UK's Best Science Departments Seduce Multinationals. (April 29, 2006)

    Economists Laura Abramovsky, Rupert Harrison and Helen Simpson, at the London based Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) announced earlier this month that private sector research and development (R&D) labs in Britain are disproportionately clustered around highly rated university research departments.

According to the IFS, "The phenomenon is not driven just by university 'spin-outs' in some industries. Foreign-owned firms are choosing to locate in close proximity to high quality research. This implies that multinational firms may be sourcing cutting-edge technologies from universities in Britain... The study  finds that the evidence for clustering of R&D facilities close to university departments is particularly strong in the pharmaceuticals and chemicals sectors."

The IFS goes on to say:

For example, the research suggests that a postcode area (for example, ‘OX’ for Oxford) with a chemistry department rated 5 or 5* by the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is likely to have around twice as many labs doing R&D in pharmaceuticals and around three times as many foreign-owned pharmaceuticals R&D labs compared with a postcode area with no 5 or 5* rated chemistry departments.

 

In some sectors, clustering is not limited only to the most highly rated research departments. The research finds evidence that foreign-owned labs in the machinery and aerospace sectors are likely to be located near to materials science and electrical engineering departments rated 4 or below by the RAE. This suggests that firms may also benefit from proximity to more applied, commercially oriented research activity.

 

Technology transfer and the commercial exploitation of the research base are topical issues in the government’s science and innovation policy agenda. The research results have interesting implications for the evaluation and funding of university research.

 

Laura Abramovsky, research economist at the IFS and one of the authors of the study, comments: ‘As well as confirming the importance of maintaining world-class research centres in order to attract international R&D investment, the research suggests that departments rated 4 or below in the RAE may play important roles in some areas of technology transfer and in attracting investment.’

    ‘While 5 and 5* departments receive the lion’s share of research funding, it may be important to ensure that “third-stream” funding for technology transfer activities reaches a broader range of university departments.’

 

Perhaps the Minister for Education, Science and Training, Julie Bishop, will consider these findings with interest. Particularly so with the recent decision by the UK government to dump the Research Assessment Exercise and the expected June report of the Research Quality Framework Development Advisory Group being chaired by the Chief Scientist, Jim Peacock.

And see:

Update on the RQF.

Australia's Proposed RQF Rates a Mention in Science.

$40 Million and Sinking -- the RQF Millstone Around Australia's Research Neck