Science Research Funding in Universities (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Redesdale Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Redesdale (LD)]

My Lords, I must first declare an interest. It is a financial interest; I am not an eminent vice-chancellor or visiting professor. Two of my children—my son, Bertie, and my daughter, Clementine—are at university or are going to university. I mention this not just as a point of paternal pride that they have managed to do something I really am not intelligent enough to have managed myself, but because they are both studying mechanical engineering.

As a side point, despite the complete nightmare of the grading system, which seemed to cause particular problems for those taking sciences, my daughter has a place at Manchester. During the open day visits, it was clear from the people in the audience how we are failing at dealing with the gender gap in the STEM subjects. We should be looking at that.

I raise this as a financial issue because the report talks about differentiation in fee structures. It is a not inconsiderable amount considering that many students will come out the other end with considerable debt. It is also an issue because many of those debts are met by families. For the poorest students, that will be a real issue. It will be an issue of whether they can take a STEM subject or will have to look for a humanities course at a cheaper price.

Universities are clearly caught between a rock and a hard place on this, but I found the report an interesting example of just how schizophrenic universities are. The problem is, are they there for the teaching of students or are they bodies for the creation of new knowledge? They cover both, obviously, but universities’ finances are based far more on the first, although they are subsidised by the second.

I will not go into research, because that has already been covered a great deal. It is something of a perennial. I remember being a member of the Science and Technology Committee when it looked at this subject back in 1993. But obviously we are living in a new age now.

I do not believe that the Minister will be able to answer any questions on Brexit, because we seem to be heading straight for a no-deal situation where all bets are off, but I will say that we are in a new world not just because of Covid but because, as my son’s course has shown, almost all the courses and lecture notes are now online. We are moving to a situation where universities may in future be far more on the web than in person.