This week: a social innovations programme, fungal research, and efforts to reduce animal experiments

In depth: The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has called for ”long-term solidarity with Ukraine”, including financial support for Ukrainian higher education institutions and assistance to refugee researchers and students in Germany.

Full story: DAAD calls for long-term support of Ukrainian academics

Also this week from Research Professional News

Pope asks Max Planck Society to support responsible research—Catholic leader spoke with Max Planck Society president about tackling global challenges

Here is the rest of the German news this week…

Science ministry announces social innovations programme

Germany’s science ministry has started an €11 million programme to fund projects on social innovations. The programme, dubbed Society of Innovations, will support universities and their knowledge transfer and startup centres in promoting social innovations and social entrepreneurship among students and doctoral candidates. “There are masses of good ideas from students and researchers at our universities,” said science minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger. “It is precisely these ideas that we want to help break through.”

Infection institute urges more research on funghi

More money needs to be spent on researching fungal infections, according to the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology, after the World Health Organization published a list of the most important fungal pathogens. The list highlights the need for a better understanding of the causes and spread of fungal infections, the institute said. “What we need, based on the very good analysis of the WHO, is much greater financial support, also from the public sector,” said director Axel Brakhage. “Too little money is invested in research on life-threatening fungal infections, much less than in viral or bacterial infections.”

Charité support animal-testing alternatives

The Charité university hospital in Berlin is providing funding for 10 projects aimed at lessening the need for animal experiments. A total of €1.3 million will be spent on the initiative, the organisation said. Among the funded projects is one that aims to use human tissue to develop alternative models and another set on reducing the number of laboratory animals used per experiment. “We will need very broad-based support initiatives and great staying power to develop new research methods that lead to better treatments for humans, while at the same time potentially reducing animal testing,” said Stefan Hippenstiel, animal welfare spokesperson for Charité.

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Solidarity with war-torn country must be expressed through funding and action, says German exchange service

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) has called for ”long-term solidarity with Ukraine”, including financial support for Ukrainian higher education institutions and assistance to refugee researchers and students in Germany.

In a statement released to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the DAAD’s leader, Joybrato Mukherjee, noted that universities had been attacked and destroyed. He urged Germany to make more resources available to students and researchers remaining in the country, who were attempting to pursue their studies and research under the threat of shelling.

“The war is still continuing a year after Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, and the people there are affected by death, extensive suffering and deprivation,” he said. “The DAAD, its member institutions and student bodies have stood firmly by the people in Ukraine since the war began.”

Multi-year support

Mukherjee said that German universities had demonstrated considerable commitment to welcoming and supporting refugee researchers and students, as well as joint projects with Ukrainian partner universities. But he warned that a better funding commitment from the government was needed to continue the work done in these projects.

“Here in Germany, we need a broad and multi-year support initiative, which must include assistance for Ukrainian refugees, activities to maintain German-Ukrainian higher education partnerships and long-term funding for the rebuilding of universities after the end of the war,” he said.

The diverse support projects implemented by German universities should receive reliable and long-term funding from the federal government, the DAAD said. A close and lasting link between Ukrainian and German academic institutions and research institutions would increase security for all of Europe, the body added.

“We in Germany need to have an action plan until 2030 that ensures the rapid and successful rapprochement of Ukraine with the EU and a comprehensive reconstruction of the Ukrainian higher education system,” Mukherjee wrote.

Closer alignment

One step to achieve this would be to more closely align Ukraine with EU initiatives, such as the European Research Area and the European Higher Education Area, the DAAD proposed.

In its statement, the DAAD said that financial support from the German foreign office and the education and development ministries had enabled it to mobilise about €21 million for projects to maintain higher education links within Ukraine, and providing assistance and scholarships for refugee Ukrainian academics and students in Germany. The DAAD also funded around 170 projects involving German and Ukrainian universities, especially around the provision of digitisation tools to assist teaching and administration at Ukrainian universities.

About 10,000 Ukrainian academics, university staff and students have been supported by the DAAD and the Erasmus programme to date, the statement said.

“It’s inconceivable to imagine the rebuilding of Ukraine after the war without a renewed and reformed Ukrainian education system,” said Serhiy Kvit, president of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Ukraine. “The revitalisation of Ukraine after victory in the war will be partly dependent on the role played by Ukrainian universities in further social development within our country. Ongoing German-Ukrainian cooperation will undoubtedly result in more rapid adaptation of Ukrainian higher education institutions to the European academic environment.”

Brain drain

In a separate statement, the Humboldt Foundation, a government-sponsored charity supporting international collaboration, said that in addition to protecting researchers, it was also important to create long-term prospects for them in their home country.

“There should be no permanent brain drain,” the foundation said. “As soon as possible, reintegration in Ukraine should be promoted and cooperation between the Ukrainian higher education sector and the international research community strengthened.”

The foundation hosts the Philipp Schwartz Initiative for scientists at risk. Since spring 2022, 96 researchers from Ukraine have been supported through the initiative at 60 research institutions in Germany.

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Catholic leader spoke with Max Planck Society president about tackling global challenges

Pope Francis has asked the president of the Max Planck Society to protect science from political and economic influence.

During an audience in the Pope’s private library, Martin Stratmann debated the role of science in addressing global challenges with the head of the Catholic church.

Stratmann said that both scientific and religious leaders had a role to play in ensuring that science and its results are applied responsibly and without prejudice.

‘Research should serve humanity’

“Responsible science is only conceivable within an ethically responsible framework,” Stratmann said. 

“Research should serve the good of humanity, and here quite specifically in the topics of health, climate or world nutrition.”

The leader of the Max Planck Society, which operates several independent fundamental research institutes in Germany, asked the Pope to encourage openness to science among adherents to all faiths. 

“Science and religion can and must contribute together to bringing man and nature back into harmony, in order to be able to meet the challenges of an earth age shaped by the growing influence of man,” Stratmann said.

In return, Pope Francis asked the Max Planck Society to maintain the highest standards of scientific integrity and protect them from political or economic influences. 

“I believe that in our time, support for basic research must be defended and, if possible, strengthened,” the Pope said.

‘Responsibility, not just accountability’

In his speech, which he delivered in writing to audience members, owing to a cold, the Pope stressed that basic research is a public good whose achievements must be put at the service of the common good. 

Using the example of transhumanism, the Pope pointed out ethical limits of what is scientifically possible.

“We need to put responsibility back at the centre of our culture today as care for the other and not just accountability for what you have done,” he said. 

“Because you are not only responsible for what you do, but also and above all for what you do not do, although you could do it.”

The Max Planck delegation included Wolfgang Herrmann, president emeritus of the Technical University of Munich, Anton Losinger, auxiliary bishop in the diocese of Augsburg, and three Max Planck Society Nobel laureates.

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Is it time to start preparing for association to the EU’s flagship R&D programme?

Following the announcement of a new deal between the EU and the UK over the trade of goods in Northern Ireland, Ursula von der Leyen has said that work can start “immediately” on securing UK association to EU R&D programmes once the deal is implemented. Sophie Inge brings us the news.

The European Commission president was speaking at a joint press conference with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak yesterday to unveil “the Windsor Framework”, which sounds a bit like a new audit system for higher education. Rather, it is an agreement that has been heralded as “a decisive breakthrough” and “a new chapter” in EU-UK relations.

Speaking in the House of Commons last night, the prime minister said that the government would now not proceed with the Northern Ireland protocol bill, which would have enabled Westminster to unilaterally renege on its treaty obligations with the EU. The EU is also set to drop the legal action it had initiated against the UK.

“The moment we have finished this agreement—so it’s an agreement in principle—the moment it is implemented, I’m happy to start immediately right now the work on an association agreement, which is the precondition to join Horizon Europe. So [it’s] good news for all those working in research and science,” von der Leyen told the press conference.

The deal opens the door for UK participation in the €95.5 billion (£84bn) Horizon Europe programme as well as the EU’s nuclear research initiative Euratom and the Earth observation programme Copernicus. Rachel Magee has been listening to sector reactions to the announcement.

So, can we start breaking out the sangria, dust off the lederhosen and prepare for association? Not quite, or at least not yet.

As von der Leyen was careful to say yesterday, association to Horizon Europe can begin once the agreement has been implemented—even if all goes well, we are still probably six to nine months away from association. But all eyes are now on the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sunak’s backbench Brexit ultras, who could yet wreck the deal.

The prime minister has calculated that he has the numbers to get the agreement through Westminster. Given the concessions made by the European Commission, Conservative MP holdouts against the deal are likely to be limited to only the most theologically inclined.

Speaking in the Commons last night, DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said his party would “take time” to read the legal text of the agreement. He did not put a date on that scrutiny process.

It is now all about giving the DUP time and space to work out a way to climb down from the high horse it has been on since the 2022 elections to the Northern Ireland assembly, where the party became the junior partner in power-sharing arrangements with Sinn Féin. It is not yet clear whether the DUP really wants to do that, and the loyalist party now holds the future of Horizon association, and likely Sunak’s premiership, in its hands.

Windsor knot

Following the establishment of the Whitehall Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, does the time and political capital invested by Sunak in addressing the Northern Ireland protocol further underline his commitment to prioritising R&D? Not really.

The reason Sunak has taken the risk of facing down his backbenchers and the DUP over this agreement is that should the deal get through, it will give the prime minister options in the months of his premiership before the next general election.

A continued impasse over Northern Ireland would mean sour relations with the EU, no prospect of a presidential visit from Joe Biden to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, and even less chance of a much-vaunted trade deal with the US. And without being seen to be able to stick to international accords, there would be little possibility of a successful UK application to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

A deal over Northern Ireland, then, is for Sunak about much more than unlocking access to Horizon Europe, welcome though that is. Rather, Sunak’s deal allows him to take his distance from the inheritance of Boris Johnson’s “oven-ready” Brexit, which is acting as a drag anchor on the UK economy, while hoping for French cooperation on small boats in the English Channel.

Sunak now has an alternative narrative for growth and economic life after Brexit. That includes once again making the UK a stable and attractive place for inward investment—an essential condition for the government’s ‘science superpower’ ambitions.

As things stand, and with local elections only a few months away, voters on the mainland are more concerned about the lack of tomatoes in Lidl and the price of switching on the central heating than either the Northern Ireland protocol or cross-border R&D programmes. But in the coming months, the deal will allow Sunak to outflank the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs and marginalise the influence of Johnson in the parliamentary party.

If he can pass his deal, Sunak will emerge with greater authority as prime minister and leader of his party, even if the agreement amounts to little more than the UK achieving a new trade deal with itself (and even then, we needed the help of the EU to do it).

Improved relations with the EU can only be good news for higher education and research in the UK. Is it too much to hope that Sunak might also now find a route back into Erasmus+ and ditch the little-loved Turing Scheme?

Yesterday, Universities UK chief executive Vivienne Stern said: “We are relieved to hear that the Windsor Framework has been agreed. The removal of this political roadblock must now lead to the rapid confirmation of UK association to Horizon Europe, Copernicus and Euratom, as set out in the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

“Full association with Horizon continues to be the best outcome for both the UK and for our research partners across Europe and beyond. We urge all sides to start the necessary talks now so that association can take effect as soon as the framework is implemented.”

