Making sense of research

Most (though not all) academic research is funded by the taxpayer. Depending on how ambitious this funding is, it allows universities to attract and retain some of the brightest thinkers and innovators. It also allows countries to present themselves as locations in which academic excellence can add significant value to industrial and commercial development. But are these two objectives easily compatible? Is research strengthened or devalued – or neither or both – by association with national economic objectives?

These issues have been in the news again, in both Scotland and Ireland, over the past week. In Ireland the government announced an investment of €200 million, to be spent on ‘seven world class research centres of scale’, in a new programme of funding managed by Science Foundation Ireland. The money will be made available to these centres, which consist of partnerships between a number of Irish universities and 156 companies; the latter will contribute a further €100 million. The funded research programmes will, according to the two government ministers at the launch, be ‘closely aligned to industry and enterprise needs, job opportunities and societal goals’. The significant amount of funding involved also indicates that this is where Ireland will focus taxpayer support for research.

Let us leave that for a moment and look at what hit the news in Scotland. There the Principal of St Andrews University , in a wide-ranging interview with the Times newspaper on the occasion of the university’s 600th anniversary, suggested that an independent Scotland might lose access to UK research council funding – a development she saw as potentially apocalyptic for her university’s scholarly activities: ‘We would lose our top academics, we would fail to attract serious academics [from other countries].’ And this is why: according to the Times, ‘she said that when small countries set up their own councils, research tended to be funded for political reasons rather than being based on pure excellence.’

The St Andrews Principal, Professor Louise Richardson (who comes from Co Waterford in Ireland), therefore obviously doesn’t think much of Ireland’s research landscape. Indeed she may fear that exactly what was announced in Ireland last week would be ‘catastrophic’ for universities like St Andrews if it materialised in Scotland.

Whether this kind of evaluation is right or wrong depends in part on what we think research is for, and despite the very long pedigree of academic scholarship, this is something on which we don’t really have any consensus. It is part of the narrative used by contemporary critics of higher education policy that the latter focuses too closely, or maybe at all, on economic and social goals. For some, research is about freeing the mind to go where it can, and to find whatever may be there. Some of that may be usable in a practical sense once discovered (and much of it is), but all of it will help to maintain intellectual curiosity and scholarly excellence. But for others, research is about ‘translation’ – about taking discovery and harnessing its impact for the benefit of society in a targeted way. Today’s world has concerns and needs in areas such as health, security, food and nutrition, transport, social transformation, cultural creativity and so forth, and when the taxpayer funds research it should yield targeted benefits in such areas. And Professor Richardson is right: politicians in smaller countries may want to focus more on the translational, ‘practical’ dimension of research.

The easy answer is to say that there must be room (and some money) for both outlooks. But that is probably too easy. While the principle of academic freedom, involving the right of researchers to pursue their own directions of scholarship and the protection of the integrity of their work, must continue to be at the heart of the academy and its relations with the rest of society, it is also reasonable to say that the taxpayer is entitled to seek that the funding they provide will address the urgent issues they face. Therefore the kind of research in priority areas funded by Science Foundation Ireland is a coherent response to such expectations, provided there are safeguards for the integrity of the programmes. And so Professor Richardson may be right in what she expects in an independent or more autonomous Scotland. But she may be wrong to regard it as something to be feared.

Distributing research funding

I have nothing fundamentally against the Russell Group – some of my best friends work for member universities – but their statements do sometimes alarm me. For readers not familiar with the Russell Group, it is a London-based ‘mission group’ of (from its website) ’24 leading UK universities’. Its main role, as it understands this, is to promote the interests of these universities; though it has been suggested also that it is a would-be university cartel with price fixing on its mind. That may or may not be a fair comment, but, you know…

Anyway, the Russell Group has just published a paper in which it suggests that concentrating funding on a small number of research-intensive universities (by which it clearly means its member institutions) is in the wider public interest. The argument here is that intellectual excellence and knowledge innovation is promoted most effectively when it is resourced in a small but heavily promoted group of institutions, who then develop critical mass and are thus able to compete globally.

As we have noted here before, the idea of research concentration has taken hold of public policy formulation, and politicians in particular appear to be open to its attractions. But still, there is a fundamental flaw in the reasoning. National higher education systems do not gain international prominence because of a small number of favoured institutions: they gain recognition if the whole system demonstrates excellence. Knowledge-intensive investments in a country are made attractive by an overall culture of high value learning and research, not by pockets of achievement in a small number of institutions.

