Category: Research

  • The politics of universities, defence, and R&D spending

    The politics of universities, defence, and R&D spending

    Rachel Reeves’ Spring Statement had little in it for the sector to celebrate.

    The Office for Budget Responsibility,(who provide independent analysis of the country’s finances), downgraded 2025 growth forecasts from two per cent to one per cent.

    For all the flurry of pro-growth activity since the election, the growth outlook to 2029 is basically unchanged. Economic growth and the much desired fiscal headroom (which gives the Government capacity for extra spending) still seem unlikely to materialise.

    For universities who are hoping for a crumb of additional funding at some point in the future, there was nothing to settle their nerves about the increasingly difficult financial position the Government finds itself in.

    Winners and losers

    It’s safe to say that some sectors are doing better than others. Defence is clearly one of the winners. Starmer’s commitment to increase defense spending (made before the Spring Statement) to 2.5 per cent of GDP from April 2027 was a significant one. The measures taken to generate the fiscal headroom to pay for it- particularly cutting overseas development aid, and slashing welfare budgets – were not particularly popular ones. This is not an era of win-win policy choices – but boosting defence spending is a critical part of what Starmer’s government sees as a core responsibility: to position Britain as a steady hand in an unstable world.

    The continuation of the war in Ukraine, renewed conflict in the middle east, and a second Trump presidency, renewed trade wars and global volatility all point towards this being the difficult but correct choice to make.

    A significant uplift to its budget is the sort of things the higher education sector can only dream of. The increase to defence spending is not only massive, it’s also moderately popular. In a new Public First/Stonehaven poll, which looked at the trade offs the Government will need to make in the current era of hard choices, we found it which has moderate public support: 57 per cent back the uplift.

    There is an opportunity for the higher education sector here that they may be reluctant to take. Universities are a relatively silent partner in the UK’s defense capabilities, despite the fact this is a clear area of opportunity. Defense companies are increasingly avoiding campuses for graduate recruitment after a rising wave of student protests – the Times reported that 20 companies have been advised against attending on campus events because of security fears.

    Who will defend the defenders?

    Many universities are trying to balance their industrial R&D and skills partnerships with the defense sector with a growing generational divide in attitudes towards the defense industry. Negative perceptions of the defense sector are particularly entrenched among Gen Z. Just under a fifth (17 per cent) of the general population say that they would be ashamed to work for the defense industry – but this rises to 31 per cent of 18-24 year olds. Nearly a third of 18-34 year olds say their friends would judge them if they worked in the defense industry. Going too hard on defence and being seen to be doing too much may risk a knock-on impact on student recruitment.

    The increased investment in defense and security isn’t just about more soldiers and sailors and more ships and planes. It includes commitments on research and skills, and a ringfenced post of 10 per cent of the uplift for “novel technologies”. Increasingly, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will become a major strategic procurer and funder in advanced research and development across the UK, which presents an increasingly rare and hard won opportunity for UK universities – and one where the public opinion is more balanced.

    Talking about the role for university led R&D which boosts national security is a reputation win for the sector as a whole. In our large-scale research with the Campaign for Science and Engineering, which explored what the UK public think and feel about R&D, we found a strong preference for investment in new defensive technologies over more military personnel – a view broadly shared across all ages, and across the political spectrum

    When we asked what the highest priority should be to improve national security, investment in R&D was the joint second most popular option, behind tackling cyber attacks and misinformation.

    Hard choices

    The defense sector as a whole might be an unpopular thing to talk about on campus. But there is a significant government investment being made in defense spending, and a clear moral and social argument that we live in a time when increasing the capacity and capability of our national security systems is the right thing to do. We know there is broad public support for this investment going towards research and development, and that there are significant skills gaps across our defense sector, impacting our broader defense and security offering.

    In a time when politicians are making hard choices, university leaders need to be doing the same.

    The modern armed services need highly skilled graduates in a range of roles – not just as professional soldiers, sailors or pilots but also in a myriad of supporting roles such as cyber security, communications, quantum technology, logistics, engineering, advanced manufacturing, foreign languages, and diplomacy. And equally too, the government will need academics and university research labs to step up, in partnership with businesses, to help design and roll out technologies that will support this expanded defence effort. This is both an economic case and a moral case – and one that universities should seize.

    And if this is an opportunity which universities shy away from, they may be waiting a long time for the next economic windfall to come their way.

