EPSRC studentships

I’m somewhat uncertain about how to react to the news that EPSRC is cutting the number of studentships by about 30%. If you’ve read some of my earlier posts you’ll know that I feel that we may be producing too many PhD graduates. This isn’t because I don’t believe that PhDs are useful, it’s because I’m not sure it’s necessary to have as many PhD graduates as we currently have. It’s also because there are, in my opinion, real problems with the academic career structure that is exacerbated by the large number of PhD graduates.

Many who start a PhD do so because they would like to end up doing independent research. The main way to do this is to become an academic in a university. The fraction of PhD students who can, realistically, achieve this is now very small. Some argue that this doesn’t matter because those who don’t become academics go into industry and do very well. This is absolutely fine and I have no problem with someone doing a PhD and then choosing to go into industry. A concern I have, however, is that it can still be very disheartening for those who had hoped for an academic career and didn’t realise how difficult it was to do so. We also have to be careful that we don’t discourage, because of the difficulty of having an academic career, potentially excellent researchers from starting a PhD in the first place.

The other concern I have is that some feel that PhDs should become degrees in which people are taught research skills. I sat through a meeting recently where a concern was expressed that our PhD graduates typically were not competitive internationally. Someone then responded by saying that this didn’t matter as their PhD students were snapped up by industry. That’s great, except that in my opinion a PhD from a top UK university should typically allow that person to compete for research jobs anywhere in the world. They don’t have to do so, but it should allow them to do so if they so choose. If this is no longer then case, then our PhDs are no longer degrees in which students learn to undertake independent, world-class research. I think this is a crucial aspect of a PhD, otherwise we’re wasting everyone’s time.

The solution, in my view, is to expand the number of degrees. If we introduce a research Masters degree, students could learn, in a year or two, very useful research skills that will translate very well into industry. The tops students could then go on to do PhDs and the rest could go out into industry where they could contribute greatly. This would be more cost effective and those going into industry would do so a year or two earlier than they would do if they’d done a PhD and probably with most of the research skills they would need. If the cuts to EPSRC studentships was an attempt to rebalance the system, I might be quite pleased. However, it does seem to be purely a cut because of a reduction in their budget and does not appear to be based on any sense of attempting to produce a sensible system that will address issues relating to the academic career structure without reducing the number of research trained people going into industry. Admittedly EPSRC is a research council and doesn’t have any say in the structure of degrees at UK universities. It’s unfortunate, however, that there doesn’t appear to be any attempt to try and use this as an opportunity to address issues with the degree structure and career structure in UK universities.

EPSRC again

Seems like my concern (in an earlier post about EPSRC Fellowships) regarding EPSRC’s research funding philosophy is not completely unfounded. In an article in the Times Higher Education it is reported that EPSRC starts to impose order on its universe.

The basic idea seems to be that EPSRC will specify, quite specifically, what they are willing to fund. They also appear to be explicitly regarding themselves as “sponsors” of research, rather than “funders” of research. I must admit that I don’t quite know, at this stage, what the distinction is. I do, however, have a concern than funding councils like EPSRC will start to feel that they should decide what research needs to be done and regard university researchers as “contractors” who carry out the specified research. I think this is a very dangerous policy to follow as it seems highly unlikely that it will lead to the breakthroughs that we ideally would like. Furthermore, if senior EPSRC people are ultimately the ones to effectively decide what research should be done, why have they decided to become administrators rather than remaining active researchers. If they are this brilliant, they would never have willingly given up their research careers.

The other issue I have is that I don’t really feel that the taxpayers should be funding research that industry could be doing. If something is likely to return a profit in the short to medium term, then industry should be funding the research. The taxpayer should fund the research that we can’t reasonably expect industry to fund. It is this research that is very difficult to specify in advance. I’m not suggesting that research councils should never fund industrially relevant research, simply that research councils should tend to fund work that will have long-term benefits or that will have societal benefits that industry may not value as immediately valuable. I think EPSRC’s current policies are potentially extremely damaging and I hope they rethink them soon.