But, but, but…last night, loud voices in the DUP were letting it be known that the party could well reject the deal. Ian Paisley Jr told the BBC that the Windsor Framework “does not cut the mustard” and provides “no basis for the DUP to go back into government”, adding that Sunak needs to enter fresh negotiations with the EU.

The DUP here does not necessarily speak with one voice. Leader Donaldson is likely to be more pragmatic than colleagues like Paisley or Sammy Wilson—the Conservatives are not the only party to be split by the deal.

Paisley was critical of what is being called the “Stormont brake”, designed to give the Northern Ireland assembly a say in the application of EU law in the province if 30 MLAs sign a “petition of concern” to trigger a cross-community vote. The DUP currently has only 25 MLAs at Stormont and would need the support of others to ensure a vote, meaning the brake would effectively remove the DUP’s veto on the process.

Paisley said that “the brake is in the boot of the car under the spare wheel and impossible to reach”.

So, once again the future of science in the UK is in the hands of a party that questions the existence of dinosaurs. The sad fact is that the DUP’s existential concern is not the passage of sausages through green or red trade lanes but Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill becoming first minister.

The Windsor Framework does not magically change the result of the 2022 Stormont election. To this end, Sunak may yet find that he will have to tackle the DUP problem in a more robust way, with a change to the Good Friday Agreement to remove the right to collapse power-sharing institutions by any one side.

That really would be a risky step to take. Sunak has no more got Brexit done than Johnson did—he has merely taken a more attractive turn on the long, winding road of UK-EU relations. He may yet encounter potholes and sinkholes along the way—don’t shelve plan B just yet.

And finally…

Speaking of how the electorate views science, the Campaign for Science and Engineering releases data this morning on public attitudes to investment in R&D during the cost of living crisis. A third of those polled can think of very few or no ways in which investment in science and innovation improves their lives.

Almost half (46 per cent) of people surveyed by Case in 2022 would only choose to invest more in R&D when the economy is in better shape. The polling suggested that only 21 per cent of people felt that R&D could reduce the cost of the products they need and that 55 per cent felt that “other issues are more pressing at the moment, with people struggling to pay their bills and the economy in a bad way. Funding for luxuries like R&D can wait for another day, when money is less tight,” was a common argument.

The findings come as part of the campaign group’s Discovery Decade report. The data show a mixed picture of support for R&D investment across demographics and regions, via polling and focus groups.

Case says: “R&D is at risk of being labelled a ‘luxury’ in the current economic climate; more than half of people think this is a strong argument for delaying investing.” The group calls on science advocates to redouble their efforts to continue making the argument for investment.

Commenting on the data, Rachel Wolf of Public First said: “The R&D sector starts from an enviable position—the public support funding it. But without tangible detail, that support won’t survive tough times and other priorities. There will need to be a lot of targeted work to maintain and increase public interest through the next decade.”

On Research Professional News today

Fiona McIntyre reports that University of East Anglia vice-chancellor David Richardson has resigned amid growing concern over the university’s finances, and the University of Brighton has said that an employee who was convicted of embezzling more than £2 million “abused his position” at the institution.

Sophie Inge writes that according to the president of the European Commission, work can start immediately on securing UK association to EU R&D programmes once the agreed Northern Ireland deal is implemented, and the Welsh government has unveiled a mission-based innovation strategy that seeks to drive up investment in the nation’s R&D sector amid Brexit-related uncertainty.

Rachel Magee covers comments from a research policy expert who says that a UK-EU deal on the Northern Ireland protocol reportedly reached yesterday will elicit a “sigh of relief” from researchers, as it paves the way for the UK to associate to the bloc’s R&D schemes.

Rachel also reports that the academic publishing company Springer Nature has announced a spate of deals it said will expand the global reach and international momentum of open access to research papers, and polling has revealed that UK public support for R&D is fragile.

Mico Tatalovic tells us that the UK Health Security Agency has said it is working to identify bird flu ‘knowledge gaps’, amid fears that the virus might jump more frequently from birds to humans.

According to Andrew Silver, representatives of European drug companies have called on the EU to streamline its regulation of the sector, and the Council of the EU member state governments is set to call for better synchronisation of research and innovation funding across the bloc, in a move designed to address concerns raised by auditors in a report last year.

In the news

The BBC reports that a vice-chancellor has resigned from a university facing a £30m deficit, a university lecturer with a learning disability offers new insight, A-level pupils in Northern Ireland are to be told exam topics in advance, a £3m nursing department is to open at Newman University, the US president’s student loan forgiveness plan has reached the Supreme Court, and there’s a look at whether the debt forgiveness plan is fair.

In The Guardian, universities have been rebuked over academic misconduct cases in England and Wales, and ChatGPT is allowed in international baccalaureate essays.

The Financial Times says that scientists have hailed the prospect of Horizon re-entry after a Brexit deal, and UK cities are set to host fintech hubs to help drive innovation.

The Independent reports on the Brexit deal and the UK’s Horizon prospects.

i News says the Windsor Framework paves the way for the UK to join Horizon Europe.

In The Times, an investment fund is striving to build a regional powerhouse in science and technology.

The Evening Standard reports that a London university has been hit with resignations over its approach to strikes and working conditions.

Mail Online says that white working-class students were banned from a Cambridge postgraduate course, and Britain will be able to rejoin the EU Horizon scheme as part of a new Brexit deal.

The day ahead

The Office of the Independent Adjudicator publishes a casework note on complaints relating to academic misconduct.

A parliamentary debate on the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill is on Hansard.

The education charity Ygam publishes research on student gambling.

The Prospect union says that its members in the civil service have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.

The Welsh government publishes a written statement on the launch of an Innovation Strategy for Wales.

A blogpost on Conservative Home says that too much focus on levelling up will hinder progress on science and technology.

The Quality Assurance Agency is holding a webinar from 9.30am on developing and maintaining a quality culture.

At 2.30pm, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee is taking evidence on UK universities’ engagement with autocracies.

Today and tomorrow, Universities UK is hosting its International Higher Education Forum.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering publishes a survey on public support for R&D.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency will publish an update to its higher education student data.

The Playbook would not be possible without Martyn Jones, Harriet Swain, Chris Parr and Fiona McIntyre.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

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R&D risks being seen as luxury rather than necessity amid cost of living crisis

Public support for R&D is “fragile”, given the current pressures on public finances, new polling has revealed.

Science advocacy group the Campaign for Science and Engineering warned that R&D is at risk of being seen as a luxury rather than a necessity after its new polling showed that over 60 per cent of people either agreed that “R&D doesn’t benefit people like them”, or felt neutral or unsure about R&D’s impact.

In a report released on 28 February, Case said that this was a “precarious” position to be in for a sector that receives “substantial public investment”. It urged science advocates to make the benefits of R&D more visible, as the polling data suggests that tangible messages about R&D could change people’s minds.

“Although the public are broadly supportive of R&D, that support is fragile,” Case said.

“Unsurprisingly, given its intangibility to many people, R&D risks being labelled a ‘luxury’ rather than a necessity, especially amid a cost of living crisis.”

Given the choice, 46 per cent of the 18,000 people surveyed said they would only choose to invest more in R&D when the economy was in better shape. Over a third said they could think of very few or no ways that R&D improved their lives.

“We are very fortunate that there is currently significant political consensus on the need to invest in and support R&D. But this consensus relies on a strong case being made to the public on how R&D can improve their lives,” said Stian Westlake, chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society.

“Case’s research will be invaluable in helping policymakers understand what the public values when it comes to R&D, and shaping policy and communications to be more resonant and effective.”

Nurses over research

When presented with a hypothetical government proposal to immediately halve the R&D budget, a third of people were supportive.

When this cut was framed as freeing up money for hiring nurses or lowering energy bills, a majority (52 per cent) supported halving the R&D budget.

Case said this sentiment was echoed in the focus groups that were carried out, with one woman saying other areas that the government oversaw needed to be sorted out “before we start spending money on possible, probable, maybes and maybe nots” in the form of R&D.

“Wealthy people” and “big businesses” were cited as the major beneficiaries of R&D and people viewed R&D activity as being clustered in London and South East England, according to the report. Case said there needed to be clearer messaging about R&D’s benefits and its UK-wide footprint to remedy this viewpoint.

The polling found that linking R&D to problems such as the cost of living crisis, the sustainability of the NHS and the impact of climate change would help to make it feel more relevant to people.

The chief executive of national funder UK Research and Innovation, Ottoline Leyser, said research and innovation must be a “shared endeavour” that brings people together, and that the survey results “provide an important insight into how this can be best achieved”.

The polling was commissioned by Case as part of its wider Discovery Decade project, which aims to help R&D organisations and advocates to connect with a broader base of public supporters.

“The UK can never hope to become an R&D-intensive nation if the public aren’t part of that journey,” said Kim Shillinglaw, chair of the Discovery Decade project.

“This new data is the start of encouraging the sector to work together on building a science-positive, innovation-positive society, and [to] grow the public identity of R&D to a place where it feels non-negotiable as a priority.”

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“Historic” agreement clears the path for association to EU science programmes, says European Commission president

The European Commission’s president Ursula von der Leyen has said that work can start “immediately” on securing UK association to EU R&D programmes once the agreed Northern Ireland deal is implemented.

Her comments came at a joint press conference with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, where the leaders hailed a “decisive breakthrough” in talks over trade in Northern Ireland.

UK participation in the R&D programme has been held up owing to a dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol, leaving UK grant winners from the EU’s Horizon Europe programme unable to directly access any funding they win.

Participation in the EU’s nuclear research initiative Euratom and the Earth-observation programme Copernicus has also been put on hold as a result.

But speaking at the press conference on 27 February, the two leaders confirmed an agreement on the protocol had been reached.

‘Free-flowing trade in the UK’

The deal has been described as “a breakthrough” by Sunak and as “historic” by von der Leyen. Agreed in principle by the two leaders, it includes issues such as medicines approval, taxes on goods, and a Stormont “brake” for changes to EU goods rules.

“Together we have changed the original protocol and today are announcing the new Windsor Framework,” Sunak said.

“Today’s agreement delivers free-flowing trade within the whole of the United Kingdom, protects Northern Ireland’s place in our union and safeguard’s sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland.”

Sunak said on Twitter: “We’re also delivering a landmark settlement on medicines. From now on, drugs approved for use by the UK’s medicines regulator will be automatically available in every pharmacy and hospital in Northern Ireland.”

‘Good news for scientists’

Von der Leyen said: “We knew we had to work hard with clear minds and determination but we also both knew that we could do it because we were both generally committed to find a practical solution for people and for all communities in Northern Ireland.”

Asked what the deal would mean for UK participation in Horizon Europe, she said it was “good news for scientists and researchers in the EU and in the UK”.

“The moment we have finished this agreement—so it’s an agreement in principle—the moment it is implemented I’m happy to start immediately right now the work on an association agreement which is the pre-condition to join Horizon Europe. So [it’s] good news for all those working in research and science.”

Her comments will likely be widely welcomed by the sector, but also mean the sector will have to wait for the deal to be approved by both sides and implemented before there is EU approval of the UK’s association to EU R&D programmes.

Details of the deal are yet to be published and Sunak has promised to give the House of Commons a vote on it.

Adrian Smith, president of the Royal Society,  welcomed von der Leyen’s “commitment to progressing association as soon as the Windsor Framework is implemented”.