The task for the UK is to maintain a university sector which is recognisably excellent across the great majority of its institutions. This ensures also that excellence is both geographically spread (though probably in regional clusters) and nurtured within a variety of institutional missions. Research concentration promoted primarily in traditional universities will fail to secure some of the more desirable inward investment. To avoid unnecessary duplication, institutions should be encouraged to specialise in the more advanced areas, and then to pool key academics between universities in inter-intsitutional research programmes and partnerships.

It is of course right that research funding should not be distributed so widely that it is ineffective; it needs to be selective. But that selectivity should not focused on institutions; it should recognise excellent people, wherever they may work. So, with the greatest respect to our friends in the Russell Group, its approach to this should be viewed with some scepticism.

Why do we fund research? And who should be funded?

The history of economic development and prosperity in the developed world over the past half century is, it could be argued, essentially the history of academic research. Universities became the powerhouses they now are when governments recognised that a much faster paced economic development depended on the growth of knowledge centres with world class scholarship and the potential for translation of that scholarship into cultural, social or economic development. The prototype for this was the North Carolina Research Triangle Park based around Raleigh and Durham, but others followed and by now there are several high value academic centres around the world which have been a magnet for growth and regeneration.

So we know, therefore, that high value research produces development and growth, or at least can do if managed well. So what do we conclude from this? The most common, but in some ways also the most politically lazy, conclusion has been to go for what is known as ‘research concentration’, under which an ever smaller number of institutions and of researchers are allocated public funding. The thinking behind this is that the capacity of institutions to develop genuinely world class research is limited and requires critical mass, and that this is best achieved in old, usually somewhat traditional, wealthier universities. This approach is now also being adopted by foundations funding research, with the added complication that research funding is now targeting individuals rather than institutions – with serious implications as seen in this report in the Guardian.

The impact of all this has, I believe, not really been understood by key decision-makers. The new trends are indeed concentrating research on individuals and, inevitably, a small number of institutions. This will tend to shift investment to older city locations hosting older universities. Or rather, it will tend to make unlikely the emergence of more research triangle parks like that in North Carolina, which in economic terms is still the most successful model. It is also unhitching research funding from the usability of research outcomes, and in particular from any link with local development needs. So for example, research concentration in Scotland if done on this basis will tend to undermine any economic development policy that the Scottish government may have in mind, and in particular any not focused on the Central Belt between Glasgow and Edinburgh.

To say that the purpose of research funding is to produce world class research is well and good. But if that’s the logic, then probably nobody should be funding research anywhere other than California, New England, Bangalore and Southern China; certainly there would be little logic in funding research in the UK and Ireland. But that would be daft. It is time to ask far more searching questions about the purpose of research, and to be much smarter in funding it.

Returning universities to a less complex age?

The following extract from a speech delivered by Ireland’s President, Michael D. Higgins, to the annual congress of the Union of Students in Ireland caught my eye:

‘What kind of a scholastic institution or community of learning is it when you hire a very important person who can bring investment to a university but doesn’t want to teach the main body of undergraduate students?’

There are all sorts of things wrapped up in the President’s question. First, there is an assumption that generating income for a university is not particularly significant. Secondly, there is at least by implication the suggestion that research detracts from a university’s teaching mission. Thirdly, there is a criticism of staff who do not teach, and assumption that there are many of these.

The President’s picture of contemporary Irish universities does not in reality stand up to much scrutiny. Researchers play a vital role in the life of a university. They develop scholarship and knowledge, and sustain a creative and innovative society. Mostly they do teach, often enthusiastically. The quality and standing of Irish universities has improved dramatically since they embarked upon a high value research agenda, from the late 1990s onwards. Students have also significantly benefited from this.

Of course it is good that President Higgins is stimulating debate and questioning value systems. But it would be better if this did not involve a caricature of the country’s universities, or a misunderstanding of what they do and of the contribution they make. The President is suggesting that there may have been a better, purer age of higher education. In truth there are a good many things that could be done better, and there are some developments over recent years that could usefully be questioned. High value research is not one of them.

So, is research bad for education?

