Tag: fairer

  • For a stronger, fairer Wales HE belongs in every manifesto

    For a stronger, fairer Wales HE belongs in every manifesto

    Wales stands on the cusp of significant political change. With an expanded Welsh Parliament and revised voting system, the 2026 Senedd election will mark a new chapter in Welsh democracy.

    May’s election will also be the first where 16- and 17-year-olds can cast their vote. This is a generation whose recent experience of education, and their future university and career aspirations, could be central to the choices they make at the ballot box.

    For those of us working in higher education, these changes present both a challenge and an opportunity. The new proportional voting system will likely result in a more diverse Senedd that will require greater collaboration across parties in order to be effective. For Universities Wales, this means we must continue to engage constructively with all political groups, building consensus around the vital role universities play in shaping a stronger Wales.

    A larger Senedd also means expanded committees and greater capacity for policy scrutiny. This is a welcome development that offers more space for detailed debate on the issues that matter, from economic growth and skills, to research, innovation, and community wellbeing. It also means more elected representatives who can champion higher education.

    Against this context, Universities Wales has launched a manifesto that sets out a clear vision for the future. It is a vision rooted in national renewal; one that sees universities as the essential infrastructure needed for Wales to thrive. Our message is simple: when universities succeed, Wales succeeds.

    Building jobs and skills

    In an age of rapid economic and technological change, Wales’ economy demands a flexible and highly skilled workforce. With Wales estimated to need 400,000 more graduates by 2035, universities will be central to supporting the next Welsh Government in meeting future economic needs and building a more skilled and prosperous nation.

    However, delivering on this ambition will require greater recognition of the role universities already play in delivering skills – including through the degree apprenticeships system – alongside a renewed focus on financial sustainability.

    A sustainable university sector is key to unlocking investment, productivity, and growth across Wales. Given recent challenges, an independent review of university funding and student support will be an essential step in ensuring universities can continue to deliver for Wales, now and into the future.

    Driving opportunity

    Wales’ future prosperity depends on our ability to nurture talent and equip people with the skills to thrive in a fast-moving world. Graduates are the backbone of our economy and the drivers of our future success. Put simply, there will be no growth without graduates.

    However, in Wales, we are seeing a worrying decline in the percentage of 18-year-olds choosing to go to university.

    We cannot afford to keep recycling old arguments about the value of a university education. We need to be stronger in demonstrating its essential role in shaping future prospects. If we fail, we risk leaving the next generation less qualified and with fewer pathways to success.

    Taking action to understand and reverse this trend through an independent commission on participation could unlock the potential of thousands of people, upskilling the economy and driving social mobility.

    Supporting research, innovation and local growth

    Equally as important is ensuring there is recognition and appropriate support for the full spectrum of work carried out by our universities, both here at home and through their international activities, which strengthen Wales’ global presence and influence.

    For example, while university research and innovation benefits people, business and public services across the nation and beyond, it is an area that continues to be significantly underfunded; pro-rata to population size, in 2024–25, the funding allocations made by HEFCW (now Medr) for R&I in Wales were £57m lower than those made by Research England for England, and £86m lower than in Scotland.

    Consequently, our manifesto pushes for greater investment in research, innovation and commercialisation within the current system of R&I funding. This means increases to QR funding, as well as further investment through the Research Wales Innovation Fund. This will be crucial to unlocking productivity and growth across all parts of Wales.

    We are also calling for greater support for the important work universities do within their communities to drive economic growth, attract investment, support public services, and shape the places where people live, work and thrive.

    The cliff-edge of funding caused by the loss of EU Structural Funds – which Wales particularly benefitted from – and the inadequacy of replacement funding, has had a detrimental impact on universities’ activity in this area. This is why long-term regional investment funding, channelled through the Welsh government, will be vital to supporting universities’ roles as anchor institutions, and encouraging private co-investment.

    Wales’ national renewal

    These priorities are not partisan. Every political party wants to see a thriving, prosperous Wales – and that vision depends on a strong, resilient and effective university sector. We know that the next Welsh government, whatever its composition, will face tough choices. But investing in universities is not a luxury, it is a strategic necessity that strengthens our economy, builds resilience, and transforms lives.

    As chair of Universities Wales, I believe our sector stands ready to play a central role in Wales’ future. The political system may be shifting, but our aim remains the same: to support a strong, fair, and successful Wales. This is a pivotal moment for our sector and for the nation. Now is the time to recognise the full value of Welsh universities,­ and to place them at the heart of Wales’ national renewal.

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  • A new model moves research in a more democratic direction – It could be faster and fairer too

    A new model moves research in a more democratic direction – It could be faster and fairer too

    Research quality is the dark matter of the university sector. It is hard enough to assess research after it has been done, research funders must find some way to evaluate proposals for projects which don’t exist yet. The established model for this is external expert review, combined with a panel stage where proposals, and their reviews are discussed, and hard choices made.

