BU Research Blog

Tagged / Industrial Strategy challenge fund

November 20, 2018

Technical assistance for grant applications – workshop places available!

Events, Funding opportunities, RKE development framework Emily Cieciura

In the UK, £4.7 billion is being expected to be invested in R&D over the next 4 years. Will you be ready to apply?

Much of this funding will be available to academia, in partnership with business, through Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund competitive grants. Writing these grants is an art in itself, because word counts are tight and the demand for detail high. And then there is the human factor – convincing five under-pressure assessors that your idea is novel, experimental, leading edge, etc. These are the people who will score you and ultimately decide whether you make it to the fundable zone…

BU’s Research & Knowledge Exchange Office is hosting a technical writing workshop, where the art of writing these grants will be unpacked by a successful bid writer, who has won them, spoken with the assessors to learn how to win even more of them, and is almost in daily contact with the funder, Innovate UK.

The workshop, on 10th December 2018, will include discussions on:

• Knowing your funder – vital background on what makes Innovate UK tick…
• Knowing your assessors – vital tips to improve your score…
• Unpacking the application questions – what you must write and how you must write…

After the workshop attendees will have the opportunity to have a one-to-one session with the bid writer to discuss project ideas and to explore suitable grants.

This workshop directly supports and is targeted towards those academics proactively working within the context of BU2025 Actions: 28, 29 and 30.

To attend, please see further information available on the BU staff pages and review the calendar of events for further opportunities.

May 14, 2018

HE Policy Update for the w/e 11th May 2018

EU, Funding opportunities, humanities, innovation, international, policy, Public engagement, Research Integritiy, Research news, Student Engagement jforster

Fees and funding

Loans and parental contributions – The implication of the means-tested maintenance loan is that parents will make up the difference for those not receiving the full loan (ie if parental income is over £25,000)– parents are not always expecting or planning for this and sometimes parents are unable in practice to make up the difference. This week the Guardian ran It’s a hidden nasty’ quoting Martin Lewis (Moneysavingexpert.com) who said

“it is ‘an absolute abomination’ the government is keeping quiet about how much extra most families must pay. If you aren’t entitled to a full maintenance loan, parents are expected to make up the gap, but what is outrageous is that the Student Loans Company tells you nothing at all about this.“It leads to friction in families and to students being underfunded.”

Moneysavingexpert.com has a table which lists the scale of parental contributions from £605 per year for £30,000 family income to £4,500 for families earning over £62,177. If the above link doesn’t take you straight to it the table is listed under point 11. And the full loan may not be enough anyway. The Guardian article makes the point that the poorest students, who leave with the biggest ‘debt’, still don’t have sufficient funds to cover their daily needs and links to the recent NUS Poverty Commission report. Both UUK and HEPI have called for the reinstatement of maintenance grants so students can afford the basics.

Martin Lewis believes the maintenance loan should be increased:

But Lewis argues if there are limited funds this shouldn’t be the top priority. “If you want social equality you’ve got to face the fact that students haven’t got enough money to live on. The loans aren’t big enough. So I wouldn’t lower tuition fees, or bring back maintenance grants, I’d boost maintenance loans.”

This is Money has an article covering the increasing number of homeowners who are taking equity release deals to support their children through university.

HEPI have a guest blogger who is also a fan of maintenance loans. He begins by describing how the divergence between HE and adult FE is shrinking (crossover due to degree apprenticeships in Universities and level 4-5 vocational sub degrees in FE colleges). Furthermore, due to automation neither FE or HE can meet the economy’s needs alone. Certainly there will be no retraining revolution without re-expanding part-time undergraduate higher education. On this the blogger, Mark Corney, states the debate about reintroducing maintenance grants for full-time higher education students is crowding-out the fact that maintenance loans are being introduced for part-time students from this August.

He argues that even if tuition fees were free its maintenance support that is vital. In addition, the ‘HE and adult FE are different’ orthodoxy has perpetuated a myth which says full-time and part-time HE students need maintenance but adult FE students do not. Only by examining budget-line by budget-line of HE and adult FE funding together does the irrationality and unfairness of the maintenance loans gap become apparent.

