Monitoring Research Concentration and Diversity: Changes between 1994 and 2007. Research Report

The issue of the concentration of research funding within the UK higher education sector and the implications of such concentration for the health and diversity of the research base have been monitored by Universities UK for several years. In 2003 the authors commissioned a first report from Evidence Ltd on the potential impact of proposals on research funding in the Government's White Paper "The future of higher education." These proposals aimed to change the structure of the research base by pursuing a policy of concentrating research funding in the largest and most highly rated university units. The rationale for the increased concentration was a belief that benefits would come from concentrating research in larger units, and that this would enable the UK to meet the challenge of international competition. The aim of the first report was to test the assumptions underpinning the White Paper proposals and explore what the implications might be for the whole higher education research base. Based on data covering the period 1992/2000, the report concluded that there was "no evidence that there is a current problem with the performance of the UK research base that needs to be addressed." This new report extends the earlier analyses by examining the data over a 14 year period up to 2007 and confirms previous trends. In the selected subjects under review, the study concludes that the process of concentration continues although it recognises that there is still considerable diversity across the system as a whole. The impact of the announcement of the funding allocations for 2009/10 on trends in concentration is currently uncertain as is the effect of the system that will eventually succeed the Research Assessment Exercise. This report provides a good basis from which to develop an understanding of this. Universities UK will continue to monitor these trends and plans to undertake a further review of evidence of the impact of concentration on research performance. (Contains 2 tables, 1 chart and 10 notes.)