Written evidence submitted by Alliances for Research Challenges (SS0007)
Dr Sam Bayliss, Lecturer in Quantum Engineering & co-lead of Quantum Technologies ARC at The University of Glasgow;
Professor Emilie Combet, Professor of Human Nutrition & lead of the Scottish Alliance for Food ARC at The University of Glasgow;
Dr Mette High, Director of the Centre for Energy Ethics & lead of the Energy, Home & Livelihoods ARC at The University of St Andrews;
Dr Ashley Lyons, Research Fellow & co-lead of Quantum Technologies ARC at The University of Glasgow; and
Professor Terry Quinn, Professor in Cardiovascular Ageing & lead of the Brain Health ARC at The University of Glasgow.
Introduction
It is encouraging to see that the UK Parliament is launching this enquiry into Scotland's scientific research capability. Scotland has a proud history of research excellence and has the potential to continue this tradition. There are more universities per head of the population in Scotland than in other countries in the UK, reflecting Scotland's strong academic infrastructure. However, the research ecosystem in Scotland, like all the devolved nations, faces significant challenges. Some of these are common to all parts of the UK, while some are specific to Scotland.
We are a collective of multidisciplinary research teams from across Scotland, representing a new research capacity-building program, focussed on addressing specific societal challenges, and supported by the Scottish Funding Council – the Alliances for Research Challenges (ARCs). At the heart of the ARCs is the mission of shifting the research culture in Scotland from one of competition to collaboration. Each ARC focuses on bringing diverse cross-sector stakeholders together to increase the capacity to attract large-scale funding and create a supportive environment for early career researchers. Our mission is to accelerate Scotland’s capacity for innovative, collaborative and impactful research that reaches far beyond conventional sector and disciplinary silos of knowledge production.
The four ARCs address specific research challenges focused on i) brain health, ii) energy, homes and livelihoods, iii) food, and iv) quantum technologies. These themes were selected as aligned to Scottish Government priority topics, with demonstrated internationally-recognised research excellence, but where additional collaboration could foster further growth, investment and societal benefit. The ideas that underpin the ethos of the ARCs also represent some of the major strengths of Scottish research – working closely with policymakers to ensure research has local and global involvement and impact, building upon solid foundations of world-leading academic institutions and engaging with diverse stakeholders to ensure cross-sectoral, cross-institute, cross-discipline collaboration.
Our ARC leadership and membership is diverse, including all the major higher educational establishments and with representation from NHS, third-sector and industry. However, we all agree that Scottish research is facing unprecedented challenges. Diminished funding, increasing job insecurity, and difficulties in talent recruitment and retention, while not unique to Scotland, are more sharply felt here as Scotland has more Universities per head of population than most other countries, and these Universities have an important economic and civic role. In this response, we highlight these difficulties but also emphasise the substantial resources and opportunities that Scotland offers.
We have structured our response according to the themes suggested in the briefing document, with additional detail where relevant. While the ARC leads are named in the submission, this response has drawn feedback from a range of alliance members. All four ARCs were keen to engage in this consultation and ongoing enquiry process and would be happy to follow up on this written response with further information or meetings.
Call for evidence questions (only answer those applicable):
Below are pertinent examples of the international influence Scottish research and development has had in the last ten years from within our Alliances for Research Challenges focusing on brain health, food, quantum, and energy homes and livelihoods. This is by no means a complete or exhaustive overview.
A key challenge for Scotland is the recruitment and retention of talent. Recruiting students (including research students) to Scotland is more challenging and is compounded by retaining trained researchers within Scotland. London and the southeast of England remain a destination drawing staff, students and funding, creating a significant gap in supporting research initiatives in Scotland.
Resources and funding are focused in the southeast of the UK – active steps to distribute resources more fairly would be welcome, but there was a question of whether that resource would move north of the border or just from the 'golden triangle' to Manchester, Newcastle, and Liverpool? Given the move to sustainable transport, this also requires improved rail infrastructure to support collaboration. Once again, this tends to be concentrated towards London.
More generally, short-term investment does not fulfil ambitions for sustainable research and investment in talent and people, contributing to the above challenges.
A further challenge for Scotland is the perception of the country as remote and small, with a lack of awareness (from outside of Scotland) regarding the scale of the country or the breadth of academic institutions. The large number of academic and research institutions in Scotland have close links with their local environments, which are diverse and varied in geography, socio-economic conditions and natural capital.
Yet, galvanizing individuals into research participation, especially when looking at geographical areas away from urban conurbations and within more rural and socio-economically deprived areas, remains a challenge. Opportunities to participate are currently much less, with a disconnect in understanding what research participation can mean and opportunities it can present for individuals. The involvement of the public that reflects a more even representation of a country's demographic is also critical to the research delivery and its ultimate relevance/value.