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  • Charles Darwin uni loses $200,000 US research funding – Campus Review

    Charles Darwin uni loses $200,000 US research funding – Campus Review

    A research contract valued at about $200,000 has been lost by Charles Darwin University (CDU) as a result of US President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda.

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  • Why History Instruction is Critical for Combating Online Misinformation – The 74

    Why History Instruction is Critical for Combating Online Misinformation – The 74

    Can you tell fact from fiction online? In a digital world, few questions are more important or more challenging.

    For years, some commentators have called for K-12 teachers to take on fake news, media literacy, or online misinformation by doubling down on critical thinking. This push for schools to do a better job preparing young people to differentiate between low- and high-quality information often focuses on social studies classes.

    As an education researcher and former high school history teacher, I know that there’s both good and bad news about combating misinformation in the classroom. History class can cultivate critical thinking – but only if teachers and schools understand what critical thinking really means.

    Not just a ‘skill’

    First, the bad news.

    When people demand that schools teach critical thinking, it’s not always clear what they mean. Some might consider critical thinking a trait or capacity that teachers can encourage, like creativity or grit. They could believe that critical thinking is a mindset: a habit of being curious, skeptical and reflective. Or they might be referring to specific skills – for instance, that students should learn a set of steps to take to assess information online.

    Unfortunately, cognitive science research has shown that critical thinking is not an abstract quality or practice that can be developed on its own. Cognitive scientists see critical thinking as a specific kind of reasoning that involves problem-solving and making sound judgments. It can be learned, but it relies on specific content knowledge and does not necessarily transfer between fields.

    Early studies on chess players and physicists in the 1970s and ’80s helped show how the kind of flexible and reflective cognition often called critical thinking is really a product of expertise. Chess masters, for instance, do not start out with innate talent. In most cases, they gain expertise by hours of thoughtfully playing the game. This deliberate practice helps them recognize patterns and think in novel ways about chess. Chess masters’ critical thinking is a product of learning, not a precursor.

    Because critical thinking develops in specific contexts, it does not necessarily transfer to other types of problem-solving. For example, chess advocates might hope the game improves players’ intelligence, and studies do suggest learning chess may help elementary students with the kind of pattern recognition they need for early math lessons. However, research has found that being a great chess player does not make people better at other kinds of complex critical thinking.

    Historical thinking

    Since context is key to critical thinking, learning to analyze information about current events likely requires knowledge about politics and history, as well as practice at scrutinizing sources. Fortunately, that is what social studies classes are for.

    Social studies researchers often describe this kind of critical thinking as “historical thinking”: a way to evaluate evidence about the past and assess its reliability. My own research has shown that high school students can make relatively quick progress on some of the surface features of historical thinking, such as learning to check a text’s date and author. But the deep questioning involved in true historical thinking is much harder to learn.

    Social studies classrooms can also build what researchers call “civic online reasoning.” Fact-checking is complex work. It is not enough to tell young people that they should be wary online, or to trust sites that end in “.org” instead of “.com.” Rather than learning general principles about online media, civic online reasoning teaches students specific skills for evaluating information about politics and social issues.

    Still, learning to think like a historian does not necessarily prepare someone to be a skeptical news consumer. Indeed, a recent study found that professional historians performed worse than professional fact-checkers at identifying online misinformation. The misinformation tasks the historians struggled with focused on issues such as bullying or the minimum wage – areas where they possessed little expertise.

    Powerful knowledge

    That’s where background knowledge comes in – and the good news is that social studies can build it. All literacy relies on what readers already know. For people wading through political information and news, knowledge about history and civics is like a key in the ignition for their analytical skills.

    Readers without much historical knowledge may miss clues that something isn’t right – signs that they need to scrutinize the source more closely. Political misinformation often weaponizes historical falsehoods, such as the debunked and recalled Christian nationalist book claiming that Thomas Jefferson did not believe in a separation of church and state, or claims that the nadir of African American life came during Reconstruction, not slavery. Those claims are extreme, but politicians and policymakers repeat them.

    For someone who knows basic facts about American history, those claims won’t sit right. Background knowledge will trigger their skepticism and kick critical thinking into gear.

    Past, present, future

    For this reason, the best approach to media literacy will come through teaching that fosters concrete skills alongside historical knowledge. In short, the new knowledge crisis points to the importance of the traditional social studies classroom.

    But it’s a tenuous moment for history education. The Bush- and Obama-era emphasis on math and English testing resulted in decreased instructional time in history classes, particularly in elementary and middle schools. In one 2005 study, 27% of schools reported reducing social studies time in favor of subjects on state exams.