“With the Northern Ireland protocol impasse resolved, we need to swiftly secure access to the EU’s international research programmes,” Smith said.

He added: “It is more than two years since the government agreed association to Horizon Europe, Euratom and Copernicus—two years of delays that have damaged science across Europe. These schemes support outstanding international collaboration, and the sooner we join them, the better for everyone.”

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Rate of virus in birds raises fears of increased transmission to humans

The UK Health Security Agency has said it is working to identify bird flu ‘knowledge gaps’, amid fears that the virus might jump more frequently from birds to humans.

In a 23 February update, the agency said there is an increased chance of people encountering the virus due to the high levels in birds and that it is working with partners—including the Animal and Plant Health Agency—to identify ‘knowledge gaps’ around avian influenza, such as whether lateral flow devices could be deployed to test for the bird flu in humans.

Other knowledge gaps include the development of a blood test that detects antibodies against the virus and analysis of the genetic mutations that would signal an increased risk to human health.

‘Vigilant of changing risk’

“The latest evidence suggests that the avian influenza viruses we’re seeing circulating in birds do not currently spread easily to people,” said Meera Chand, incident director for avian influenza at UKHSA. 

“However, viruses constantly evolve, and we remain vigilant for any evidence of changing risk to the population, as well as working with partners to address gaps in the scientific evidence.”

‘Tragic’ bird flu death

The briefing came ahead of reports on 24 February that a girl in Cambodia had died from bird flu.

James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge, described the death as “tragic”.

“Clearly the virus needs careful monitoring and surveillance to check that it has not mutated or recombined,” he said.

“But the limited numbers of cases of human disease have not increased markedly and this one case in itself does not signal the global situation has suddenly changed.”

Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said: “This is a very sad outcome for the young girl infected with a particularly aggressive form of avian influenza or ‘bird flu’…Thankfully, human infections are still rare, and the likelihood of onward human to human transmission very low.”

‘Low risk to humans’

But he added: “This virus keeps cropping up in various mammals and this could potentially increase the possibility of further human infections. 

“The risk to humans is still very low, but it’s important that we continue to monitor circulation of flu in both bird and mammal populations and do everything we can to reduce the number of infections seen.”

Ball underscored the importance of efforts to develop the next generation of vaccines.

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Devolved government announces mission-based approach and says bemoaning lost funding is “not productive”

The Welsh Government has unveiled a new mission-based innovation strategy that seeks to drive up investment in the nation’s R&D sector amid Brexit-related uncertainty.

The Welsh R&D sector has been hit particularly hard by the loss of EU Structural Funds, which were used to fund numerous university-related projects. There is also ongoing uncertainty over UK association to the EU’s R&D programme, Horizon Europe, leaving researchers unable to directly win funding.

But, writing in the strategy, which was published on 27 February, Welsh economy minister Vaughan Gething said bemoaning the loss of funding “is not productive”.

“It’s a reality check, for sure. There will be less money…and Wales will have less control over it,” he said.

The goal of the strategy, Gething explained, was to “point the way to a different approach to innovation in the future”, adding: “We can’t compete in everything; we can adopt a mission-based attitude.”

The strategy, titled Wales Innovates: Creating a stronger, fairer, greener Wales, sets out four specific “missions” that will shape its new future outside of the EU.

These include a mission to create an education system that “supports the development of innovation skills and knowledge throughout people’s lives in Wales”.

With the ending of structural funding, the strategy says researchers will need to transition to alternative funding sources, including the UK government, national funder UK Research and Innovation, charities and businesses.

Business R&D funding

The second mission sets out the devolved government’s plan to build an economy that “innovates for growth, collaborates across sectors for solutions to society’s challenges, adopts new technologies for efficiency and productivity, uses resources proportionately and allows citizens to share wealth through fair work”.

Currently, the strategy says, the small proportion of large R&D businesses mean “Wales has not achieved its potential in traditional UK competitive bid funding rounds”, with just 3 per cent of Innovate UK’s budget invested in the country and activity concentrated in South Wales.

It sets out the aim to “consistently achieve 3 per cent in three years’ time, with a more even geographical spread”, with a view to increasing this share to 5 per cent of Innovate UK’s budget by 2030.

“We will apply similar targets to other sources of innovation funding in due course, including other research councils within the UKRI structure,” it says.

The third mission, which centres on health and wellbeing, aims to build a “coherent innovation ecosystem where the health and social care sector collaborates with industry, academia and the third sector to deliver greater value and impact for citizens, the economy and the environment”.

To achieve this, the Welsh Government says it will target “new and different ways of working, identify opportunities to bring additional value to patients, lever additional funding and better support the adoption of innovation at scale”.

The final mission is to “optimise our natural resources for the protection and strengthening of climate and nature resilience”.

“We will focus innovation efforts of the ecosystem towards tackling the climate and nature crises simultaneously, ensuring a just transition to a wellbeing economy,” the strategy says.

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Agreements across Africa, America, Asia and Europe will support open access, publisher says

Academic publishing company Springer Nature has announced a spate of deals it said will expand the global reach and international momentum of open access to research papers.  

The deals struck this year include several transformative agreements (contracts between institutions and publishers that shift the publishing model from a subscription towards open access), the company announced on 27 February.

“The latest transformative agreements are expected to further accelerate the global transition to open access by ensuring affiliated researchers benefit from the higher usage, reach and impact that open access has been proven to achieve, and that the high-quality research is reusable, shareable and discoverable to the world’s scholarly community immediately upon publication,” said Carrie Webster, vice-president of open access at Springer Nature.

The publisher said the deals include its first transformative agreement in southern Africa, with the South African National Library and Information Consortium, a transformative agreement with the Swiss Universities consortium and deals with organisations in the Czech Republic, Portugal and Slovenia.

Another deal announced was Springer Nature’s first open-access book agreement involving an Asian institution: the Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

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Call comes ahead of planned EU pharmaceutical strategy

Representatives of European drug companies have called on the EU to streamline its regulation of the sector, ahead of the European Commission’s much-anticipated proposal for a pharmaceutical strategy in the coming weeks.

“EU-level legislation should aim to simplify and streamline processes” around drug development and approval, authors including a regulatory strategy director at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations wrote in a blog post published by Efpia on 23 February.

The authors said the revision of EU pharma regulation resulting from the Commission proposal provides “a chance to create a predictable, clear and consistent environment” for the drugs industry.

In recent months, Efpia representatives have repeatedly warned that the EU could push pharma R&D to other parts of the world if they introduce regulations that industry finds too burdensome.

“Complying with multiple layers of governance at EU and national level can add time and costs to the process” of drug development, the authors said in the blog post, which was based on a longer article published earlier this month in the journal Drug Discovery Today.

“There is a clear need for regulatory convergence between jurisdictions to avoid inefficiencies,” they stressed.

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University says former head of payments “betrayed the trust of his colleagues”

The University of Brighton has said an employee who was convicted of embezzling more than £2 million “abused his position” at the institution.

David Hall, 64, of Shepherds Way in Ringmer, was the former head of payments and income at the university and was convicted of fraud after embezzling £2.4m from the institution over a period of 30 years, Sussex Police said in a statement.

The police said on 24 February that Hall had stolen the money “through fraudulent entries in the university’s accounts” and that “a complex string of financial cover-ups” had been discovered “through forensic scrutiny”.

A University of Brighton spokesperson said Hall had “abused his position and betrayed the trust of his colleagues for his own personal gain”.

They added: “As soon as the university uncovered Hall’s deception, we acted swiftly and decisively to report this matter to the police. We have supported the police at every stage of their investigation, commissioning independent forensic investigations, which have enabled charges to be brought and the courts to secure a conviction.”

Hall pleaded guilty on 16 February to charges of fraud by abuse of position, theft by an employee and false accounting, said the police. He is expected to be sentenced on 16 March.

Sussex Police investigator Rose Horan said: “Year after year, the hole in the university’s finances became larger and more difficult for Hall to conceal. After an audit uncovered the scale of Hall’s embezzlement, the University of Brighton was quick to report the fraud to Sussex Police and their support throughout the investigation has been invaluable in bringing David Hall to justice.”

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The US might be losing out to China in its scientific influence in key countries

This week, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology holds the first of its hearings on the US, China and the fight for global leadership. The martial language is no mistake; to many interested in science and policy, this is a battle.

When he was elected to chair the committee in January, Frank Lucas listed “the threats we face from the Chinese Communist Party” as one of the big issues he wanted to work on, alongside the supply chain for advanced tech, space and clean energy.

The hearing charter notes that the meeting tomorrow will “examine the CCP’s attempts to surpass US scientific leadership and the economic and national security implications that it has for America”.

Of course, fears about China’s meteoric rise as a research power are not new.

Last year, a report from Japan’s science ministry suggested that China had overtaken the US in terms of its number of research papers and most-cited papers. (That report was based on data from Clarivate—Research Professional News is an editorially independent part of Clarivate.)

The warnings that China could overtake the US go back well before that.

But while there has been much attention paid to direct US-China ties and competition, there has been far less focus on how China is increasingly winning the hearts and minds of researchers in developing nations.

China has aggressively courted the global south, notably via its Belt and Road development initiative.

It has also sought to entice foreign researchers to move to China via the Thousand Talents Plan. Research unveiled last week suggests some successes in this drive for ties.

Yusuf Ikbal Oldac, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong, carried out research comparing how many papers the US and China co-authored with six other countries: Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

While scientists in both the US and China have worked increasingly with their counterparts in those six countries over the years, collaboration with China-based researchers rose at an “astonishing” rate in the past decade, Oldac said as he shared his findings at a seminar hosted by the UK-based Centre for Global Higher Education.

China on the up

The findings look like a sign that China is gaining on the US, which was the world leader in scientific research output for a long time.

There is “a clear pattern of moving away from a single pole in global science. The Chinese system is moving up fast and is gaining increasingly more space from the US science system,” Oldac said.

Using data from the Web of Science and Scopus—the former a Clarivate product—Oldac found that scientific collaboration between the six nations and China was growing at an “exponential” rate compared with a steadier, slower increase in co-authorship with the US.

For 2021, the year of the latest full available data, there were more co-authored publications with China than with the US in total. On average, there were 3,000 co-authored papers between the six countries and the US, compared with 3,440 with China.

Pakistan had just 2,310 co-authored papers with the US in 2021 but a staggering 7,200 with China. There were 1,370 US-Malaysian research collaborations, compared with 2,250 China-Malaysia researcher pairings.

China has invested large amounts in Pakistani scientific and technological infrastructure in particular, Oldac explained, while US investment in the country’s science does not come close.

Malaysia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia collaborated more with China, while researchers in Egypt, Iran and Turkey worked more with the US, the study found.

“These results are illuminating in that scientists may not constantly follow the overall policies and geopolitical stances of their countries,” Oldac said. He pointed to Iran, which he found to collaborate more with the US scientifically despite the longstanding geopolitical tensions between the two nations.

“This situation is a potential indication that scientists and scientific endeavours may not always align and follow national-level policies and stances,” Oldac said.

An uncertain future

Although Oldac said his findings confirmed that the US is losing out to China, he believes this may not last.

Oldac thinks the decrease in global American scientific influence may not just be due to China’s “meteoric” rise but equally down to the US’s increasingly domestic focus in recent years.

This may have “deterred” international research collaborations, he believes. If this outlook changes and a more international agenda rules once again, research collaboration patterns could also change.

