemed ‘world class’ by the last Research Assessment Exercise in 2008, suggesting the other 46% was unimportant or ‘mediocre’.

“My preference is to ration research funding by excellence and back research teams of international quality – and screen out mediocrity” – Speech by Vince Cable MP

As many academics were quick to point out, Vince (or one of his speech writers) had failed to understand the meanings of the classifications given by the RAE.  Dr. Evan Harris, in an open letter to George Osborne posted on his blog for The Guardian, points out that were funding to be cut from 1* and 2* rated research, this would save a mere £160m (out of over £5bn given by the Government to science research) and cause most damage to the ‘newer, improving universities… which have good links with industry.’  Cutting any more funding would simply damage our international standing and economy in the long term, and at a time when our competitors are investing in research, we risk sliding down the league tables.

Another idea that seems far more likely, though even less appealing, is a significant reduction in university teaching grants, with the Government apparently considering reducing teaching funds from £4.7bn to just £1.2bn annually.  This huge shortfall would presumably be met by an increase in the graduate contribution recommended by the Browne Review, though (as I was arguing earlier this week) this may deter students from poorer backgrounds from entering higher education and would only guarantee financial stability for the top research-intensive universities who are able to charge top whack for their degrees, whilst other institutions face huge shortfalls in funding.

It’s pretty unusual for anything to get scientists and engineers marching on Whitehall, but worries over the Government’s spending review seem to have pushed many over the edge, with groups such as Science is Vital and the Campaign for Science & Engineering in the UK openly resisting cuts however they can.  Whatever the outcome of the spending review, one thing certainly seems to be happening: scientists and engineers are vocally and publicly engaging in politics on a level rarely before seen – and about time too.