    Now, history teachers are feeling heat from politically motivated culture wars over education that target teaching about racism and LGBTQ+ issues and that ban books from libraries and classrooms. Two-thirds of instructors say that they’ve limited classroom discussions about social and political topics.

    Attempts to limit students’ knowledge about the past imperil their chances of being able to think critically about new information. These attacks are not just assaults on the history of the country; they are attempts to control its future.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Why doesn’t higher education make a difference?

    Why doesn’t higher education make a difference?

    by Amir Shahsavari and Mohammad Eslahi

    This blog is based on research reported in Shahsavari, A, & Eslahi, M (2025) ‘Dynamics of Imbalanced Higher Education Development: Analysing Factors and Policy Implications’ in Policy Reviews in Higher Education.

    Our study addresses the paradox of expanding higher education, particularly in Iran, failing to translate into substantial societal impact. We adopted an interpretive research paradigm to explore participants’ experiences and perspectives, emphasising qualitative inquiry. Specifically, we applied a basic qualitative research approach, focusing on thematic data analysis to understand underlying meanings and patterns. We conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 23 professionals from Iran’s higher education system, including executive experts and academic scholars. The data was analysed using qualitative theme analysis with the thematic network approach. It highlights the interplay of internal and external factors driving this imbalance and offers practical recommendations for policymakers and university administrators. The study identifies multiple external and internal factors contributing to the imbalanced development of Iranian higher education.

    External Factors:

    1. Conflicting Political Discourse: Political divisions create inconsistent policy directions that hinder higher education reform. The resulting instability restricts universities from pursuing coherent strategies for social development.
    2. Deficient Decision-Making Structures: Inefficient policy frameworks restrict universities’ ability to align with national development goals. This limits their capacity to engage in long-term planning, research commercialization, and innovation.
    3. Lack of Social and Cultural Cohesion: Weak societal integration reduces higher education’s ability to contribute to social progress. Universities struggle to connect their knowledge outputs to broader societal needs without a shared cultural framework.
    4. Low Demand for Science and Technology in the Economy: Limited integration of scientific advancements into economic sectors hinders universities’ relevance. Weak industry-university linkages prevent research outcomes from driving innovation and economic growth.
    5. International Sanctions: Economic constraints and restricted access to global knowledge networks impede higher education progress. This isolation limits opportunities for research collaboration, technological exchange, and funding access.

    Internal Factors:

    1. Limited Engagement with National and Local Ecosystem Needs: Universities lack meaningful interaction with regional industries and communities. This disconnect limits their ability to address localized development challenges.
    2. Insufficient Attention to Territorial Advantages in Development Planning: Universities often fail to leverage local strengths and opportunities, weakening their contribution to regional economic development.
    3. Weak Endogenous Creativity: Overreliance on Western educational models stifles innovative academic approaches. As a result, Iranian universities struggle to develop unique solutions suited to local challenges.
    4. Promotion of Emigration: University environments inadvertently encourage student and faculty migration, reducing local impact. This trend diminishes the human capital available to drive national innovation.

    This study contributes new insights by highlighting the interplay between external political pressures and internal university strategies. While previous studies have emphasized government interventions and economic constraints, this research reveals the disruptive effects of conflicting political ideologies and weak social cohesion. Additionally, the study expands on the “quadruple helix” model by illustrating the absence of place-based leadership and strategies as critical gaps in Iranian higher education. The study also introduces a framework for integrating participatory governance models into university decision-making processes, enhancing institutions’ responsiveness to societal needs. The study emphasizes three key strategies for improving higher education’s societal impact:

    1. Promoting National Dialogues via Universities: Encouraging open dialogue among academic leaders and policymakers can bridge ideological divides, fostering consensus on long-term educational goals. This step is vital to mitigate political interference and improve strategic planning for university development. Higher education can contribute to national stability and long-term planning by positioning universities as mediators in political debates.
    2. Increasing Science and Technology Demand: Policymakers should enhance economic incentives for scientific research integration. Encouraging industrial partnerships and market-driven research will amplify universities’ role in economic growth. By creating a more dynamic innovation ecosystem, universities can expand their influence on industry practices and economic modernization.
    3. Developing Science and Technology Diplomacy: Expanding diplomatic ties to bypass sanctions can enhance Iranian universities’ access to global scientific collaboration, fostering innovation and knowledge exchange. Such efforts include developing partnerships with international research centers and increasing participation in global academic networks.