Meanwhile, China closing itself off to the world due to Covid-19 could have an impact on international research collaboration.

Collaboration networks are often established after initial face-to-face contact, which builds trust. China closing down its borders could therefore strike a blow to its scientists’ international research connections in the medium and long term, Oldac said.

Trust is in short supply everywhere at the moment, it seems.

And finally…

As we reported last week, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, are crowdsourcing support to search for alien life.

The project—Are We Alone in the Universe?—wants members of the public to classify radio signals that might hide signs that some other intelligence is out there.

Some researchers have warned for a while that if there are aliens out there, contacting them might be a bad idea as they could come and destroy humanity.

The team behind this latest project might have some explaining to do to the university if that turns out to be right.

Highlights from Research Professional News this week

Rachael Pells brings us the news that Republicans in the House of Representatives have launched an investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and the use of taxpayer money for coronavirus research.

She also has the story that postdoctoral researchers and people who work with them are being encouraged to give feedback on how the National Institutes of Health could improve its training programmes.

In our US news roundup, a call from the National Science Foundation and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has awarded funding of $4.1 million to accelerate research into the ethical use of artificial intelligence.

In the news

The New York Times reports that challenges to student loan cancellations have reached the Supreme Court, and the Department of Energy says that a lab leak is likely to have caused the Covid-19 pandemic.

In The Washington Post, the president’s student loan forgiveness programme has come before the Supreme Court, and high-skilled visa holders are at risk of deportation amid tech layoffs.

In The Wall Street Journal, Stanford University faculty say that anonymous student bias reports threaten free speech, the student loan forgiveness case at the Supreme Court hinges on ‘harm’, the Supreme Court’s student loan case will test the limits of presidential power, there’s an explainer on how repaying student loans is changing, and the energy department says that a lab leak is the most likely origin of the pandemic.

Reuters says that Nasa and SpaceX have postponed the launch of the next space station crew.

The Associated Press explains the arguments in the Supreme Court student loan case, a judge has written of the ‘crushing weight’ of student loans, and the Rales Foundation has bet big on Carnegie Mellon University science, technology, engineering and maths students.

Science reports that ‘unfair’ medical screening plagues polar research, journals are hammering out policies on artificial intelligence, quantum computers have taken a key step towards curbing errors, a society has backpedalled from actions against scientists who staged a climate protest, and there’s a look at how to fold indigenous ethics into psychedelics studies.

In Nature, the China Initiative’s shadow looms large for US scientists.

The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports on the Rales Foundation’s support for science, technology, engineering and maths students at Carnegie Mellon University.

The week ahead

Monday

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine hold the first of two national symposia looking at supporting those in science, engineering and medicine with caregiving responsibilities.

Tuesday

The House Committee on Science, Space and Technology holds a meeting on the US, China and the fight for global leadership.

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs is holding a meeting on ‘combating the generational challenge of Chinese Communist Party aggression’.

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is discussing what can be learned from Covid policy decisions during the pandemic.

The National Academies run a webinar about a report on oil pollution research.

Wednesday

A House subcommittee on consumer protection and commerce discusses innovation and data privacy.

The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works looks at the nomination of Joseph Goffman to be an assistant administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Senate Committee on Budget looks at climate change and the economic risks to coastal communities.

The National Academies run a virtual event on implicit bias in publications.

The Playbook would not be possible without Robin Bisson, Rachel Magee, Andrew Silver, Martyn Jones, Craig Nicholson, Daniel Cressey and Sarah Richardson.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

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Sector awaiting next steps after von der Leyen and Sunak agree on Northern Ireland protocol

A UK-EU deal on the Northern Ireland protocol reportedly reached today will elicit a “sigh of relief” from researchers, as it paves the way for the UK to associate to the bloc’s R&D schemes, a research policy expert has said.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak held a summit on 27 February with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at which they reached an agreement on the protocol.

The long-running spat over post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland has been a major barrier to the UK joining the EU’s €95.5bn (£84.2bn) R&D programme, Horizon Europe, as well as the nuclear research initiative Euratom and the Earth-observation programme Copernicus.

With a deal to resolve the dispute, hopes have been raised across the R&D sector that the EU will now allow the UK to take part in the schemes.

“We welcome the meeting between Ursula von der Leyen and Prime Minister Sunak this afternoon,” said Diana Beech, chief executive of London Higher and a former adviser to three universities ministers. “We hope that this will finally unlock access for the UK to participate in Horizon Europe, giving our world-class universities and researchers the funding that they need to ensure that the UK remains a science superpower.”

She added that it is hoped this new Brexit deal will give research-performing organisations the “certainty and stability needed to continue powering the engine of UK innovation” and that the newly formed Department of Science, Innovation and Technology should now commit to “funding association to Horizon”.

But, speaking ahead of the official announcement today, some experts have also warned that hurdles remain.

“The long-awaited deal on the Northern Ireland protocol will be greeted with a sigh of relief by the research community, who remain strongly supportive of continued association to Horizon Europe,” said James Wilsdon, a professor of research policy at UCL.

“But we aren’t out of the woods yet. Three further hurdles will now need to be jumped.”

Sunak will firstly need to get the deal over the line without hardline Conservative Brexiters and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party “sabotaging it”, Wilsdon said.

Secondly, there will need to be “fresh haggling” between London and Brussels on the costs of the UK’s association to EU programmes. “I’m sure [this] will be resolved but [it] could slow things down,” Wilsdon explained.

The final hurdle will be the time it will take to “undo all the damage of the past few years, as collaborative networks need to be rebuilt and repaired”, Wilsdon said.

“I would expect it to take two to three years for levels of UK participation to return to where we would want and expect them to be.”

Flexibility urged

Kurt Deketelaere, secretary-general of the League of European Research Universities, also said news of a deal raised hope for UK association to EU programmes, but warned that revisions to the earlier association deal might take some time.

The terms of the UK’s Horizon association were set out in a trade and cooperation agreement between the UK and EU signed in 2020, and would have to be updated.

“Let’s hope that revisions and updates of the earlier association deal can be kept to a minimum, and both sides act with flexibility and goodwill so that we can welcome all UK-based researchers as soon as possible back at full strength in EU-funded research proposals and projects,” Deketelaere said.

Martin Smith, head of policy at health research funder Wellcome, echoed this sentiment, saying he hoped for “swift progress” to finalise a Horizon agreement given the groundwork for UK association was laid in 2020.

“If a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol can be made to stick, it would remove the biggest political barrier to the UK joining Horizon Europe,” he said. “Unlocking easy research collaboration would be a great result for researchers and businesses across the UK and EU.”

Jan Palmowski, secretary-general of the Guild of European Research Intensive Universities, described the dispute around Northern Ireland as “the big stumbling block for the EU’s finalising the accession of the UK” and said that with this resolved “association must happen without delay.”

But he warned that further talks on the revised costs of the UK’s delayed association should be done swiftly to avoid further harm to the sector.

He said: “The UK has now asked to reconsider the agreement around the cost of participation as an associated country, but all sides must understand that too much time has been lost; if new technical issues are raised, these must be resolved urgently.”

UPDATED AFTER PUBLICATION—This story was updated after publication to reflect that a deal has now been announced.

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Draft Council of EU text encourages linked-up fund planning to address auditor concerns

The Council of EU member state governments is set to call for better synchronisation of research and innovation funding across the bloc, in a move designed to address concerns raised by auditors in a report last year.

A draft Council position responding to the European Court of Auditors finding that there is room for improved synergies between the EU’s dedicated R&I programme and its regional funding, which also supports R&I, has now been agreed in principle and was published on 24 February.

In a revision from an earlier draft, the latest position “emphasises the need for better synchronisation of planning and implementation timelines” of the various EU programmes that fund R&I.

In this vein, it encourages EU member states and the European Commission to “include synergies in strategic planning, programming and implementation…to capitalise on the full potential of investments in Europe’s R&I sector”.

‘Insufficient’ coordination

By law, the Commission is required to ensure there are synergies between the R&I and regional programmes. The auditors found that, at present, “insufficient” coordination between the programmes “limits the impact” of their funding.

Like the earlier draft, the text set to be adopted by the Council also stresses the need for more data on funded projects to help inform authorities and researchers about what existing R&I activities could be bolstered by others.

It encourages the Commission and national authorities to collect and share such data, and asks the Commission to work on improving the interoperability of portals providing it.

Other revisions to the draft include a call for “wider use” of the Seal of Excellence, a quality label awarded to good project proposals that cannot be funded due to budget constraints, and an invitation for the Commission to “pay due attention” to “potential undesired impacts of synergies”.

In relation to undesired impacts, it says that the search for synergies should not affect how project proposals to the EU R&I programme are evaluated.

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Need for “new leadership” cited, as institution faces an expected budget deficit of £45 million

University of East Anglia vice-chancellor David Richardson has resigned amid growing concern over the university’s finances.

Richardson stepped down on 27 February, telling staff that the university needed “new leadership”.

“I have been conscious of the need for a new vision for UEA since we began to emerge from Covid in 2021 and have deliberated whether I am the person to lead that vision or whether a new vision needs a new leader,” he wrote.

“After 15 years on the executive team and nine years as vice-chancellor, I have concluded now that the time has come for me to step away so that UEA can develop a new long-term vision to take it forward beyond its 60th anniversary with new leadership.”

Richardson’s resignation comes after the university posted a deficit of about £13.9 million in 2022, having had a surplus of more than £4.6m in 2021.

The university did not mention finances in its public statement on the resignation, which praised Richardson for being “at the heart of UEA’s success and world-leading achievements for 32 years”.

Deficit set to grow

Last week, the university told staff in an update it provided to Research Professional News that it was expecting a deficit of £30m for 2023-24, rising to £45m in three years’ time. The university said this was “due in part to lower-than-expected student-application numbers following the Ucas student-application deadline at the end of January”.

Staff were warned that they could be facing compulsory redundancies to cope with the financial pressure, although the university has said this would be a “last resort after all other options have been considered”. It said it would know more about how many roles were at risk and in which areas by the end of April.

Earlier this month, the University and College Union’s UEA branch passed a motion of no confidence in its institution’s leadership.

Student shortfall

In its annual accounts, the university suggested that the ballooning deficit was due to a “shortfall” in student recruitment, which had an impact on other income from accommodation, and “uncertainty in the energy markets and rising inflation”, which had “significantly” increased costs.

But the BBC reported that Labour MP for Norwich Clive Lewis warned that the lower level of student applications “blows a hole in the idea [that] this is just external issues that have caused this”.

According to the BBC, he said on 24 February: “It’s quite clear that there are questions for management now about how they handled this and why we are in a situation where we are at UEA, when other comparable institutions are not facing the same crisis.” 

Deputy vice-chancellor Christine Bovis-Cnossen will take over the leadership of UEA while it searches for a replacement for Richardson.

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Cathy Foley will report on Australia’s challenges, strengths and opportunities

Australian chief scientist Cathy Foley has been asked to lead a “national conversation” on science priorities.

Foley (pictured) was asked by industry and science minister Ed Husic to advise on refreshing Australia’s national science and research priorities and National Science Statement.

In a statement on 23 February, Husic said he wanted “to hear the views of a wide range of Australians on the issues they are facing that require a solution drawing on the breadth of our science and research communities”.

