The Nurse Report, Ensuring a successful UK research endeavour: A Review of the UK Research Councils
Sir Paul Nurse’s independent review of the UK Research Councils, which will advise Government on the future of how Research Councils can become more effective, has been published as part of the Government Science and Innovation Strategy published last December. Sir Paul intends to build on ‘a strong tradition of such reviews in this country’, highlighting Viscount Haldane’s report of 1918, Lords Dainton and Rothschild’s of 1971, and Lord Waldegrave’s report of 1993. As such, the style of the report reads comfortably as a Royal Society publication, rather than an uninvolved report of the Research Councils authored by someone with no relation to science or research.
The Report comes only five days prior to the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review to be published on 25 November.
Summary
The Report is 33 pages and is divided into four sections, each of which offers recommendations:
- Guidelines and principles: This section introduces the importance of research and funding, how research is funded (i.e. Government, companies and charitable organisations) as well as how research contributes to society. The chapter embeds a sense of honour, integrity and pride towards scientists and the scientific approach, and their commitment to the pursuit of truth.
- The Research Councils: This section presents the strategy of the Research Councils and how they work; the importance of communication and engagement; the role of Research Councils in ensuring best practice and ethical conduct; an the process of allocation decision-making.
- The wider research endeavor: This section discusses the importance of engagement with other research, public sector, and funding bodies both nationally and internationally.
- Governance and structures: This final section concludes the report by recommending the RCUK evolve into a formal organisation, RUK. It further suggests other areas to develop for best practice. In no way do the recommendations suggest major shifts to the already existing landscape.
The Report starts with a strong and somewhat emotive description of research through all disciplines, talking of ‘culture and civilisation’ and quoting Francis Bacon’s recognition of science as leading ‘to the relief of man’s estate’ (p 2). It immediately states that ‘science should occupy a central place in Government thinking, if the UK is to thrive in our increasingly sophisticated scientific and technological age’.
The first chapter presents a description of research funders, and what research they tend to support. It then moves on to exploring the scope of the scientific system by introducing various forms of research such as (1) discovery research; (2) applied research; and (3) translational research. Moving on, Nurse points out that ‘Making good decisions about what research topics and which researchers should be supported is an integral part of the research process, and is crucial for a successful cost effective research endeavour’ (p 5). He points out that there are three factors that are ‘particularly important for scientific research funding decisions’ (p 6)
- The researchers undertaking the research
- The research programme itself
- The circumstances under which they research is to be pursued
Nurse highlights, at this point, that the making of funding decisions should be ‘taken by those who have the expertise and experience to know where it will be best spent’ (p 7), as had been argued in The Haldane Report of 1918. It is a key highlight, as Nurse emphasises decisions should be made by researchers rather than politicians. He further proposes new factors to be considered in the existing peer review process, to ensure ‘good management and adherence to best practice’.
Nurse also raises the issue of how a good relationship between politicians and expert researchers is crucial for ensuring society benefits from research: ‘For a national research endeavor to be successful there needs to be an effective dialogue and understanding between research scientists, politicians and the public, so that policies and strategies are in place to bring about research that benefits society, and the society will support’ (p 8).
Chapter 2 continues with the importance of ‘accomplished scientific leadership of the Research Councils’, and reports that Research Councils are over-stretched with administrative burdens which could be overcome ‘if the Research Councils worked together more closely to both share and reduce the administrative burden and to develop and implement common strategy for engagement with Government’ (p 12). Nurse suggests that Research Councils UK (RCUK) is ‘a step in the right direction’, and recommends resources provided by UK Shared Business Services (UK SBS) be allocated to RCUK so it can be strengthened.
The Report emphasises the importance of communication, engagement, dialogue and collaboration between Research Councils, Universities, Government and the general public. It also stresses the threat of under-funding, which can waste both time and resources as well as lead to poor decision-making impacting research excellence.
The Chapter ends with highlighting the importance of a peer review panel, and the need to: speed up the grants assessment process; improve the dissemination of research grant outcomes; improve transparency and feedback with the funding process; ensure diversity in funding options; and strengthen links with the research community.
Chapter 3 places the Research Councils within the wider context of other national and international bodies and funders, and recommends closer communication and collaboration between all relevant bodies. Increased communication will allow research to help implement best practice in other areas through responding to the needs of research in wider society: this includes greater engagement with businesses (p 20-21) and a ‘more strategic investment in the skills needed by business’ (p 25).
