Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond wants to boost economic growth and transform Scotland into a “Celtic tiger”. But he is on a hiding to nothing unless the country’s universities are better-funded, according to Universities Scotland, lobby group for the country’s universities.
The 14 institutions receive £1bn ($1.6bn) a year from the Scottish government, equivalent to 3 per cent of its £33bn annual budget. Ahead of the latest spending review, the universities were lobbying for a 15 per cent real terms rise in government funding by 2010/11, which would have meant an additional hand-out of £168m.
In the end, however, manifesto commitments got in the way and the universities received just £30m, or 2.9 per cent, more. They complain that this equates to a funding cut of 0.2 per cent in 2008-9.
“We were very dissatisfied with that,” says Anton Muscatelli, convener of Universities Scotland and principal of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. “We felt we had made quite a good case.”
Rather than declare war on Mr Salmond’s minority administration, however, the universities chose to take a conciliatory path, partly in the hope that they could secure a better deal next time round. The government agreed to establish a tripartite taskforce between the universities, government and funding authorities – the joint Future Thinking Taskforce for Universities – one of whose members would be Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish education secretary.
The taskforce works on the assumption that the universities are likely to get more money, as long as their government-funded activities are “aligned” with the Scottish government’s goal of delivering faster sustainable growth.
The group made the case for increased funding in its interim report. “Our case rests on the importance of universities for the long-term competitiveness of Scotland,” says Prof Muscatelli. He notes that, among the 30 OECD member countries, the top eight spend well over 1 per cent of their GDP on university funding. In Scotland the figure is just 1.05 per cent, placing it in the bottom quartile.
Universities Scotland believes Scotland should be spending 1.4 per cent-1.5 per cent of GDP on higher education funding by 2028, which would place it in the top quartile of OECD nations. “I don’t think that is a hugely ambitious or unrealistic target for a country that is seeking to develop an advanced knowledge-based economy,” says Prof Muscatelli. “Progress towards achieving these targets needs to start now.”
This raises the issue of top-up fees, which Scotland’s universities, unlike their English counterparts, cannot charge.
Prof Muscatelli says it is not up to Universities Scotland to have views on the balance between public or private funding. “The government has decided higher education should be publicly funded and has also decided not to go down the same route as England on tuition fees,” he says. “That’s fine, but they’re going to have to give us more funding if we are to remain competitive.”
Jairo Lugo, a lecturer at the University of Stirling, believes that the inability to charge top-up fees is good news for Scotland’s universities. This, he says, is because they are under less commercial pressure to axe unpopular subjects such as physics and chemistry in favour of popular subjects such as business studies and media studies.
Even with the current financial constraints, and even without the ability to charge tuition fees, Scotland’s universities are punching above their weight in terms of research.
Prof Muscatelli believes this is partly due to the pooling of research projects, which was first pioneered last decade. He says this enables the universities to raise funding from both the public and private sectors before co-ordinating their activities so that precious resources do not get squandered through duplication. This, he adds, has enabled Scotland’s universities to remain at the cutting edge of research in areas such as renewable energy, biotechnology and infomatics.
Evidence from the UK-wide research assessment exercise (RAE) confirms that Scotland’s research universities – led by the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow – are outperforming their counterparts elsewhere in the UK. Sixteen per cent of Scottish research departments are rated in the top three RAE categories, even though Scotland is home to just 8.5 per cent of the UK population.
Scotland’s universities also appear to be outperforming their US counterparts where commercialisation of science is concerned. A study last year by Edinburgh University showed that the country gets more value per dollar invested than the US does from its leading universities when it comes to producing spin-outs, licenses, disclosures and patents.
However a scientist at one of Scotland’s top universities warns there is no room for complacency.
“Scotland is particularly good at science. And it is attracting a disproportionate amount of UK funding into science,” says the scientist, who asked not to be named. “But our achievements in science are at risk – and there could be a brain drain – if other parts of the country move ahead in terms of resources.”
Prof Muscatelli agrees. He believes that it is “absolutely critical” that the gap between Scotland and the better funded OECD countries is closed at the next funding review. “That is the long-term imperative.”
This article was published in the FT’s Doing Business in Scotland supplement, published with the FT on Friday 31 October, 2008.