A discussion paper suggests that the new priorities should be “evidence-based” as well as “supporting and embedding First Nations knowledge and knowledge systems”. It asks for feedback on Australia’s challenges, strengths and “opportunities we should seize”.

The priorities will guide government strategy and investment, but the paper says they will not exclude other scientific research from taking place.

Foley will hold discussions with industry and researchers, and an online portal has been set up for public submissions.

Resilient future

Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering chief executive Kylie Walker welcomed the review, saying that “there’s a need to refresh the priorities to define and develop Australian research strengths in crucial areas for our resilient future—such as low-emissions technologies and modern manufacturing”. 

Walker said that any priorities should also recognise the importance of international collaboration.

New priorities were last set in 2015. The first round of consultation will close on 31 March, with a final statement of priorities expected in September.

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Margaret Sheil says Australian Research Council must win trust back after “political interference”

The government must “clarify exactly what the Australian Research Council is for and who it is there for”, the chair of a sweeping review of the ARC has said.

Margaret Sheil (pictured) told the annual Universities Australia conference on 23 February that the research sector’s trust in the council would be a key focus of the review panel’s recommendations.

That trust has “largely been broken because of ministerial interference”, she said. This includes the vetoing of recommended grants since 2005, most recently in 2021 by Stuart Robert, acting education minister at the time.

Administrative issues are also prominent in the submission process, and Sheil said some of the feedback had already been passed on to the council.

Sheil revealed that some overseas experts had been reluctant to work with the ARC after several rounds of ministerial intervention in ARC decisions in recent years. “It was hard to get international reviewers to respond, particularly after periods of political interference, because they felt it [peer review] wasn’t being valued,” she said.

Reinstating a formal board for the ARC—after the previous one was abolished in 2006—would help address “a lack of continuity…and a lack of support for the ARC chief executive”, she said.

The review has identified several issues with the legislation underpinning the ARC, Sheil said. These include a lack of a clear brief that the ARC is there to support university and university partner research, despite that being how it operates in practice, and a lack of direction on the level of funding for basic research.

The ARC traditionally does not support medical research, but that is also missing from the legislation, she said.

Research quality

Sheil confirmed the likelihood that future research quality assessment would be more streamlined than the now-suspended Excellence in Research for Australia and Engagement and Impact processes.

She said that these once-useful processes had been affected by “the law of diminishing returns”, acknowledging concerns from some that the newly created Indigenous research classification was now not going to be assessed.

The ARC’s future role might be to provide advice on “specific capabilities” in government priority research areas, alongside more automated metrics systems, Sheil said. It could also help in assessing research quality across the sector more broadly.

Sheil’s report to education minister Jason Clare is due at the end of March. It covers the legislation underpinning the council and is not advising on the overall level of funding available for the council to distribute.

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Applications from court sentencing to conservation are being explored

New Zealand researchers are taking up artificial intelligence in increasingly innovative ways, an editorial in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand has said.

The editorial on 9 February, introducing a special edition of the journal dedicated to the technology, says researchers have used it in work ranging from medical imaging to earthquake prediction.

“With world-leading researchers and practitioners, Aotearoa New Zealand is playing an important role in the global AI community,” the guest editors wrote.

Agriculture applications are particularly significant given that “many traditional methods used by farmers are either too costly in human labour or not sufficiently productive”.

“AI provides great opportunities and potentials for boosting the efficiency and productivity of agriculture in a sustainable and safe way…AI technologies have also been used in addressing various environmental problems, where examples include AI for climate change, biodiversity, conservation, weather forecast and disaster resiliency.”

New Zealand is building environmental datasets that could be used in AI-driven conservation research.

Legal sentencing

The special edition also examines the potential for AI’s use in legal sentencing. It says that while AI might help sentences become more consistent across the system, risks include “the opacity and incomplete explainability of the algorithm, the risk of bias in the training dataset (because of the method of collection or, importantly in New Zealand, the entrenched pattern of historical bias) and the risk of ‘automation bias’, so the outcome in which judges would be willing to rely on the AI recommendation without analysing it further”.

The three editors are from Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Canterbury.

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This week: Swedish development funding, a Danish research prize and international science in Finland

In depth: Norway’s universities are opposing a planned reduction in the number of members of the board at the Forskningsrådet, the country’s research council.

Full story: Universities oppose shrinking of research council board

 
Also this week from Research Professional News

Karolinska Institutet warns of housing problems—Change of rules means 30 per cent of students could lose right to accommodation

  
Here is the rest of the Nordic news this week…

Development council issues international strategy

Formas, the Swedish government research council for sustainable development, has decided on its international strategy for the years 2023–2027. The strategy states that both Swedish and international actors must be able to benefit from the knowledge emerging from developing countries. However, it urges Swedish collaborators to weigh carefully the risks and benefits of working with countries that are not democracies.

Danish princess awards Elite Research prize

Crown Princess Mary and the minister of education and research Christina Egelund presented the Elite Research Award to five young researchers on 20 February. Each winner receives a grant of 1 million Danish kroner (£118,000) for further research activities, plus a personal recognition award of DKr200,000. Among the winners was Per Borghammer, who demonstrated that clumps of Parkinson’s protein can be found in the intestines up to 20 years before the disease is diagnosed.

Academy of Finland co-funds international science

Last year, the three research councils of the Academy of Finland invested €14 million (£12m) in international research projects, a report has shown. The academy collaborated mostly with other national funding organisations, the EU and joint research council NordForsk. Most of the money was spent on thematic research programmes, where project teams are expected to be made up of researchers from at least two participating countries.

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This week: visa extensions, research animals and support for the Voice to Parliament

In depth: The government must “clarify exactly what the Australian Research Council is for and who it is there for”, the chair of a sweeping review of the ARC has said.

Full story: Trust in the ARC has been lost, review leader says

 
Also this week from Research Professional News

Chief scientist to lead discussions on national research priorities—Cathy Foley will report on Australia’s challenges, strengths and opportunities

Look to India, universities told—Updated regulations will offer fresh opportunities to Australian institutions, Indian high commissioner says

Researchers’ best friend—How detection dogs are improving Australian conservation research

Universities urged to support ‘yes’ vote in Australian referendum—Failure to support constitutional reform to give Indigenous Australians better representation would be “political”

Australian Universities Accord discussion paper launched—Paper’s 49 questions on fees, research and national challenges throw university reforms open

Government backs taskforce’s work on foreign interference—University Foreign Interference Taskforce praised by Australian government, but ARC performance is under review

Here is the rest of the Australia news this week…

Engineering academy supports Voice

The Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering has said that it “strongly supports” the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, a representative advisory body for First Nations people. “Establishing the Voice will provide a forum for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to make representations to federal parliament and executive government on matters that affect them,” the academy said in a statement on 23 February. It says it will “encourage” academy fellows to support the ‘yes’ campaign in a referendum later this year.

Visa extensions granted

International students in areas of skills shortages have been granted a two-year extension to their Australian work rights. In an announcement on 21 February, education minister Jason Clare said that for qualifying students, this would mean a jump from two years to four years for bachelor’s graduates, from three to five for master’s degrees and from four to six years for PhDs. He later told Radio National that some other international education providers were “eating our lunch” and that the new visas would help attract students as well as filling skills gaps. A full list of eligible occupations will be published before the extension comes into force on 1 July. 

Archaeologist freed

A researcher from an Australian university has been freed after being taken hostage by a Papua New Guinean criminal gang. According to The Guardian, Bryce Barker of the University of Southern Queensland has been released alongside the other hostages and will soon be reunited with his family.

Assurances on research animals

The new operators of Western Australia’s Animal Resources Centre have promised to maintain any animal lines that will be needed in the future by researchers. At a briefing on 20 February, representatives from private company Ozgene answered researchers’ questions and said that specialist animal strains would be maintained “as long as they continue to be needed by the client base”. The centre is the major supplier of research animals to Australian laboratories, but the Western Australian government was unable to keep supporting it after financial difficulties in 2021. Ozgene is expected to fully take over the operation by the end of May this year.

Humanities and creative arts director for ARC

The Australian Research Council has appointed an executive director in the field of humanities and creative arts. Alison Ross is a professor of philosophy at Monash University, a former holder of an ARC Future Fellowship and a former deputy dean of research in the university’s arts faculty. An ARC statement said she “brings significant expert advice and guidance in research excellence to the ARC”.

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Updated regulations will offer fresh opportunities to Australian institutions, Indian high commissioner says

Australian universities should make new campuses in India a “high priority”, the Indian high commissioner to Australia has said.

The call, made at Universities Australia’s annual conference on 22 February, was later backed by Australian education minister Jason Clare.

High commissioner Manpreet Vohra told the conference that as part of India’s ambitious education policy, new regulations around setting up Indian campuses would soon be released. He urged Australian universities to prioritise this opportunity.

Australia has been very successful in attracting an increasing number of Indian students, he said, but “even with the 100,000-odd students that you have in your campuses, that is just a minuscule part” of the Indian student body, he said.

The call came with a hint of access to Indian government research funding for joint projects. In response to an audience question about the possibility, Vohra said: “Yes, I imagine it would be…I’m sure they’ll be responsive to all of that.”

Comprehensive relationship

University of Queensland chancellor Peter Varghese said that Australia’s relationship with India was changing and “education is going to be the most important strand in the India-Australia relationship”.

“Australia is looking to create a comprehensive relationship with India” in a geopolitical climate where innovation is “the new currency of influence”, he said.

Varghese said that “research is an important part of what we can do, given the quality of our people and our institutions and the same qualities over there”.

Delegation

Clare is going to India with a delegation of 11 Australian vice-chancellors later this week. He will sign an agreement giving greater mutual recognition of higher education qualifications.

Clare told Sky News that setting up campuses in India to serve students who were unable to come to Australia was a way Australia could “help” India. He named the University of Wollongong as likely to be among the first to do so.

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Downgrading Forskningsrådet’s size could lead to a lack of expertise and representation, group body warns

Norway’s universities are opposing a planned reduction in the number of members of the board at the Forskningsrådet, the country’s research council.

Universities Norway (UHR), a council representing 32 universities and colleges, said it feared that a reduction of the board’s size could impact its scientific expertise and its diversity. In a letter to the Norwegian research ministry, the organisation’s leaders said there was ongoing concern over the board’s ability to fulfil its function in a smaller capacity.

“The board of the research council has an important function in ensuring representation and legitimacy in the sector,” said chair of the UHR Sunniva Whittaker and secretary-general Nina Sandberg. “It is central that the board has high-level scientific expertise, and preferably international participation of top researchers.”

Permanent reduction

Norway’s research ministry proposed in January to make permanent a temporary reduction of the number of board members to just five representatives. The entire board of the Forskningsrådet was fired in May 2022 by research minister Ola Borten Moe, after it emerged that the council was set to make losses worth nearly 2.9 billion Norwegian krone (£234 million) by the end of 2023.

In December, the Norwegian government had to rescue the council from bankruptcy with a one-off grant of NKr1.6bn.

As well as dissatisfaction with the board’s size, the UHR expressed concern over a proposal that the board be directly appointed by the Norwegian research ministry. At present, appointments are made formally by the King of Norway, according to recommendations issued jointly by the research ministry and the cabinet.