Those working in universities regularly come up against the question whether it is possible to balance teaching and research so that both are valued and neither undermines the other. A recent contributor to the debate on this issue, the Washington Post higher education reporter Daniel de Visé, had this to say:

‘Whether we intend it or not, the university serves scholarship and scholars before students. Students at traditional universities get significant consideration, but it isn’t responding to their needs that makes these institutions expensive relative to for-profit universities and community colleges. The traditional summer break is a leading example of per-student costs being driven up by faculty preference. Another is the time and money spent in research, much of which adds little to the quality of student learning while raising its effective cost. The scholarly view of knowledge, though valuable in its realm, also creates an implicit cost to the majority of students: Because many courses and majors are designed primarily to prepare students for graduate study in the same field, students headed to professional school or directly in the workplace may finish college under-prepared.’

This issue is important for all sorts of reasons. First, it is all about what constitutes a ‘university’; more particularly, it is the question whether all universities need to host high quality research programmes, or whether teaching-only institutions can also be recognised as good universities. Secondly, there is the issue of higher education pedagogy: should students be exposed to experienced researchers in their studies, or does this not matter? On the other hand, there are the really complex issues to do with academic career development, and whether promotion in the end is always determined by research output; and if it is, whether careers are therefore pursued at the expense of students? And finally, there are questions about whether research organisation and funding take up too much institutional energy and time, as some argue.

In some countries the approach to higher education research has defined institutional hierarchies, with research-intensive institutions being promoted as premier league universities, while other, largely teaching-oriented, institutions are seen as second tier. Daniel de Visé may argue that the focus on research short-changes the students, but then again, ambitious students always make research-intensive universities their first choice, because the research under-pins the institutional status and reputation.

The answer to all of this probably is that in order to be recognised as an academically significant institution, a university must have a good deal of high value research. However, that does not mean that it needs to be pursued in exactly the same way in each place. Some universities, with age, traditions and resources, may opt for an all-round research profile; but actually very few can afford to do this well. Most should find their own specialist areas or niches in which they wish to excel and which they prioritise, and in which they intend to compete with the best  in the world. Such areas should typically be interdisciplinary. But all should recognise the pedagogical value of the pursuit of discovery and analysis, and the need to bring this close to the student. And seen in that way, research is certainly not bad for education.

Crowdsourcing as academic methodology

Modern information and communications technology has allowed large groups of people in locations around the globe to participate collective analysis and debate. The best known product of this approach is Wikipedia, which publishes information online that is written and edited by anyone who chooses to do so, expert of otherwise. While academics often advise caution in the use of such collective work as source material, it is clear that Wikipedia has become the reference of choice for people in all walks of life, including members of the academy itself.

Now researchers from George Mason University are assessing the use of non-expert crowds in making judgements about the likelihood or nature of future events. The initial context for this research is intelligence analysis, but there may be scope for the development of crowdsourcing as a research method in other contexts as well. The initial assumption is that large numbers of people, even those without advanced expertise in the subject, can when their views are taken together make more accurate judgments on certain topics than smaller groups of specialists. Such methods are unlikely to find a cure for cancer, but they may be useful in gaining political or other social science insights.

It is not that academic study is set to become a giant ‘ask-the-audience’ exercise, but larger groups contain both wisdom and knowledge that can be tapped more effectively. It is at any rate worth some analysis.

How important is teaching to the academy?

As the saying goes, what gets measured gets done. So one of the curious aspects of modern higher education is that what most would still regard as its core activity, teaching, does not find its way into most of the formal metrics used to assess institutional performance. True, things like the student-staff ratio (which, mind you, is not of as much value as you might think) are used, and quality assurance provides some insights. But on the whole the assessment of teaching is fixated on process rather than content or standards.

This gap has all sorts of consequences. League tables and rankings, while suggesting all sorts of other criteria, usually end up assessing institutions on the basis of their research outputs. Career progression, even in research non-intensive institutions, has a tendency to be research-driven. Institutional (and indeed individual) reputations are built on research. You get the picture, there is a pattern.

The question that is sometimes asked in relation to this is whether a focus on research helps or damages the university’s teaching, and in particular the student experience. There are mixed views on this, but a recent Australian survey has suggested that in the most research-intensive institutions students tend to find employment more easily after graduation, but have more negative views of their learning experience.

Of course in a properly ordered system teaching and research should not be seen as rival activities. Excellent staff research provides a more informed environment for students, always provided that the leading researchers are also engaged as teachers. But most universities have not managed to convey this relationship in practice. It is now sometimes suggested that this can only be effectively remedied if teaching is subjected to peer assessment with numerical scores. At any rate unless there is some attempt to rate teaching, it will be seen as the poor relation; and that is a situation that cannot really be allowed to continue.