Chapter 4 is the main crux of the Report, which provides a potential mechanism for remedying the shortcomings of the current system, identified as, for example, the distance between Research Councils and Government leading to the detriment of the research endeavor.
The Report identifies five main areas which – if changed – will improve research funding governance and structures. They are presented on page 26 as:
- Strengthening strategic thinking about research funding and locating research more at the heart of Government through better engagement between policy makers and the research community;
- Developing high level operational policies that share best practice across research activities, establishing effective, optimised, simplified and when appropriate common ways of working, as well as reducing the complexity and increasing the agility of operations;
- Establishing mechanisms to deal with cross-cutting issues such as the support of multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary research, grand challenges and the redistribution of resource between Research Councils in response to new developments, advances and priorities in the research endeavour;
- Better co-ordination of the different parts of the research landscape, connecting the Research Councils, the research component of HEFCE, Innovate UK, Government department research, and as far as is possible, commercial and philanthropic research;
- Strengthening Research Council leadership through better support, reducing bureaucratic interference, and by making their governance structures more effective.
Key to the chapter is the introduction of a new organisation, Research UK (RUK), which will be the evolution of Research Councils UK into a formal organisation. Nurse recommends RUK to be a quango which report directly to BIS and takes on wider responsibilities than RCUK such as: having a single Accounting Officer to collectively support the whole research system; enhancing and expanding present data management systems; being the representative of the research councils to Government; being responsible for delivering a cross-Council strategy; and reducing the burden of administration on the Research Councils.
Most prominent in the chapter is that it eliminates previous concerns that the current seven Research Councils would be merged into one body to reduce spending and continue Government’s agenda of reducing bodies and organisations. Rather, the Nurse report recommends that RUK ‘should not be seen as a single Research Council’ (p 29) and that the ‘autonomy of the Research Councils in relation to scientific strategy will be maintained’: ‘Merger into a single Council is not appropriate as it would be disruptive, distance research funding from the research community, reduce agility, and critically make it difficult to recruit the highest quality leadership at the individual discipline level’ (p. 30).
Little is said on the future of HEFCE and Innovate UK (p 31). In regards to HEFCE, Nurse suggests that incorporating HEFCE’s research functions within RUK will ‘expand the strategy capacity’ of RUK, however further points out that ‘HEFCE’s current capabilities in relation to maintaining institutional stability, and linkage to skills capacity should be preserved as components in the new system’.
For Innovate UK, he advises Government that any integration of Innovate UK into RUK should be carefully considered, as the former has ‘a different customer base as well as differences in delivery mechanisms’.
The Government will respond to Nurse’s recommendation in due course. However, other responses include:
Hefce’s response welcomes the Report’s emphasis on ‘preserving HEFCE’s existing expertise and distinct functions’, and encourages further open discussion on developing best practice. HEFCE further emphasises the importance of Universities within the research system in their response.
RCUK’s response reasserts their commitment to ensuring world-class research amidst current changes, and states the Councils are already working towards particular recommendations addressed in the Report, such as increased collective operational workings.
Universities UK supports the Report’s commitment to maintaining a ‘dual support system’, and also takes the opportunity to comment to Government prior to the CRS report by pointing out that the ‘UK currently comes bottom of the list of G8 and OECD countries in terms of investment’ in research and development, and that there is a need for ‘longer term commitment’ towards research investment.
The Russell Group’s response welcomes Sir Paul’s ‘call to preserve the science ring-fence’, and his recognition of the importance of the dual support system as vital to research success. They further emphasise the importance in the academic community’s role in deciding priorities.
GuildHE also supports the preservation of the dual funding system, but go further to ‘support any structure that continues to recognise research excellence where it is found’.
The Academy of Social Science response welcomed the Report’s highlight of the integrity and quality of research over money, and the call for Government’s continual investment in science. The Chair of the Academy Council calls on social scientists to be ‘at the forefront’ of identifying societal challenges and needs, and that interdisciplinary approaches should be pursued.
The response is also the first to point to ‘gaps’ in the report: ‘Nurse leaves open important questions about the organisation of the research councils and support for research in universities, which we would like to see quickly resolved. It is unclear how funds will be allocated within Research UK (the new overarching body proposed by Nurse), creating ‘unwelcome uncertainty’. They also state that it is not clear ‘how research funds will be distributed to universities under the dual support system – which Nurse has strongly supported.’
There is plenty of coverage and reporting on the Nurse Report in various media papers. Wonkhe has also published coverage and analysis on its blog.