    The study to address internal factors recommends:

    • Expanding participatory teaching models, such as service learning, to connect universities with community development. These models empower students to engage with social challenges directly, enhancing their sense of responsibility and practical skills.
    • Aligning government support for universities based on regional strengths, promoting competition, and enhancing educational quality. By linking funding models to regional priorities, universities can better tailor their strategies to local economic and social needs.
    • Supporting creative teaching and research initiatives to foster academic innovation. This includes incentivising faculty to develop unconventional teaching methods and interdisciplinary research projects.
    • Encouraging initiatives that promote national pride and social responsibility among students and faculty, mitigating emigration trends. Universities can strengthen students’ connection to local development through values-based education and encourage talent retention.

    The study highlights a critical limitation: its participants were drawn solely from the supply side of the science and technology ecosystem (university faculty and administrators). Future research should include stakeholders from the demand side, such as industry leaders, policymakers, and civil society representatives, to develop a more comprehensive understanding of higher education’s role in societal development. Exploring the interplay between social values, economic incentives, and political frameworks would provide deeper insights into higher education’s transformative potential.

    This research underscores the need for a holistic approach to higher education reform. By addressing internal and external challenges, policymakers can create an educational landscape promoting social, economic, and political progress. Universities must evolve beyond expanding access to higher education and focus on fostering creativity, engagement, and accountability to enhance their contributions to society. Developing partnerships with industry, embracing participatory governance, and promoting inclusive dialogues will empower universities to become key drivers of social and economic transformation.

    Amir Shahsavari is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran. His academic interests lie in higher education policy, academic management and planning, and teaching and learning, mainly focusing on higher education studies in Iran. Drawing on his research, he seeks to contribute to a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing Iranian universities to inform policy and improve educational practices. am_shahsavari@sbu.ac.ir

    Mohammad Eslahi holds a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Tehran, Iran, specializing in Educational Administration and Planning. His research interests focus on the economics of higher education and the economics of university research. He is a lecturer and research assistant at the University of Tehran, actively contributing to teaching and scholarly endeavors in these fields. Eslahi.mohammad@ut.ac.ir

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Trump cuts research funding to six Aus universities and counting – Campus Review

    Trump cuts research funding to six Aus universities and counting – Campus Review

    At least six Group of Eight (Go8) universities have had research grants terminated by the United States amid an anti-diversity and gender ideology studies crackdown from US President Donald Trump’s office.

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  • What’s driving low levels of full economic cost recovery in research?

    What’s driving low levels of full economic cost recovery in research?

    Media attention has emphasised that the financial issues facing universities continue to worsen. While research is a cornerstone and strength of the sector, it is often regarded as a cost, which leads to scrutiny as part of institutional savings targets. Despite calls to acknowledge the value of research, the focus understandably remains on research costs.

    The focus of universities on the volume and cost of unfunded research, or more accurately, internally funded research, is a question that must be addressed. Institutions are reflecting on and revising internal research allowances as part of their efforts to achieve a more sustainable financial position, as the cross-subsidy from international student fees is no longer as viable as it once was.

    The question of funded research, however, is a different matter. For quite some time, there have been questions about what constitutes the full economic cost (FEC) and how these costs are recovered when projects are funded. Both issues have once again come to the forefront in the current climate, especially as institutions are failing to recover the eligible costs of funded projects.

    As part of the Innovation & Research Caucus, an investment funded by UKRI, we have been investigating why the recovery of UKRI-funded research is often below the stated rates. To put it simply, if the official recovery rate is 80 per cent FEC, why is 80 per cent not being recovered on UKRI-funded projects?

    Understanding under-recovery

    We conducted a series of interviews with chief financial officers, pro vice chancellors for research, and directors of research services across mission groups, the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) group, and various geographic regions. They identified several key reasons why universities are not recovering the funding to which they are entitled.

    Before exploring the causes of under-recovery on UKRI-funded projects, the project aimed to establish the extent to which TRAC data was curated and utilised. Notably, the study found that the data collected for TRAC does not exist within research organisations and would not otherwise be collected in this form if it were not for the TRAC reporting requirement.

    While scrutinising TRAC data was less of a priority when the financial situation was more stable, in many institutions, it is now of interest to the top table and serves as the basis for modelling, projections, and scenario planning. That said, such analysis did not always recognise TRAC’s limitations in terms of how it was compiled and, therefore, its comparability.