EPSRC Fellowships

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has recently released new guidelines for its fellowships. What is most controversial (in my view at least) is that they have decided to identify – quite specifically – the areas that they will fund. To use their exact words “Under this new fellowship framework, fellowship applications will be invited only in specific research areas that are linked to our strategic priorities”. Those outside those areas (but still in areas covered by EPSRC) are prohibited from applying.

In some respects, something like the above has always happened. The government decides how much money to give to the research councils. This is then divided amongst the different research councils and they then produce strategic plans/roadmaps. Researchers apply for funding by submitting grant applications that are assessed by peers and then by a grants panel. If something doesn’t fit within the strategic plan it could be rejected even if judged to be excellent science. This, however, wouldn’t typically happen since the strategic plan would probably be based on what is currently of interest and something that was not of interest to those reviewing or on the panel would not generally be regarded as excellent.

However, there is always a bit of flexibility. A proposal could really impress the panel and reviewers and be funded even if it doesn’t strictly satisfy the strategic plans. Also, these strategic plans are never particularly specific, which gives some flexibility. Those writing proposals know the general areas that are of interest and then write proposals, in those areas, that they hope will impress reviewers and panel members. The problem I have with EPSRC’s new Fellowship guidelines is that it seems to set, fairly specifically, the areas that can be funded. This must be very disappointing for those in other areas who had hoped to compete for Fellowships. What about PhD students who may now be getting the message that their areas isn’t currently of interest? Also, who decides? I know there were probably panels and committees, but this seems a little unsatisfactory.

It also seems rather unnecessary. Either these are areas of interest, in which case most of those Fellowships funded would have been in these general areas. If not, how did they become the areas that were suddenly important?

I also have a fundamental concern about this type of thing. I probably won’t be able to explain my thoughts as clearly as I would like, but this feels as though researchers are explicitly becoming a resource to be exploited directly. Research councils decide (as the representatives of UK plc) what research needs to be done. They request submission of proposals (tenders) and decide which to accept. Researchers essentially subcontract from their universities to the research councils and carry out the research that has been requested. To a certain extent, the introduction of full economic costing (fEC), in which part of an academic’s salary is directly covered by the research councils, makes it feel like this has already started happening. There is also certainly a push from universities to make this happen (i.e., they need us to cover part of our salary and so we’d better get funded).

The way I’ve always imagined things working is that I’m employed by a university to teach and do research. I decide what research I’d like to do (what do I find interesting). To do this I would typically need some funding, so I write research proposals and try to convince reviewers and grant panels that my work will be interesting. Of course, there is some feedback. I need to do research that could get funded, but my (and others) interest in an area will also influence what a research council might regard as worth funding. Essentially the research is mine (in the sense that I’m deciding what I want to do). I’m not doing research on behalf of a research council who represent UK plc.

What is, of course, important is that the money spent funding research must be beneficial. Exactly what that benefit is could be difficult to measure, but essentially we do need to know that we – as a society – are better off because we fund research than we would be if we didn’t. This, in my opinion, does not mean that every individual research project needs to have some well-defined benefit. It could simply be that if I’m enthusiastic about my research, I will enthuse my students and hence benefit the next generation. It could be that my research will influence something else that will have impact in the future. It could be that I’m solving a problem that is simply interesting to society at the moment, but doesn’t actually have any immediate economic benefit. It could even be that my research will have some direct benefit now. Although predefining the research areas very specifically in advance is not necessarily inconsistent with what I describe, it does seem quite concerning. I hope it’s not the beginning of a slippery slope towards research councils behaving as if they are the customers who decide what research needs to be done with the university researchers being the sub-contractors who carry out the research projects on their behalf. I would certainly find it difficult to get enthusiastic about such a system, and anyway who would be deciding what specific research areas are of interest.