“The Forskningsrådet is a key player in the Norwegian research and innovation system, not only for distributing research funds, but also as a research policy adviser for the entire government college,” the UHR said. “Appointment of the council’s board through the King helps ensure cross-ministerial ownership of the council.”

Whittaker and Sandberg said that the discussion of the role and organisation of the Forskningsrådet should be delayed, so they can happen in conjunction with an upcoming parliamentary review on Norway’s entire research system.

After the removal of the previous board, Borton Moe said that “new competencies” were needed on the board to prevent any future budget issues. Norway’s former finance minister Kristin Halvorsen, who is the chair of the temporary board, said it could take until 2024 to balance the budget.

The Norwegian government voted in December to extend the mandate of the temporary board until 30 June.

Weaker expertise

Earlier this month, the rector of the university of Oslo, Svein Stølen, also voiced criticism about the Forskningsrådet reorganisation. Just like the UHR, the university believes fewer representatives will weaken the scientific expertise of the board.

“We believe the ministry intervenes unreasonably when it proposes to change the board’s size and composition, as well as to move the appointment of the board from the King in Council to the ministry,” Stølen wrote in a blog post on the university’s website. “A broadly composed board is better equipped to look after the council’s purpose and many-sided activities.”

He added that the appointment of the board by the ministry could weaken its independence.

“Since it was established in 1993, the Forskningsrådet has had an independent advisory role vis-à-vis the authorities in matters of research policy,” Stølen said. “The council should still have that.”

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Change of rules means 30 per cent of students could lose right to accommodation

The Karolinska Institutet, Sweden’s most prestigious medical research institute, has said that the end of a housing pilot could affect its ability to recruit international students.

Under the pilot, which started in 2010, Karolinska was one of nine universities offering accommodation to all students regardless of their status or origin. However, a change in rules announced in December by education minister Mats Persson means that only a few categories of students at the university will continue to benefit.

Traditionally, Sweden offers free accommodation to exchange students in a formal programme and visiting researchers. On 1 January, new legislation added fee-paying students, doctoral students and early-career researchers to those that are offered housing.

But for the universities in the pilot programme, which was ended as the new rules were announced, this actually means a reduction in the number of students qualifying for housing. This, the Karolinska Institutet said, could cause 30 per cent of its students to struggle with finding accommodation.

Internationalisation

In a statement announcing the changes, Persson said that the changes are hoped to attract more international scientific talent to Sweden. For most Swedish universities, they will increase the number of categories of students and researchers who can be offered accommodation.

“The lack of housing often becomes an obstacle to the internationalisation of higher education institutions and the mobility of researchers,” he said.

But students falling outside the categories, including bachelor, master’s and EU students, will not be offered accommodation automatically, the Karolinska Institutet said. This could affect one in three students on its premises, it said.

The university said that students who were affected should get in touch with their concerns, but should “look for other housing options”.

“In some cases, new criteria must be met,” said Petrus Jansson, the institute’s manager of housing. “Especially for those students who are EU/EEA citizens and not in a paid oprogramme or part of a mobility programme, such as Erasmus.”

However, the Karolinska Institutet added that students currently in a housing contract with the university were not affected by the changes, and could remain in their accommodation until their contract expired.

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With university pay negotiations continuing, Playbook takes a look at the state of nursing education

On Friday afternoon, the five higher education unions negotiating over pay and conditions with the Universities and Colleges Employers Association confirmed that ongoing talks, mediated by the conciliatory service Acas, will continue this week.

As we reported on our site when the news broke, negotiators on both sides of the discussions feel that progress is being made. However, the unions also expressed disappointment that Ucea has instructed institutions to crack on and impose the first element of the current 2023-24 pay proposal.

“This is despite nothing yet having been agreed on pay,” the unions—including the University and College Union—said. “The unions will continue to make that clear in negotiations.” Ucea has always maintained that the offer on the table is its final position.

The Acas talks are set to resume tomorrow, and strike action by the UCU has been paused while they continue. We will be keeping a close eye on the outcomes of those discussions as the week progresses.

Nursing wounds

Whether the UCU likes it or not, public support for the strikes is fairly low. A poll published by the survey firm YouGov in January showed that out of 14 professions taking strike action, only driving examiners, baggage handlers and Transport for London workers have less public support than university staff, who had 36 per cent of the public behind them.

At the other end of the scale, nurses have the most public support, at 65 per cent. That support holds despite the huge disruption caused by the walkouts, with the NHS Providers organisation estimating this month that 137,000 appointments had already been postponed.

The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the vital role that nurses play in our society, and the public knows that clapping on the doorstep isn’t a substitute for humane working conditions and a pay packet that covers the bills.

They also know that the situation is pretty dire and improvements for nurses are urgently needed to stem a mass exodus of staff that is leaving the NHS under even more pressure. A report on nursing retention published by the Royal College of Nursing this month painted a bleak picture of the profession.

It found that “the nursing workforce is in crisis, with high and rising numbers of vacant posts, not enough new staff entering the profession and a long lead-in time for domestic recruitment, and too many nursing staff leaving the profession”.

Between 2018 and 2022, 32 per cent of those leaving nursing (42,756) were aged between 21 and 50, well below retirement age. For nurses working at the top of bands five and six, who can earn roughly £33,000 to £41,000, the Royal College of Nursing said that salaries have fallen by 20 per cent in real terms since 2010.

The college also found that more than half of nurses who were thinking of leaving the profession said they were feeling undervalued, as well as suffering from the pressures caused by low staffing levels and feeling exhausted as a result.

With this in mind, it is little wonder that the most recent application data from Ucas show a significant 19 per cent fall in the number of students applying to nursing degrees for the 2023-24 academic year.

Although that fall brings applications only slightly below the usual average following a spike during the Covid-19 pandemic, it comes as the NHS faces a nursing vacancy rate in England of around 47,000.

Acceptance dip

Vanessa Wilson, chief executive of University Alliance—many of whose members offer nursing degrees—says that while there isn’t an established cause for the drop in applications to nursing courses, the negativity surrounding the profession at the moment is likely to be a factor.

“It’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination to understand why we might have seen numbers reduce, given there’s so much in the news about the nursing profession and it’s obviously not all good,” she says. “Hopefully this isn’t a thin end of the wedge and we’re not going to see this sustained, but I don’t think it helps with the wider contextual picture around the profession and the issues.”

Having said that, Wilson points out that even with the fall in applications, universities are still turning away large numbers of potential students. In 2022, there were 56,155 applicants, a fall of more than 6 per cent compared with the previous year, although it was still higher than in 2020 and 2019.

But universities accepted 29,440 applicants in 2022, the lowest since 2019, when 44,335 applied and 25,890 were accepted.

Wilson says that if they could, universities would gladly accept more nursing students. Capacity within the NHS is a constraint, however, as students must complete at least 2,300 practice hours as part of their degree before they can work as a fully qualified nurse. That requirement is set as part of the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s regulatory framework for nursing education, which follows EU guidelines.

Last week, the MillionPlus group of modern universities called for a reduction in the number of hours student nurses spend on placements in a bid to help tackle recruitment issues, arguing that poor-quality placements are often cited as a reason why students don’t complete their studies.

Graham Baldwin, chair of MillionPlus and vice-chancellor of the University of Central Lancashire, said that clinical placement requirements were “a clear barrier for growth in a system already creaking at the seams”.

Wilson believes that switching to a competency-based approach, as is used in other countries like Canada and much of the US, would let universities use other ways to train students instead—such as simulation for different scenarios nurses might encounter.

This would free up time within the NHS and allow universities to recruit more students, ultimately helping to ease staffing pressures on wards in the long run, she says.

She adds that University Alliance has “had some success already”, as measures introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic to allow 600 hours of training to be carried out by simulation have been adopted permanently.

But she stresses that if changes to the framework allow simulation to be used more widely, universities will need an injection of capital funding as the need for cutting-edge teaching technologies “could create a slight inequality in the system”.

In its report, the Royal College of Nursing called on the UK government to improve its workforce planning and recruitment strategy, and it urged the leaders of all four nations to “take actions to grow the domestic supply of nurses and retain UK and internationally trained staff”.

Time for compromise

Wilson says that closer working between the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care would help. During the Covid-19 pandemic and the chaotic A-level results, a ministerial taskforce was set up that brought together university representatives, membership bodies, health leaders and government ministers. As a result, extra money was sourced and universities were supported in taking on more students who had met their grades.

Having that taskforce was “fantastic” as it helped to get things moving quickly, and Wilson wants to see a similar group set up again.

“I don’t realise why that can’t happen,” she says, stressing that it’s a “really efficient” way to tackle recruitment barriers.

For Wilson, “clearly the biggest problem is that we’re just not recruiting enough nurses into the system, which is putting huge pressure on those in the system because they’ve got so much work and they need more resource”.

“In reality, where are you going to get that resource from?” she asks. “The big solution is through your higher education and also your further education system,” where those nurses are trained.

If more nursing students are to be recruited, more nursing academics will be needed to teach them. Here again, Wilson says universities can help find the answer.

Professional doctorates, where candidates can work towards a research qualification while continuing to work in clinical practice, could help to “incentivise them to stay in the NHS but also work within the university sector”, while offering them a “long-term career pathway that benefits…future generations being trained”.

This gives nurses a “sense of recognition for their knowledge and expertise and enables them to contribute and give back”, she says.

But until ministers decide that they are willing to compromise and put resources into long-term planning for the NHS workforce, nursing staff on the picket lines outside hospitals could become as familiar a sight as university lecturers waving their placards on campuses.

“There’s lots that we can tackle jointly and help with this problem,” Wilson says. “It’s not a political issue—it’s absolutely something that concerns every single person. And it’s quite frustrating for us that the answers are there—let’s just work through them.”

And finally…

The war in Ukraine reached its one-year anniversary last week. Research Professional News has been covering the impact of the conflict on higher education and research, and you can access all our free-to-read coverage on our Ukraine news page.

On Research Professional News today

In yesterday’s Sunday Reading, Maddalaine Ansell argues that the UK needs to look after its international alumni.

Fiona McIntyre tells us that pay talks between higher education unions and employers mediated by the conciliation service Acas will continue this week, although the unions are “disappointed” that a pay uplift is going ahead before the talks are complete.

She adds that higher education experts have said that a rise in the number of dependants that international students brought to the UK was “inevitable” as universities sought to diversify their student populations, and a survey has found that almost a third of students in England have taken on more debt to cope with the high cost of living.

Rachel Magee tells us that Keir Starmer has said his “mission” to make the UK the fastest-growing major economy under a Labour government will “depend” on science, technology and innovation, and universities and learned societies have pledged to continue their support for Ukraine, one year on from Russia’s invasion.

University groups have decried the complexity of the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme, while calling for a raft of improvements to be made, and a UK facility providing “mission critical” infrastructure for the study of infectious diseases in poultry has been launched. Robin Bisson reports.

A year since Russia escalated its war against Ukraine with a full-scale invasion, Ukrainian researchers have expressed thanks for the support they have received from colleagues and institutions around Europe, which they say has allowed them to live and work safely, as well as to expand their professional networks and knowledge. Andrew Silver covers the news.

Craig Nicholson reveals that the European Research Council has decided to move ahead with piloting broader use of the lump-sum funding mode.

In the news

The BBC reports on damages awarded to a Warwick student with cancer who was denied an extension.

