Research council institutes (RCIs) should not automatically become embedded within universities or other higher education organisations, as has been suggested by some observers, a report by MPs says. Instead, their structure and location needs to be decided on a case by case basis according to how they can best contribute to future scientific research, the House of Commons' science and technology committee concludes.
In March 2006 the committee announced an inquiry into the institutes after “a school of thought that RCIs are no longer the most effective way of conducting basic research.”
The United Kingdom has eight research councils. They have a total annual budget of £2.8bn (€4.1bn; $5.5bn) for 2007-8 to fund research and training in their own research centres and in universities; some 130 centres; and units collectively known as research council institutes.
In its report, the committee highlights comments by the then minister for science, Lord Sainsbury, who in January 2006 said, “There is a well considered view internationally that separate research institutes have the disadvantage that they become obviously specialised science institutions, and in today's multidisciplinary world, basic research increasingly should be done in a multidisciplinary environment, like universities.”
During its inquiry the committee received written evidence from 30 organisations and interested individuals and interviewed various leaders in research in five oral sessions. Its report is highly critical of the way the proposed restructuring of some institutes has been handled.
In particular the report highlights plans to relocate the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, north London, to a site in central London to forge links with University College London, which it describes as a “lesson on how not to handle such a project.” Although it agrees with the Medical Research Council's goals to drive closer links between basic and clinical research and between medicine and other disciplines, the committee did not approve of how that vision was executed.
The committee has called for a new plan to be developed to revitalise the Mill Hill institute, which retains the current campus, and a site in central London and has the approval of all parties involved in the project. It also says there should be better communication and consultation with staff once funding for a new proposal has been secured.
MPs also looked at proposals to relocate the Roslin Institute and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
Although plans for the Roslin Institute seemed to be widely supported this was not true for those at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, where the committee feared important areas of science may be lost. The report calls for a proper assessment of the impact of the proposed changes on key skills.
MPs concluded that “the UK RCI sector makes a highly valued and unique contribution to national scientific capacity” and “they often come into their own in times of emergency due to the ability of their directors to respond swiftly to changing demands, particularly from government.” When restructures are first proposed by research councils, key science programmes should be identified so that they can be preserved, says the report.
The report also calls for greater cooperation on policy for and firmer commitments by some departments, in particular the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, to their research institutes. The report would like to see long term funding for institutes, which could be topped up with grants and commissions.
The committee thinks a formal system is needed whereby the Office of Science and Innovation, the government body responsible for UK science policy and for funding basic research allocated through the research councils, could raise the alarm when the planned changes in one department or institute have a detrimental impact on the work of another or on UK research as a whole.
Commenting on the report, committee chairman Phil Willis MP said, “Research Council Institutes have an extremely important part to play in the UK science base. We have a number of concerns about the specific restructuring proposals of some of our leading science centres and more generally about the ways these institutes are being funded and supported.
“They must be given long-term financial commitments to continue to carry out vital science work and there must be better coordination of the way that funding is applied.”
The report is available from www.parliament.uk/.