Finally, research in Scotland is guided by different approaches in terms of administration – for example, ethics forms are shorter for England than Scotland (e.g., IRAS), legislation is different, and having a common system across devolved nations is something we would support to lift barriers to collaborations and decrease burden associated to bureaucracy.
The scope and nature of opportunities in Scotland are, however, multiple, and the ARCs intend to leverage these to accelerate research and innovation to deliver solutions for societal challenges.
As demonstrated by the examples in the previous section, there is robust connectivity between the public sector and academic institutions in Scotland, which often leads to more opportunities for research translation into policy and practices. One key element of the connectivity between academia and the public sector is the Scottish Government's commitment to making datasets open and available. For instance, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) hydrographic data can be easily adapted to the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) raw datasets. This is a considerable resource to Scottish researchers and a unique benefit in Scotland.
There is a strong culture of interdisciplinary research within Scottish institutions and on an individual level. Researchers in Scotland are prolific with outputs often at the interface between disciplines- this versatility and ability to connect may be partly facilitated by the size of the country and the proximity between institutions. However, new ideas, know-how and best practices tend to be adopted rapidly in Scotland. An example of this is the Crucible Model, initially funded by NESTA, which had a strong uptake in Scotland via the Scottish Crucible (a cooperation between the Scottish Funding Council, Royal Society of Edinburgh and partner research institutions) – the programme, which started in 2009, fostered several cohorts of future research leaders with abilities for inter-disciplinarity working and a strong sense of research translation to benefit societal grand challenges. A large number remain in Scotland and have contributed to the shaping of the Scottish interdisciplinary research landscape.
Whilst retaining talent is challenging in Scotland, this has potentially strengthened the research culture in Scotland, which places more of an imperative on staff retainment than in other parts of the UK. There is a commitment between Scottish universities to foster a network with the notion of future leadership within academia in Scotland and an emphasis on nurturing people at an Early Career Researcher stage.
The diversity of the research workforce, which is high, is also a unique opportunity for innovation. Whilst a greater amount of clinical research funding, in particular, used to be available in England and Wales, this is changing (for instance, in the past, some NIHR schemes were not open to Scotland). Rejoining the Horizon EU scheme is also a landmark moment. This change in funding potentially marks a significant opportunity for Scotland to develop further its research capacity by retaining and attracting talent.
The steps the UK Government could take include:
The steps the Private sector could take include:
More generally, there is support for the 'triple helix' model of innovation for collaboration between industry, academia and government.
It is unclear how or to what extent Scottish priorities are represented in UKRI research opportunities. There are concerns about politicians seeking researchers holding research council funding as advisors. Given the bias in research funding distribution, policymaking is influenced by a smaller pool of academics with less diversity of voices in general and not representing all areas in the UK, such as Scotland. There are also concerns with the UKRI reviewing system. With the MRC in particular, there are few MRC-funded programs or people in Scotland, and feedback when applying for funding is often that local excellence or expertise linked to existing MRC centres is lacking. This reinforces the impression that applications are not evaluated on their own merit, cognisant of the need for a level playing field, instead emphasising a potential exclusive club not accessible to those outside well-funded geographical areas.
The consensus of the team contributing to this response is that research is something all types of professionals, researchers, and members of the public can contribute to, and there are concerns that the recently established Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA) is narrowing the focus of funding the wider potential of research.
The approach of the Alliance for Research Challenges (ARCs) is to foster collaboration and interdisciplinarity as well as nurture new talent and team science rather than specific individuals. The REF is discipline-specific in an age of integration, interdisciplinarity and cross-sectoral contribution to research. The REF focuses on named disciplines and requires returns to belong to such disciplines, which are overseen by panels of academics. This process still overlooks the fact that the major explorative, innovative effort happening at the interface between disciplines is at a disadvantage during assessment. Indeed, the perceived value and alignment of such work is less likely to be selected for return or evaluated fairly if it is. Scotland does better at pooling and at interdisciplinarity – it invests in it massively – therefore, is the REF framework fair to assess what is a forward-thinking take on research?
Scotland has been disproportionately impacted by the delays in HE negotiations and Brexit. The uncertainty over rejoining the Horizon program is an example of how the UK political landscape has impacted research, particularly Scottish research. There was a higher proportion of funding from the EU in Scotland than in other areas. Horizon Europe and other schemes were an important pipeline for attracting research talent at various career stages to Scotland. Over the last few years, rising stars have not seen Scotland as an attractive place to progress a career, and consortia looking to run large-scale multicentre projects viewed Scotland as a risky prospect.
We are all pleased to see that the UK will rejoin the Horizon scheme and expect many applications that have not previously been submitted as there was no suitable UK equivalent funding. However, we mourn the loss of colleagues who decided to leave Scotland for countries where the funding they won (and the job security of their research teams) was guaranteed. Whether the recent situation has caused lasting reputational damage around Scotland as a destination for research and researchers remains to be seen.
September 2023
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