UK science research 'the loser' in spending review

Groundbreaking world-class UK science will be lost due to a tight budget settlement for the research councils in last year's spending review, Prof Ian Diamond, head of the body that oversees the UK's seven councils, has said.

Diamond, who is also head of the Economic and Social Research Council, told MPs on the Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee last night that fewer university researchers will win funding from the councils over the next three years.

"There will be a reduction in success rates and volume of research funded across all research councils," he said.

"Across all the research councils there is a degree of re-prioritisation going on and difficult decisions are taking place. The research councils will have to write some very depressing letters saying we cannot fund all the world-class-plus science," he added.

The 17.4% increase in the science budget to almost £4bn in 2011 was "good news overall", but difficulties have arisen over how the government decided to divide the budget up, Diamond said.

The government has directed large proportions of increase in the research councils' budgets towards funding its Full Economic Cost (FEC) scheme, aimed at helping universities to become financially sustainable.

Under the scheme, the councils are now obliged to pay 80% of the total costs of research projects, making individual grants to universities more expensive than before FEC was introduced in 2005.

As a consequence, the councils have found they will have to fund fewer grants. But Diamond says overall, more funding will be going into universities because more money is now paid out in individual grants to institutions.

He said: "Before FEC universities were running at a loss and managing it as best they could. All senior university managers said they would prefer sustainability in FEC rather than an increase in volume [in research grants funded].

"More money is going into universities and there will be an increase in funds going to universities that are successful."

Keith Mason, chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), told MPs that universities should be able to manage the effects of cuts to physics funding through the increased funds they will receive from FEC.

Physicists have been in uproar over a £80m deficit in the STFC's budget due to a poor settlement in the spending review. They say university physics departments will bear the brunt of the impact of the cuts and some could be threatened with closure.