    In many of the research organisations consulted, the responsibilities for TRAC, project costing, and project delivery are distinct. Given the growing significance of TRAC data in influencing resource allocation and strategic decision-making, it is essential for research organisations to adopt a more integrated approach to compiling and utilising TRAC data to achieve improved outcomes.

    Drivers of under-recovery

    A wide range of factors explains why the cost recovered at the end of a funding grant is less than anticipated at the point of submission and award. Almost all respondents highlighted three factors as significant in low cost recovery:

    1. Equipment and facilities costs were consistently cited as a factor, including issues associated with allocating and costing overheads and estates. Several institutions highlighted the difficulty in realistically costing equipment and facilities shared between research projects or between research projects and teaching.
    1. Staff under-costing was frequently mentioned, as principal investigators (PIs) underestimated their own and their colleagues’ time commitment to projects. This ineffective practice was driven by a (mis)perception that lower costs will likely improve success rates – despite the emphasis being on value rather than cost within a specific funding envelope.
    2. Inflation has been identified as a factor affecting all cost elements – from staff costs related to pay settlements and promotions to the rising expenses associated with consumables, equipment, and energy. This reveals a growing gap in applications, delivery, and reporting.

    Beyond these top three, the report highlights the implications of the often “hidden” costs associated with supporting and administering UKRI grants, the perennial issues of match funding, and the often inevitable delays in starting and delivering projects – all of which add to the cost and increase the prospect of under-recovery.

    In addition, an array of other contributing factors were also raised. These included the impact of exchange rates, eligibility criteria, the capital intensity of projects, cost recovery for partners, recruitment challenges, lack of contingency, and no cost extensions. While not pinpointing the importance of a single factor, the interplay and cumulative effect were considered to result in under-recovery.

    Addressing under-recovery

    Universities bear the cost of under-recovery, but funders and universities can take several actions to improve under-recovery – some of which are low- or no-cost, could be implemented in the short term, and would make a real difference.

    Funders, such as UKRI, should provide clearer guidance for research organisations on how to cost facilities and equipment, as well as how to include these costs in research bids. Similarly, applicants and reviewers should receive clearer guidance regarding realistic expectations from PIs in leading projects, emphasising that value should be prioritised over cost. Another area that warrants clearer guidance is match funding, specifically for institutions regarding expectations and for reviewers on how match funding should be assessed. We are pleased to see that UKRI is already taking steps to address these points in its funding policies [editor’s note: this link will be live around 9am on Friday morning].

    In the medium term, research funders could also review their approaches to indexation, which could help mitigate the impact of inflation in driving under-recovery, although this is, of course, not without cost. Another area worth exploring by both research organisations and funders is the provision of shared infrastructures and assets, both within and across institutions – again, a longer-term project.

    We are already seeing institutions taking steps to manage and mitigate under-recovery, and there is scope to extend good practice. Perhaps the main challenge to improving cost recovery is better managing the link between project budgets – based on proposal costs – and project delivery costs. Ensuring a joined-up approach from project costing to reporting is important, but more important is developing a deeper understanding across these areas.

    A final point is the need to ensure that academics vying for funding really understand the new realities of cost and recovery. This has not always been the case, and arguably still is not the case. These skills – from clarifying the importance of realistic staff costs to accurately costing the use of facilities to effectively managing project budgets – will help close the cost recovery gap.

    The real FEC of research funding

    The current project has focused on under-recovery in project delivery. The next step is to understand the real cost to research organisations of UKRI grant funding.

    This means understanding the cost of developing, preparing and submitting a UKRI grant application – whether successful or not. It means understanding the costs associated with administering and reporting on a UKRI grant during and beyond the life of a project (think ResearchFish!).

    For more information, please get in touch – or watch this space for further findings.

    The Innovation & Research Caucus report, Understanding low levels of FEC cost recovery on UKRI grants, will be published on the UKRI site later today.

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  • Research funding won’t redistribute itself

    Research funding won’t redistribute itself

    On the whole research funding is not configured to be sensitive to place.

    Redistribution

    It does good things in regions but this is different to funding being configured to do so. For example, universities in the North East performed strongly in the REF and as a consequence they received an uplift in QR funding. This will allow them to invest in their research capacity, this will bring agglomerate benefits in the North East, and go some small way to rebalancing the UK’s research ecosystem away from London.

    REF isn’t designed to do that. It has absolutely no interest where research takes place, just that the research that takes place is excellent. The UK isn’t a very big place and it has a large number of universities. Eventually, if you fund enough things in enough places you will eventually help support regional clusters of excellence.

