Britain Cut Funding for Research Councils 1%, Increases University Funding by 6%. (March 1, 2007)

Professor David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor, University of East Anglia and Chief Executive HEFCE.

    After years of increasing research spending, the British government is to cut almost £100 million (A$250 million) from the budgets of its research councils over the next two years. It amounts to about 1.5% of the £6.6 bn (A$16.5 bn) allocated to science over the two years.

The two biggest losers will be the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, due to lose £29 million while the Medical Research Council, which loses some £11 million.

The President of the Royal Society, astronomer Martin Rees said, "It is disturbing that the science budget is vulnerable in this way, [it's] a worrying message about the priority accorded to [British] science.".

However, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has just announced that England's universities would receive an extra £75m over the next three years to fund and encourage the study of physics, chemistry and engineering. The extra funding recognises the subjects are expensive to teach and it hopes it will attract more students to the disciplines.

 The universities are to receive £7.14bn (A$17.8bn) for teaching and research in the coming financial year, 6.4% more than last year and enough to fund an additional 33,000 places for full-time students.

Almost £1.41bn will go on research, which is an increase of 5.4% on last year, but the £4.49bn for teaching, will be in real terms only just above the £4.29bn allocated last year.

The HEFCE chief executive, Professor David Eastwood noted that applications for physics degrees were up by more than 12%, chemistry 11%, biology 6% and maths 10%.

He told The Guardian, "This extra funding was a response to some of the pressures that high-cost disciplines face," he said. "The issues for vulnerable subjects vary. In some places it is cost and in others it is demand," and while acknowledged that teaching "remained under-funded", he said that this would be reconsidered next year. "The position for teaching is much better than it was ten years ago, Institutions need to be as efficient as they can. The fact that universities will have tuition fee income (£3,000 per student) puts them in a substantially better position."

However, the BBC reports:

But the University and College Union (UCU) said 22 higher education institutions would be hit with a real terms reduction in Hefce funding and many more would have been hit with a reduction if they had not recruited extra students.

UCU joint general secretary Sally Hunt said the overall increase for institutions was to be welcomed but the figures needed to be put in context.

"Around a fifth of institutions will be hit with a real terms cut in Hefce funding, which is just not acceptable.

"Universities that have succeeded in recruiting extra students may have seen their funding increase, but university staff will need far greater resources if they are to really tackle issues such as the student: staff ratio, which is now higher than in our schools."