The Financial Times says that the University of Oxford has been urged to review its donor policy after an outcry over Sackler ties.

In The Independent, a Warwick student with cancer has won a payout, and there’s a feature on Black international students caught up in the Ukraine conflict.

i News reports that a third of university students have plunged into double debt in the cost of living crisis.

The Telegraph says that the University of Cambridge planned to block white students from applying for a course.

In The Times, a university has 200 indigenous skulls, and an international baccalaureate lets pupils use ChatGPT to write essays.

A comment piece in The Sunday Times says it’s time to stop the shouting and learn other languages, and a graduate returns to Oxford to see if the Bullingdon days are over.

The Evening Standard covers a study that says that a quarter of UK university students who gamble are at risk of harm.

Mail Online says that a university finance official faces a lengthy jail term.

In The Scotsman, a University of Glasgow spinout has raised £9 million to work on a treatment for ‘tennis elbow’.

The week ahead

Monday

The Quality Assurance Agency has a webinar on assessment and trauma-informed policy from 1.30pm.

From 2.30pm, there will be education questions in the House of Commons.

The Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fee Limits) Bill will receive its second reading in the Commons after 2.30pm.

Tuesday

The Quality Assurance Agency is holding a webinar from 9.30am on developing and maintaining a quality culture.

At 2.30pm, the House of Commons foreign affairs committee is taking evidence on UK universities’ engagement with autocracies.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Universities UK is hosting its International Higher Education Forum.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering publishes a survey on public support for R&D.

The Higher Education Statistics Agency will publish an update to its higher education student data.

Wednesday

At 9.30am, the House of Commons science and technology committee is considering the UK space strategy and UK satellite infrastructure.

The Higher Education Policy Institute is holding a research conference from 9.30am with Elsevier.

The Association of Colleges is holding an exams conference on Wednesday and Thursday, which will explore the introduction of T-levels.

Thursday

The Quality Assurance Agency has two webinars: one on the student quality network at 12pm, and one on managing risk in UK partnerships at 2pm.

Friday

At 1pm, the Society for Research into Higher Education has a webinar on preparing special issues in journals.

The Playbook would not be possible without Martyn Jones, Harriet Swain and Chris Parr.

Thanks for reading. Have a great day.

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Maddalaine Ansell argues that the UK needs to look after its international alumni

International students bring new ideas and knowledge to UK campuses, broaden the university experience for domestic students, help to sustain and enrich UK universities and have a positive impact on local communities and economies. Most importantly, when they graduate from students to alumni, they take their trust in the UK—and a sense of being connected to it—back to their own countries.

But all relationships require effort, and it is not enough to presume that a good experience of the UK will generate warm feelings towards it—or to see alumni primarily as a source of philanthropy. The UK has recognised that it needs to look after its alumni in a more systematic way.

In the 2021 update to its International Education Strategy, the government announced that the British Council would be exploring options for attracting and supporting a global UK alumni network.

Last year, we at the British Council launched Alumni UK—a global network for people from around the world who have studied in the UK as an overseas student. Over 15,000 people have now enrolled and our target is to get to 150,000 by 2025. Next month, we will hold Alumni UK Live, an online festival giving graduates who have studied in the UK access to professional development opportunities and the chance to connect to other international alumni.

The aim is to offer alumni a worldwide professional network through which they can continue learning, develop employability skills, make connections and share their experience and expertise, as well as to keep UK alumni connected to the UK—recognising that they are of incalculable value.

Basis of trust

The British Council’s 2018 report The Value of Trust summarised the many studies that had looked at why trust is the bedrock of all strong relationships, how it is earned and why it matters. It concluded that trust is what allows us to believe in the reliability of others and brings the possibility of cooperation to satisfy mutual interests.

Economically, high-trust relationships have lower transaction costs and stimulate investment, production and trade, which in turn lead to economic growth.

In terms of connectedness, Universities UK International’s 2019 report International Graduate Outcomes found that 77 per cent of international graduates said they would be more likely to do business with the UK as a result of studying there; 81 per cent intended to build professional links with organisations in the UK; more than 80 per cent would recommend studying in the UK; and 88 per cent would visit as tourists.

World-leading

The UK therefore benefits hugely from so many alumni ending up in positions of power or influence. The Higher Education Policy Institute’s 2022 Soft Power Index found that 55 current world leaders had been educated in the UK—more than any other country except the US. This is partly due to the prestige of flagship scholarship programmes such as Chevening and Commonwealth Scholarships, which attract extraordinarily talented young people to study at UK universities.

Alumni who become world leaders are only the tip of the iceberg. Many others, including some of those on Great Scholarships funded jointly by the British Council and universities, or through Women in Stem Scholarships, become diplomats, government officials, scientists and business and community leaders.

This is important because many of the most pressing challenges facing the world today require cooperation not only at the government-to-government level but beyond. Civil society, including universities, businesses and community groups, needs to tackle poverty, pandemics, climate change and the management of scarce resources.

Sustainable development

In hitting the International Education Strategy’s target of 600,000 overseas students studying in the UK each year, the higher education sector has educated a huge number of people with whom the UK can cooperate to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The Study UK Alumni Awards give many examples of the exceptional contribution UK alumni have made to science and sustainability in their own countries, including tackling pollution in Jamaica and ghost fishing in Nigeria, where abandoned fishing gear continues to trap wildlife. UK alumni also helped to guide public health policy during the Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan.

It matters that these friends are spread around as many countries as possible. The latest statistics suggest that the UK is doing very well at attracting students from China, India and Nigeria and is making good progress, from a lower base, in Indonesia, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia—testament to Steve Smith, the UK’s international education champion, as well as the Study UK campaign and the tireless work of international teams in universities around the world. Applications from non-EU international students as of January 2023 have increased by 21,050 (29 per cent) since 2020, to 94,410.

But the UK is doing less well in terms of applications from EU countries, which have dropped by more than 52 per cent since 2020, to 20,500. As these countries are its nearest neighbours, trading partners and allies, the UK needs to maintain strong links with them and must redouble its efforts here. Attracting students through marketing, scholarships, bursaries and strategic institutional partnerships that facilitate exchange of students and early career researchers is a highly effective way to do this, and so is maintaining connections with alumni.

Alumni are appreciating assets for the UK. It should invest in them.

Maddalaine Ansell is director of education at the British Council.

The post Friends for life appeared first on Research Professional News.

On conflict’s anniversary, universities say partnerships with Ukrainian institutions “will last for years to come”

Universities and learned societies have pledged to continue their support for Ukraine, one year on from Russia’s invasion.

On the anniversary of the conflict, vice-chancellors’ group Universities UK said it was “immensely proud” of its twinning scheme with Ukrainian institutions and the “impact it has had on Ukrainian universities devastated by war”.

More than 100 partnerships have been established through the government-supported scheme, which helps UK universities partner with Ukrainian institutions to share resources.

To date, this support has included donated ambulances, help to equip bomb shelters, as well as the provision of study placements, English classes and mental health support.

“One year since the invasion, partnerships are continuing to grow stronger and have been a beacon of light for many Ukrainian students and staff,” Jamie Arrowsmith, director of the international arm of UUK, told Research Professional News.

UUK set up the scheme in partnership with Cormack Consultancy Group and it received a funding boost of £5 million from Research England in November 2022.

Arrowsmith said the extra funding would contribute towards the establishment of new national research centres, as well as helping to rebuild those destroyed during the war.

“The strong bonds that have grown between institutions give us hope that these partnerships will last for years to come, and that with continued investment and support, Ukraine can, and will, emerge stronger from the war,” he added.

Support from learned societies

Learned societies have also pledged to continue their support for Ukrainian academics.

Last year, the British Academy helped to set up a £13.3m government-backed fellowship programme for those fleeing the war, in partnership with the Council for At-Risk Academics.

The scheme gives Ukrainian academics and their dependants support to continue their research in the UK for up to two years. The funding covers their salary, research expenses and living costs.

The academy said it was “extremely proud” to have helped support more than 140 researchers and 190 dependants through the scheme so far with placements across 40 universities.

“The breadth of research expertise across the cohort is incredibly rich and we are pleased to play a part in ensuring the prosperity and continuation of Ukrainian research,” said Hetan Shah, the British Academy’s chief executive.

Meanwhile, the Royal Society of Chemistry said it would “continue to reach out to members of our community in Ukraine” and would continue to make available support through its Chemists’ Community Fund, which offers financial support to struggling members.

In addition, the society confirmed that it would continue to pause its engagement with institutes in Russia, for example, preventing access to RSC journal content and books, and stopping all sales and marketing activities.

More widely, the UK government has suspended publicly funded research and innovation collaborations with Russian universities and companies that are of strategic benefit to the Russian state.

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Ivory Tower: We check in with the UK’s leading University Media Relations team.

An office, somewhere in SW1…

McCall [on the phone]: Well, if he won’t let you do it, have you thought about Plan C, minister?… I don’t know… Two weeks in Ibiza for all post-docs?… You could tie it in with the mobility scheme… Call it Turing All-in… I’m sorry minister, I’m only trying to help… How is the new office, by the way?… Exactly the same as the old office, I see. Have they changed the plate on the door?… No, still the science minister, I see. So, remind me, what was the point of creating a new ministry for science?… No, me neither. Anyway, we are very grateful to have won the contract for media relations for the department, and we are working on the launch event as we speak… Oh yes, glitz and glamour minister, definitely… Well, you know that open deck bus of national treasures they wheeled out for the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Yes, well, most of them have said no, but we’ve got Brian Cox… no the other one… yes, I agree the other one would be better… look I’ve got to jump on a Zoom call with Sydney in a minute… no, Sydney, Australia, minister. Sorry, who did you say? Sidney who?… I don’t know who that is, minister… A TikTok star? No, I don’t think we’ve reached that stage of event planning yet, minister. I’ll keep you informed and brief you in a couple of days. Got to go, bye. [puts phone down] Although God knows we are scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to science policy.

Janet: Do you need me to set up the laptop for a Zoom, Mr McCall?

McCall: No, I just said that to get him off the phone. He’s becoming obsessed about the media launch for the new science ministry.

Janet: You mean, you lied to a client?

McCall: I was merely managing expectations. Don’t they teach you anything on that degree apprenticeship course?

Janet: I’m currently on a deep dive placement at the industry coal face.

McCall: What are you doing?

Janet: I was about to make Mr Juniper a cup of tea, would you like one?

McCall: Yes, please, and then let’s look at the invite list for this wretched science ministry launch.

Janet: Will do.

Juniper: Is everything alright, Oliver? You sound like a man out of love with his art.

McCall: I’ve really had enough of this government, Alexander, when are we getting a new one?

Juniper: Probably not until the end of next year. These are austere times, Oliver, you’ll just have to make do with the government you’ve got. See, if you can’t spin it out a bit longer.

McCall: I can’t believe Michelle Donelan is back.

Juniper: At least we don’t have to look at Grant Shapps anymore.

McCall: You could have fun pretending to forget his name. Sunak is just determined to make everything so bland and beige. I’m surprised he hasn’t brought back Greg Clark.

Juniper: Thank goodness for the DUP.

McCall: Quite, but they are blocking our Horizon Europe association field trip to Brussels.

Janet: Here’s a tea for you, Mr Juniper, and one for you Mr McCall, and here’s the list.

Juniper: This is entirely white.

Janet: I was trying to use up the milk before it goes off.