    UK researchers will be familiar with this via our own UKRI, and everyone who has had a funding application rejected will recognise that the reviews received may be partial or mis-directed. This speaks to the idiosyncrasy and variability in individual judgments of what makes a good project, and has downstream consequences for what ultimately gets funded.

    Research from the Dutch research council published last year showed what everyone suspected – two panels making the decision about the same proposals would end up funding different projects. The results were better than complete random selection, but not by much.

    The capriciousness in funding awards has even led some to propose selecting by lottery among proposals judged to be eligible – a procedure known as partial randomisation and currently being trialled by a number of funders, including the British Academy.

    Pressure

    Issues with grant review aren’t limited to variability between individual reviewers. The pressure on researchers to win funding is driving an increased number of applications, at the same time as funders report it being harder and harder to identify and recruit reviewers. One major UK funder privately reports that they have to send around 10 invitations to obtain one review. Once received, quality of reviews can be variable. Ideally the reviewer is both disinterested and expert in the topic of the proposal (two factors which are inherently in tension), but scarcity of reviewers often leaves funders forced to rely on a minority of willing reviewers. At the same time many researchers are submitting applications for funding without reciprocating by providing reviews. These same issues of peer review are similar to those that beset journal publishing, but in research funding the individual outcomes are far more consequential for careers (and budgets).

    A model of funding evaluation which promises to address at least some of these issues is distributed peer review (DPR). Under DPR, applicants for a funding scheme review each other’s proposals. It’s an idea that originated in the astronomy community, where proposals are evaluated to allocate scarce telescope time (rather than scarce funding), and it is also common for conference papers, particularly in computer science, but the application to evaluating proposals for funding is still in its infancy.

    At the Research on Research Institute (RoRI) we have a mission to support funders to become more experimental in their approach – to both use strong evidence on what can work in the funding system, but also to run experiments to generate that evidence themselves. A core member of the international consortium of 19 funders which funds RoRI is the Volkswagen Foundation, a private German funder (and completely independent of the car manufacturer).

    When they decided to trial distributed peer review, running a parallel comparison of DPR and their standard process of external review and decision by an expert panel, we were able to partner with them to provide independent scientific support for the experiment. The result is a side by side comparison of how the two processes unfolded, how long they took, how they were experienced by applicants and which proposals got funded.

    Positive expectations

    Our analysis showed that before they took part, applicants mostly had positive expectations of the process. Each proposal was assessed by both methods, and eligible to be funded if selected by either method. When the results came in, we saw some overlap between the proposals funded under DPR and by the standard panel processes. The greater number of reviews per proposal also allowed the foundation to give considerable feedback to applicants, and allowed us greater statistical insight into proposal scoring. Our analysis showed that no number of reviews would make the DPR process completely consistent (meaning we should expect different proposals to be funded if it was run again, or if it was compared to the panel process). Many applicants enjoyed the insight reviewing other proposals gave them into the funding processes, and appreciated the feedback they got (although, as you would expect this was not universal, and applicants who ended up being awarded funding were happier with the process than those who weren’t). From the foundation’s perspective it seems DPR is feasible to run, and – if run without the parallel panel stage – would allow a large reduction in the time between the application deadline and the funding award.

    It’s an incredibly rich data set, and we are delighted the foundation has committed to running – and evaluating – the DPR process over a second round. This will allow us to compare across different rounds, as well between the evaluation by DPR and by the panel process.

    DPR represents an innovation for funding evaluation, but one that builds on the fundamental principle of peer review by researchers. The innovation is to move funding evaluation in a more democratic direction, away from the ‘gatekeeping’ model of review by a small number of senior researchers who are privileged to sit on funder’s review panels. It ensures an equal distribution of reviewing work – everyone who applies has to review, and as a consequence widens and diversifies the pool of people who are reviewing funding applications. The Foundation’s experience shows that DPR can be deployed by a funder, and the risks and complaints – of unfair reviews, unfair scoring behaviour and extra work required of applicants – managed.

    Flaws and comparisons

    Ultimately, the judgement of DPR must be on how it performs against other funding evaluation processes, not on whether it is free of potential flaws. There definitely are issues with DPR, which we have tried to make clear in our short guide for funders who are interested in adopting the procedure. These include if, and how, DPR can be applied to calls of different sizes and if proposals require specialist review which is beyond the expertise of the cohort applying. A benefit of DPR is that it scales naturally (when there are more applications there are, by definition, more available applicant-reviewers). The issue of how appropriate DPR is for schemes where proposals cover very different topics is a more pressing one. It may not be right for all schemes, but DPR is a promising tool in the funding evaluation toolkit.

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