15 November 2017 
Matt Sisson, Projects and Membership Manager
There is a research funding deficit of £3.3billion in UK universities, according to a new report by HEPI published this week. The report, titled How much is too much? Cross-subsidies from teaching to research in British universities takes a look at the cross-subsidisation in universities and finds that each international student to the UK contributes around £8,000 to research on average. The report also finds that the UK is almost £25bn a year short of hitting the Conservative target of spending 3% of GDP on R&D.
According to HEPI Director Nick Hillman, there are three pressing issues: “First, those who fund university research – public and private funders as well as charities – do not cover anything like the full costs. Secondly, the cross-subsidy from tuition fees to research is probably not sustainable at current levels. Thirdly, the Government wants a near doubling in research and development spending as a share of GDP, yet recent funding injections are only enough to stand still.”
The report is covered by David Morris in Wonkhe, who makes a number of interesting points – not least that properly funding research would in turn free up further resources for improving teaching.