    There are of course some specific place based funds but this doesn’t mean they are redistributive as well as being regionally focussed. The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF) is focussed on regional capacity but it is £260m of a total annual Research England funding distribution of £2.8bn. HEIF is calculated using provider knowledge exchange work on businesses, public and third sector engagement, and the wider public. A large portion of the data is gathered through the HE-BCI Survey.

    The result of this is that there is place based funding but inevitably institutions with larger research capacities receive larger amounts of funding. Of the providers that received the maximum HEIF funding in 2024/25 five were within the golden triangle, one was in the West Midlands, one was in the East Midlands, two were in Yorkshire and the Humber, one was in the North West, and one was in the South East but not the golden triangle. It is regional but it is not redistributive.

    Strength of feeling/strength in places

    RAND Europe has released a process evaluation of wave two of the Strength in Places Fund (SIPF). As RAND Europe describe the fund is

    The Strength in Places Fund (SIPF) is a £312.5 million competitive funding scheme that takes a place-based approach to research and innovation (R&I) funding. SIPF is a UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) strategic fund managed by the SIPF delivery team based at Innovate UK and Research England. The aim of the Fund is to help areas of the UK build on existing strengths in R&I to deliver benefits for their local economy

    This fund has been more successful in achieving a more regionally distributed spread of funding. For example, the fund has delivered £47m to Wales compared to only £18m in South East England. Although quality was a key factor, and there are some challenges to how aligned projects are to wider regional priorities, it seems that a focus on a balanced portfolio made a difference. As RAND Europe note

    […]steps were taken to ensure a balanced portfolio in terms of geographical spread and sectors; however, quality was the primary factor influencing panel recommendations (INTXX). Panel members considered the projects that had been funded in Wave 1 and the bids submitted in Wave 2, and were keen on ensuring no one region was overrepresented. One interviewee mentioned that geographical variation of awards contributed to the credibility of a place-based funding system[…].

    The Regional Innovation Fund which aimed to support local innovation capacity was allocated with a specific modifier to account for where there had historically been less research investment. SPIF has been a different approach to solving the same conundrum of how best support research potential in every region of the UK.

    It’s within this context that it is interesting to arrive at UKRI’s most recent analysis of the geographical distribution of its funding in 2022/23 and 2023/24. There are two key messages the first is that

    All regions and nations received an increase in UKRI investment between the financial years 2021 to 2022 and 2023 to 2024. The greatest absolute increases in investment were seen in the North West, West Midlands and East Midlands. The greatest proportional increases were seen in Northern Ireland, the East Midlands and North West.

    And the second is that

    The percentage of UKRI funding invested outside London, the South East and East of England, collectively known as the ‘Greater South East’, rose to 50% in 2023 to 2024. This is up from 49% in the 2022 to 2023 financial year and 47% in the 2021 to 2022 financial year. This represents a cumulative additional £1.4 billion invested outside the Greater South East since the 2021 to 2022 financial year.

    Waterloo sunset?

    In the most literal sense the funding between the Greater South East and the rest of the country could not be more finely balanced. In flat cash terms the rest of the UK outside of the Greater South East has overtaken the Greater South East for the first time while investment per capita in the Greater South East still outstrips the rest of the country by a significant amount.

    The reasons for this shift is because of greater investments in the North West, West Midlands, and East Midlands who cumulatively saw an increase of £550m worth of funding over the past three years. The regions with the highest absolute levels of funding saw some of the smallest proportions of increases in investment.

    The evaluations and UKRI’s dataset present an interesting picture. There is nothing unusual about the way funding is distributed as it follows where the highest numbers of researchers, providers, and economic activity is located. It would be an entirely arbitrary mechanism which penalised the South East for having research strengths.

    Simultaneously, with constrained resources there are lots of latent assets outside of the golden triangle that will not get funding. The UK is unusually reliant on its capital as an economic contributor and research funding follows this. The only way to rebalance this is to make deliberate efforts, like with SIPF, to lean toward a more balanced portfolio of funding.

    This isn’t a plea to completely rip up the rule book, and a plea for more money in an era of fiscal constraint will not be listened to, but it does bring into sharp relief a choice. Either research policy is about bolstering the UK’s economic centre or it is about strengthening the potential of research where it receives less funding. There simply is not enough money to do both.

