Academics' Criticism of UK's Research Excellence Framework Escalates. (January 8, 2010)

TFW reported earlier this week "Pro V-C Cambridge Says HEFCE's Proposals Would Turn "First-rate Universities into Second-rate Companies". Now nearly 600 scientists in a new poll just released protest plans by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) to incorporate "economic impact" into decisions on what research to fund.

The poll by the University and College Union, of 589 university professors produced the following table:

And in an update to petition reported previously Steve Connor, Science Editor of the Independent notes the number of signatories is now listed as 18,000. The petition states: Where are the next generation of Albert Einsteins going to come from if we seek to control research in this way? It is wrong to try and measure projects purely on their economic potential.

Mr Connor states that under the proposed REF 25% of future research will be assessed on economic, not scientific, impact.

Some of the notables that signed:

Sir Tim Hunt, Nobel Prize 2001 for control of cell cycle, Cancer Research UK
Sir John Walker, Nobel Prize 1997 for energy source of cells; Cambridge University
Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel Prize 1996 for co-discovery of a form of pure carbon, Florida State University, formerly Sussex
Sir Richard Roberts, Nobel Prize 1993 for discovering discontinuous nature of certain genes, New England Biolabs
Professor Brian Josephson, Nobel Prize 1973 for discovery of "Josephson Effect" (current flow across two weakly coupled superconductors), Cambridge
Professor Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Nobel Prize 2009 for describing structure of certain molecules associated with DNA, Cambridge
Professor Richard Dawkins, biologist, Oxford University
Professor Denis Noble, co-Director of Computational Physiology, Oxford
Professor Steven Rose, biology and neurobiology, Open University
Professor Steve Jones, head of Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London
Professor Don Braben, Honorary Professor, Earth Sciences, UCL
Professor John Dainton, physics, University of Liverpool
Professor Fritz Ursell, applied mathematics, University of Manchester
Sir John Ball, natural philosophy, Oxford
Sir Tony Wrigley, history, Cambridge
Dame Janet Nelson, professor of history, Kings College London