Doctoral careers

When in 1978 one of my lecturers advised me to do a PhD, I followed the advice for one reason only: I had developed a strong curiosity about my proposed research theme (bless my enthusiasm!) and I wanted the opportunity to dig deep. I did not have the slightest concern about what this would do for me in career terms. That was another day’s problem, and right now I was ready to dive into the scholarship pool. If I had taken a moment to think, I’m sure I would have concluded that my post-PhD career options were not that fundamentally different from my pre-PhD ones. In 1978 it was not yet an expectation that academics must have doctorates, and in my field in particular most didn’t. Of course I did become an academic of sorts, but I wasn’t particularly anticipating that as I applied to Cambridge to become a research postgraduate.

Nowadays such unfocused thinking would need to be filed under crazy. If you have the intellectual curiosity and talent to do a PhD, then you’re on your way to a lectureship (or a professorship, for any readers here from TCD, bless you). Or is there some other option? Over recent years universities have seriously increased their intake of postgraduate research students. While I was President of Dublin City University we increased our annual PhD graduations tenfold, and indeed as we did so we were under some pressure from the government to take this even further. The reason for all this was not so that we could appoint more and more academic staff, but because an advanced knowledge economy needs qualified researchers, and lots of them. But in fact I am not talking about doctoral graduates in theology, philosophy, classics or even English; I am talking about areas like biotechnology and electronic engineering.

So does this mean that we want science doctors, but not humanities ones? Probably that is how it is, but we may need to think again. If the intellectual discipline of science research creates useful graduates for careers outside the academy, then there really should be room for humanities researchers also. But exactly who is waiting to recruit theology doctors?

While all this is a complex matter of higher education policy, there have been some interesting suggestions. One of these was made recently in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The author, Michael Ruse, is himself an interesting person, being a philosopher of biology. The suggestion he has put out there is that we should reconsider the PhD dissertation, and look at alternative models. This might include replacing the long, scholarly dissertation with shorter pieces that could be subjected to criticism, thus turning the research into something that will be both scholarly and more practical. In fact, this is something that has been pioneered in some taught doctoral programmes, such as the Doctor of Business Administration.

It stands to reason that a degree that a few decades ago catered for a tiny minority of scholars who were in it solely for the intellectual fun cannot absolutely expect to be handled the same way today. We should not lose the cerebral excitement of original research, but we might want to look again at how we expect people to pursue it and how we will assess what they have done. Nothing can stay the same for ever.

The economic impact of public investment in research

During my time as an Irish university president I got used to hearing commentators – often economists – arguing that the investment of public money in academic research did not represent good value. It was suggested regularly – and indeed this was done several times in comments on this blog – that there was no evidence that such investment produced any benefits to the state or the taxpayer.

It is therefore interesting that an independent analysis commissioned by the Higher Education Authority (Ireland’s higher education funding agency) has now quantified the benefits. It has found that the investment by the state in the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) of €1.173 billion has yielded some significant results. It has produced 43 spin-out companies and has commercially assisted 113 other companies. The commercial impact to date is estimated at €753 million. Over the next five years the commercial impact is estimated at €1.108 billion. If these figures are borne out, the net financial return on the investment  will be over €700 million. However, this does not factor in the impact on foreign direct investment or start-ups that have been prompted by the availability of high value expertise or the support of graduates from funded research programmes.

It is difficult to argue that significant public investment in research is bad value for money. The opposite is true, and it is to be hoped that during difficult economic times in particular the investment will continue.

Science not yet ready for women?

In early 2010 the Royal Institution, the body that raises awareness of science and promotes its research in the United Kingdom, decided to make its director redundant, almost without giving her any notice. The director in question was Susan Greenfield (Baroness Greenfield), and when the decision was announced the suspicion in many people’s minds was that the move may have been connected with her gender and the public profile she had (to the great benefit of science, it would have to be said) managed to acquire.

The general suspicion that science is not quite ready for women continues. Research undertaken by the UK Resource Centre for women in science, engineering and technology (UKRC) has suggested that women are put off science, and that the image of those women who do make it there tends to be heavily influenced by stereotypical assumptions and prejudices.

A modern society cannot afford to harbour such views and prejudices. It is time to ensure that woman have an equal role and place in the world of science.