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  • Trump: Aus research must disclose vaccine, transgender, DEI or China ties

    Trump: Aus research must disclose vaccine, transgender, DEI or China ties

    US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House. Picture: Mandel Ngan



    By: Erin Morley

    in Industry & Research, Research Funding, Research News, Top Stories


    March 17, 2025

    Australian researchers who receive United States funding have been asked to disclose links to China and whether they agree with US President Donald Trump’s “two sexes” executive order.

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  • Three Ways Faculty Are Using AI to Lighten Their Professional Load

    Three Ways Faculty Are Using AI to Lighten Their Professional Load

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Our most recent research into the working lives of faculty gave us some interesting takeaways about higher education’s relationship with AI. While every faculty member’s thoughts about AI differ and no two experiences are the same, the general trend we’ve seen is that faculty have moved from fear to acceptance. A good deal of faculty were initially concerned about AI’s arrival on campus. This concern was amplified by a perceived rise in AI-enabled cheating and plagiarism among students. Despite that, many faculty have come to accept that AI is here to stay. Some have developed working strategies to ensure that they and their students know the boundaries of AI usage in the classroom.

    Early-adopting educators aren’t just navigating around AI. They have embraced and integrated it into their working lives. Some have learned to use AI tools to save time and make their working lives easier. In fact, over half of instructors reported that they wanted to use AI for administrative tasks and 10% were already doing so. (Find the highlights here.) As more faculty are seeing the potential in AI, that number has likely risen. So, in what ways are faculty already using AI to lighten the load of professional life? Here are three use-cases we learned about from education professionals:

    1. AI to jumpstart ideas and conversations

    “Give me a list of 10 German pop songs that contain irregular verbs.”

    “Summarize the five most contentious legal battles happening in U.S. media law today.”

    “Create a set of flashcards that review the diagnostic procedure and standard treatment protocol for asthma.”

    The possibilities (and the prompts!) are endless. AI is well-placed to assist with idea generation, conversation-starters and lesson materials for educators on any topic. It’s worth noting that AI tends to prove most helpful as a starting point for teaching and learning fodder, rather than for providing fully-baked responses and ideas. Those who expect the latter may be disappointed, as the quality of AI results can vary widely depending on the topic. Educators can and should, of course, always be the final determinants and reviewers of the accuracy of anything shared in class.

    1. AI to differentiate instruction

    Faculty have told us that they spend a hefty proportion (around 28%) of their time on course preparation. Differentiating instruction for the various learning styles and levels in any given class constitutes a big part of that prep work. A particular lesson may land well with a struggling student, but might feel monotonous for an advanced student who has already mastered the material. To that end, some faculty are using AI to readily differentiate lesson plans. For example, an English literature instructor might enter a prompt like, “I need two versions of a lesson plan about ‘The Canterbury Tales;’ one for fluent English speakers and one for emergent English speakers.” This simple step can save faculty hours of manual lesson plan differentiation.

    An instructor in Kansas shared with Cengage their plans to let AI help in this area, “I plan to use AI to evaluate students’ knowledge levels and learning abilities and create personalized training content. For example, AI will assess all the students at the beginning of the semester and divide them into ‘math-strong’ and ‘math-weak’ groups based on their mathematical aptitude, and then automatically assign math-related materials, readings and lecture notes to help the ‘math-weak’ students.”

    When used in this way, AI can be a powerful tool that gives students of all backgrounds an equal edge in understanding and retaining difficult information.

    1. AI to provide feedback

    Reviewing the work of dozens or hundreds of students and finding common threads and weak spots is tedious work, and seems an obvious area for a little algorithmic assistance.

    Again, faculty should remain in control of the feedback they provide to students. After all, students fully expect faculty members to review and critique their work authentically. However, using AI to more deeply understand areas where a student’s logic may be consistently flawed, or types of work on which they repeatedly make mistakes, can be a game-changer, both for educators and students.

    An instructor in Iowa told Cengage, “I don’t want to automate my feedback completely, but having AI suggest areas of exigence in students’ work, or supply me with feedback options based on my own past feedback, could be useful.”

    Some faculty may even choose to have students ask AI for feedback themselves as part of a critical thinking or review exercise. Ethan and Lilach Mollick of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania share in an Harvard Business Publishing Education article, “Though AI-generated feedback cannot replicate the grounded knowledge that teachers have about their students, it can be given quickly and at scale and it can help students consider their work from an outside perspective. Students can then evaluate the feedback, decide what they want to incorporate, and continue to iterate on their drafts.”

    AI is not a “fix-all” for the administrative side of higher education. However, many faculty members are gaining an advantage and getting some time back by using it as something of a virtual assistant.