Juniper: No, this is a blank piece of paper.

Janet: Turn it over.

Juniper: Brian Cox? Anyone else?

McCall: That’s as far as we’ve got. You see, this government stinks so much of decay that no one in their right mind would want to be seen standing next to a minister at a gala event.

Juniper: Not even the vice-chancellors?

Janet: No, of course they are all coming.

McCall: Try and stop them.

Janet: And the science policy people, too. This is the celebrity list that will get us a photo on the front page of the broadsheets.

Juniper: Have we actually asked Brian Cox?

Janet: Which one?

Juniper: Either of them.

McCall: One said he would rather pluck his liver out with a knitting needle. The other hasn’t returned our call, so I’m banking that as a maybe.

Juniper: Where is this event?

Janet: The Science Museum.

Juniper: Ten out of ten for imagination, zero out of ten for levelling-up.

McCall: I am not getting on a train to Middlesbrough to drink a glass of lukewarm white wine and listen to a speech by the science minister.

Juniper: Isn’t there a science museum in Halifax?

McCall: I can see the headlines now: Minister’s Shock End in Happy Valley.

Janet: Might make it easier for one of the Brian Coxes to get there if he works in Manchester.

McCall: I can assure you that it is quicker to get a train from Manchester to London than it is to Halifax. Or it used to be…

Janet: We’d have to ship all the celebrities up north.

Juniper: Don’t they have celebrities up there?

Janet: Channel Four News has moved to Leeds.

McCall: So, that’s Cathy Newman, plus one, any others?

Juniper: I don’t think she’s personally moved to Leeds, it’s just the studio.

McCall: OK, so, that’s Cathy Newman’s cameraman plus one, any others?

Janet: Ant and Dec?

McCall: Shouldn’t they have some vague familiarity with science?

Juniper: Well, if you are going to draw that line, some people might query Michelle Donelan.

McCall: If only we still had dear old David Bellamy, he ticked every box: a bloke off the telly, had something to do with Durham, didn’t believe in climate change.

Juniper: Janet, have you still got that Scientists for Brexit list?

Janet: It was more of a post-it note.

Juniper: Can you remember who was on it?

Janet: They’ve all gone, I’m afraid.

McCall: They are all dead?

Janet: No, they’ve all moved to Europe.

McCall: This is hopeless. Northern science launch? Pigs might fly.

Janet: Higgs?

McCall: No, pigs, do try to keep up Janet.

Janet: No, Peter Higgs.

Juniper: Is he one of those TikTok stars?

Janet: No, Peter Higgs is a Nobel Prize winner, as in the Higgs-Boson particle. I listened to a podcast about it the other day. I think he’s from Newcastle or somewhere.

McCall: Brilliant, Janet! I can see the headline now, “Minister and Nobel Winner in Happy Valley Sunlit Uplands”. They’ll love that. You look for Higgs’ email, I’ll phone the minister [picks up the phone, dials] George, how are you?… Good, good, look we’ve made a bit of progress here and think we’ve found you a science super star to launch you as a science superpower…

Juniper: Well done, Janet, excellent work. Have you managed to find an email address?

Janet: Oh dear, Mr Juniper.

Juniper: What’s up? What have you found?

McCall [still on phone]: Yes, I think we should book an entire train load of ministers, scientists and celebs to Halifax, leaving from Euston, we’ll call it the Innovation Nation Express…

Janet: I don’t think Peter Higgs will be suitable after all.

Juniper: Why not? He’s not been cancelled, has he?

Janet: Worse than that Mr Juniper, he was heavily involved with the university lecturers’ trade union at the University of Edinburgh. It says here, he thinks he caused so much trouble that the university wanted to sack him, had it not been for the chance he might win a Nobel Prize.

Juniper: Probably not an ideal candidate to sit next to Rishi Sunak at dinner. Better show, Oliver.

McCall [on phone]: We could deck the place out in fun science stuff. What’s that thing when you roll down a hill in a giant plastic ball? Zorbing? Do you think Rishi would want to do that?… You think he looks enough like a hamster already? Interesting… hold on minister, my colleague is just alerting me to some breaking news [covers the mouthpiece] what is it Alexander, this had better be important?

Juniper: Read this.

McCall: Peter Higgs bla, bla bla… Nobel Prize bla, bla, bla… apologies, minister, I’ll be with you in just one minute… University of Edinburgh bla, bla, bla… trade union firebrand! Ah, I see… hello, minister, are you still there? Yes, it looks as if Sydney is back online now. I’ll have to go, I’m afraid. I think my colleagues have had a really productive redesign of your launch event. Nobel Prizes are so old hat, no media appeal in that. Have you thought about TikTok stars? Influencing young people through digital… Yes, we could still have the train from Euston, full of ministers and TikTokers… and vice-chancellors… Yes, if you really want to, we can call it Freeman’s Highway. Ok got to go now, Sydney and all that, bye.

Juniper: That was a close one.

Janet: I think I’ll make another cup of tea and look out the West Coast line timetable and that post-it note of TikTokers for Brexit.

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But unions are unhappy with employers’ decision to implement an early pay rise

Pay talks between UK higher education unions and employers will continue into next week, although the unions are “disappointed” that a pay uplift is going ahead before the talks are complete.

Discussions over pay and working conditions will continue between the five unions involved in the pay dispute—the University and College Union, Unite, Unison, GMB and the Educational Institute of Scotland—and the Universities and Colleges Employers Association (Ucea), which represents employers, through mediator Acas next week.

Talks have already taken place over several weeks, as staff and employers seek agreement on workload, contracts and equality pay gaps. Strike action by the UCU was called off this week and next week to allow talks with employers to take place in a constructive fashion.

An “impasse” over the pay offer of between 5 and 8 per cent was reached in earlier talks. Nonetheless, universities will be giving staff part of the uplift in their March pay packets to help them through the cost of living crisis.

In a joint statement on 24 February, the unions said they were “disappointed that Ucea has moved to instruct its members to impose the first element of the 2023-24 pay proposal”.

“This is despite nothing yet having been agreed on pay. The unions will continue to make that clear in negotiations,” they said.

However, they added that “some progress has been made towards establishing agreed terms of reference for negotiations on the review of the national HE pay spine”.

Ucea’s chief executive, Raj Jethwa, said that it had “respected” a request from the unions not to implement an uplift until the beginning of March, adding: “The trade unions have also agreed that an impasse had been reached in respect of the pay uplift.”

He continued: “While we very much regret this, the intention in bringing forward the 2023-24 pay round was to provide support at this time to staff facing cost of living pressures.”

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Labour leader says his economic growth mission will rely on “seizing opportunities of tomorrow”

Keir Starmer has said his “mission” to make the UK the fastest-growing major economy under a Labour government will “depend” on science, technology and innovation.

In a speech delivered in Manchester on 23 February, the Labour leader set out five missions that will be at the centre of the party’s manifesto at the next election and will guide his government if elected, including securing the highest sustained growth in the G7 group of countries.

Starmer said such growth “depends on seizing the opportunities of tomorrow, not falling behind, [and] on embracing technology, innovation [and] science”.

He added that the first steps his government would take to embrace research and innovation would be putting in place “a reformed planning system, a more powerful British business bank that can support startups to grow and scale, and a credible industrial strategy that gets everyone around the table and removes barriers to investment”.

Postulating that “some nation” would inevitably emerge as the leading country in developing offshore wind, creating the first generation of supercomputers and designing personalised medicines to match DNA, Starmer asked “why not Britain?” In saying so, he hinted at research and innovation areas that his government might prioritise. 

Five missions

As well economic growth, the other missions are: make Britain a clean-energy superpower with zero-carbon electricity by 2030; build an NHS fit for the future; make Britain’s streets safe; and break down the barriers to opportunity at every stage.

As prime minister, Starmer said he would make mission-driven government a “reality”. In the coming months, he said the shadow cabinet would be supporting him by meeting with experts—who he quipped Labour “still believe in”—to discuss the five missions.

His party would meet with “frontline practitioners, the doers, the thinkers, the entrepreneurs, the innovators” to ask what the barriers are in achieving the missions, he said.

In a briefing document published alongside the speech, Labour said the “scale and cross-cutting nature of the missions requires a sharp break from business-as-usual government”.

To make government more “agile, empowering and catalytic”, Labour said it would make six key changes, including “focusing on the ends, with flexibility and innovation on the means”.

According to the document, measures taken by Labour in this area could include “creating the conditions for innovation to thrive and technology to be harnessed for the public good, boosted by our industrial strategy focus on data and life sciences, and reviewing the institutional landscape of how we identify innovative practice and scale it up”.

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Experts say rise was to be expected as universities diversified their international student intake

Higher education experts have said that a rise in the number of dependants that international students have brought to the UK was “inevitable”, as universities sought to diversify their student populations.

Data published by the Home Office show that the number of dependants, such as family members, that international students bring to the UK increased from 16,047 in 2019 to 135,788 in 2022, rising from 6 per cent of all sponsored study-related visas to 22 per cent.

The rise comes as the government explores ways to curb the number of international students coming to the UK, which could include restrictions on students bringing dependants or reducing the two-year post-study work visa to six months.

Universities have repeatedly called on ministers to avoid restrictions, saying that limiting the number of international students would be “economic self-harm”. Universities rely on international students’ fees to top up funding for research and for teaching home students.

Iain Mansfield, formerly a special adviser in the Department for Education, said on Twitter that the rise “fundamentally changes the debate on student migration, for good or ill”.

Limits on dependants

According to the Times newspaper, ministers are considering imposing limits on which courses allow students to bring dependants to those that are considered “high value to the economy”, such as maths or science, or restricting the option to bring dependants to higher levels of study.

But Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think tank, stressed that “the rules are quite strict” already. Only postgraduate students can bring dependants, and “they have to prove they have very substantial financial resources to look after them”.

He pointed out that universities “have been told for years to diversify their international student intake away from China”, which makes up the largest proportion of international students coming to the UK, and that universities “have done what they were told to do very successfully, particularly when it comes to recruiting Indian and Nigerian students”.

“While the big jump in the number of dependants is notable and bound to set alarm bells ringing in some places, people need to drill below the surface,” Hillman said. “If we were serious about diversifying our international students, then the rise in dependants was inevitable because of the different circumstances of different people in different countries.”

He added that he would “advise against” any new restrictions on taught master’s courses because “if courses cease to be viable, home students won’t be able to do them either”.

Increase from India and Nigeria

Simon Marginson, director of the Centre for Global Higher Education, said that although the Home Office figures “are a shock”, they are likely down to a “spectacular increase in students from certain nationalities”, such as India and Nigeria.

He also highlighted the fact that international demand for UK higher education is supply driven, and controlled by the number of visas the Home Office grants and universities’ requests for visas.

Marginson said that “while it is possible that restrictions on dependants could diminish demand, and might affect the country pattern of demand…it is hardly going to drive demand below the level of the desired supply”.

But he warned that restricting the ability to bring dependants to so-called high-value courses “would be arbitrary and foolish”, as there are “no issues of costs to the public purse” with international students’ subject choices, unlike for home students, who take out public loans.

“This kind of action would just be an anti-university culture-war policy, ie, the sole purpose would be to build public political support for the government…by bringing on conflict with universities that could be portrayed as elite and focused on foreigners rather than citizens,” he said.

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

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