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The new budget...what will it mean for researchers?
24 May 2010
By Sarah Davies
Just a quick post to note that, even from across the pond, it's obvious that the coalition government have now announced their new budget. While it's clear that university places for students will fall from what was expected, I can't find too much discussion of what the new financial regime will mean for research funding - even the THES focuses on the teaching budget. There is, however, mention of a civil service freeze which I'm guessing may affect RCUK and even Vitae.
So - anyone more knowledgeable want to comment on what this all might mean for research project funding and research posts? What's the word from Union? And - probably at the top of many of our minds - what is this going to mean for those of us who are job hunting?
Hannah Dee25 May 2010 at 09:54 AM
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If you follow timeshighered on twitter, you'll have seen this: http://twitter.com/timeshighered/status/14615975963 which summarises the situation; on top of the planned 500m cuts there will be a further 200m. I don't think it's been worked out yet how much of that will hit the research budget but it's clearly not going to escape. BIS cuts include "low priority" projects like the Semantic Web - so that's one big research centre (Tim Berners-Lee's web science thing) that's just lost its funding. More to come, I expect.
Elizabeth Dodson25 May 2010 at 03:47 PM
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More detail is given in the full article: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=411703&c=1 With 118m of the 200m coming from the cut in additional student places. The remaining 82m is expected to come from 'efficiency savings'. A greater potential impact for me though will be sweeping cuts within Government departments that directly fund research projects...
Matthew Salois26 May 2010 at 09:11 PM
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My fear is that in regards to potential job seekers, posts may obviously become even more scarce. I do not know how long the new budget takes to be put into effect, but I would surely expect that this time next year a nontrivial decrease in the available research positions will occur. As Elizabeth points out, cuts in government entities that fund researc projects is imperative. Any chance Sarah that you can extend your stay in the states?
Andy Humphrey12 July 2010 at 02:49 PM
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The ResearchProfessional.com website have just reported on the publication of the Wakeham Report into university funding. This appears to be recommending that universities reduce their overheads by 5% per year for the next 3 years “to ensure the long-term security of research in higher education”. Apparently this would save the research councils £40 million by 2013-14 - if the savings are achievable. And there's the rub. The same posting reported that almost all Physics and Chemistry departments run at a deficit compared to their research income (between 8.7-77.9% for Chemistry and 1.2-79.8% for Physics departments in 2007-08). http://www.researchprofessional.com/article/971422?i=971658&utm_campaign=ResearchFortnightNews&utm_keyword=2010_06_30
Andy Humphrey12 July 2010 at 02:57 PM
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More on the funding situation for Chemistry and Physics departments, from the Royal Society of Chemistry: http://my.rsc.org/blogs/52/157?mxmroi=8492227/2997603/false