     

    Are you using AI in the classroom?

    In a future piece, we’ll share 3 more ways in which faculty are using AI to make their working lives easier. In the meantime, you can fully explore our research here:

     

     

     

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  • Trust, creativity, and collaboration are what leads to impact in the arts

    Trust, creativity, and collaboration are what leads to impact in the arts

    Impact in the arts is fundamentally different from other fields. It is built on relationships, trust, and long-term engagement with communities, businesses, and cultural institutions.

    Unlike traditional research models, where success is often measured through large-scale returns or policy influence, impact in the creative industries is deeply personal, embedded in real-world collaborations, and evolves over time.

    For specialist arts institutions, impact is not just about knowledge transfer – it’s about experimental knowledge exchange. It emerges from years of conversations, interdisciplinary convergence, and shared ambitions. This process is not transactional; it is about growing networks, fostering trust, and developing meaningful partnerships that bridge creative research with industry and society.

    The AHRC Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) has provided a vital framework for this work, but to fully unlock the potential of arts-led innovation, it needs to be bigger, bolder, and more flexible. The arts sector thrives on adaptability, yet traditional funding structures often fail to reflect the reality of how embedded impact happens – rarely immediate or linear.

    At the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), we have explored a new model of knowledge exchange—one that moves beyond transactional partnerships to create impact at the convergence of arts, business, culture, and technology.

    From ideas to impact

    At UCA, IAA impact has grown not through top-down frameworks, but through years of relationship-building with creative businesses, independent artists, cultural organisations, and museums. These partnerships are built on trust, long-term engagement, and shared creative exploration, rather than short-term funding cycles.

    Creative industries evolve through conversation, experimentation, and shared risk-taking. Artists, designers, filmmakers, and cultural institutions need time to test ideas, adapt, and develop new ways of working that blend creative practice with commercial and social impact.

    This approach has led to collaborations that demonstrate how arts impact happens in real-time, to name a few:

    • Immersive storytelling and business models – Research in VR and interactive media is expanding the possibilities of digital storytelling, enabling new audience experiences and sustainable commercial frameworks for creative content.
    • Augmented reality and cultural heritage – Digital innovation is enhancing cultural engagement, creating interactive heritage experiences that bridge physical and virtual worlds, reinforcing cultural sustainability.
    • Sustainable design and material innovation – Design-led projects are exploring circular economy approaches in sports, fashion, and product design, shifting industry mindsets toward sustainability and responsible production.
    • Photography and social change – Research in archival and curatorial practice is reshaping how marginalised communities are represented in national collections, influencing curatorial strategies and institutional policies.

    These projects are creative interventions that converge research, industry, and social change. We don’t just measure impact; we create it through action.

    A different model of knowledge exchange

    The AHRC IAA has provided an important platform for arts-led impact, but if we are serious about supporting creative industries as a driver of economic, cultural, and social transformation, we must rethink how impact is funded and measured. Traditional funding models often overlook the long-term, embedded collaborations that define arts impact.

    To make the impact funding more effective, we need to:

    • Recognise that creative impact develops over time, often requiring years of conversation, trust-building, and iterative development.
    • Encourage risk-taking and experimentation, allowing researchers and industry partners the flexibility to develop innovative ideas beyond rigid funding categories.
    • Expand the scale and duration of support to enable long-term transformation, allowing small and specialist universities to cultivate deeper, sustained partnerships.

    In academic teaching and training, knowledge exchange must be reconsidered beyond the REF framework. Rather than focusing solely on individual research outputs, assessment frameworks should value collective impact, long-term partnerships, and iterative creative inquiry. Funding models should support infrastructure that enables researchers to develop skills in knowledge exchange, ensuring it is a fundamental pillar of academic and professional growth.

    By embedding knowledge exchange principles into creative education, we can cultivate a new generation of researchers who are not only scholars but also creative change makers, equipped to collaborate with industry, drive cultural innovation, and shape the future of the creative economy.

    A call for bigger, bolder AHRC impact funding

    UCA’s approach demonstrates how arts institutions are developing a new model of impact—one rooted in collaboration, creativity, and social change. However, for this model to thrive, impact funding must evolve to recognise and support the unique ways in which creative research generates real change.

    To keep pace with the evolving needs of cultural, creative, and technology industries, research funding must acknowledge that impact in the arts is about stories, communities, and the human connections that drive transformation. It’s time to expand our vision of what impact means – and to build a funding model that reflects the true value of the arts in shaping business, culture, and society.

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