The blog suggested an alternative to reintroducing maintenance grants for full-time higher education students is to increase the value of maintenance loans. Students from poor households will not repay their maintenance – or fee – loan if they remain ‘poor’ after graduation: nor will students from wealthier households who become ‘poor’ after graduation. It also suggested raising the income threshold to median gross annual earnings which is currently £28,600 to protect graduates. Whilst extending the repayment period (to state retirement age) to offset the cost to the Treasury.

Mark goes on to discuss the FE, the poor cousin, the complexity of the FE loan arrangements, the barriers and lack of take up. He states the debate over maintenance loans in adult FE is inextricably linked to technical education reform. He discusses introducing maintenance loans for all Level 4-6 technical education and warns: there is a real danger that Level 3 technical education will get stuck in the 16-18 T-level silo. Level 3 technical education must be accessible to adults too, with maintenance loans available to 19-24 year olds.

Interest rates – This is one of the issues that will need to be considered as part of the post-18 review. The Treasury Select Committee has criticised interest rates on student loans as they publish “Student Loans: Government and Office for National Statistics responses to the Committee’s Seventh Report”.

The BBC cover the story here.

Arts, humanities and social sciences – Research Professional report that the British Academy has stated that the UK’s national academies should be in charge of monitoring academic disciplines. The Academy broaches this topic through concern that Academic research, particularly in the arts and humanities, could suffer if universities lose funding for teaching as a result of the [Tertiary Education and funding] review. The article goes on:

Arts, humanities and social sciences could lose out if the government ties tuition fees to graduate earnings or teaching costs, the academy said. This is because they are typically cheaper to teach and lead to lower-paid jobs than science subjects.
The British Academy urged the government to protect funding for these subjects, which it said provide essential skills and research supporting the creative industries and financial, legal and professional services.
“A wholly market-driven approach to education provision brings with it risks and perverse incentives, encouraging short-term rather than strategic management, and potentially stifling growth and innovation,” it said.

Read BU’s response to the HE review and more coverage of the issues in last week’s policy update.

Schools policy

Finally the government have issued a response to the Schools consultation that closed in December 2016 – politics definitely got in the way of this one with the backlash against the grammar schools policy and then the reshuffle. From the archive: a 2016 Wonkhe article by David Morris on the context for all this.

Grammar schools made the news this morning with the announcement of a £50 million fund to support expansion – but not the lifting of the ban on new ones. This will allow annexes and spin-off sites – but there are requirements on wider impact too.

Damien Hinds, the Education Secretary, is interviewed in the Guardian. The Sutton Trust published a response referring to their research:

Gaps In Grammar found that high proportions of grammar school pupils come from the independent primary school sector, roughly double the rate you would expect. In fact, a pupil attending a private prep school is ten times more likely to enter a grammar than a pupil on free school meals.

But what about the requirement for universities to sponsor schools as a condition of registration? It has been watered down to an obligation to do one of 4 things: support teaching development, support curriculum design and delivery, take a leadership role in a school or “other targeted partnership activity”. It looks as if this will be administered through the new Access Agreements. It is clear that they hope – indeed they say that they “expect” more school sponsorship and university run free schools – but it won’t be a pass/fail registration condition.

Skills Shortages

There was a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday considering skills shortages and skills strategy led of Robert Halfon (Chair, Education Select Committee). He announced that the Edge Foundation had formed an analysis group and would bring together key organisations to provide a more comprehensive approach to monitoring skills shortages in the UK.

Halfon set out four steps that: “would build on the strength of the knowledge-rich curriculum to ensure that it fosters young people who are also skills-rich and behaviours-rich—the areas that employers say they value most.”

Firstly, there had to be a fundamental reimagining of pre-18 education, centred around GCSE provision, with Halfon stating that there was an “opportunity for that phase of education to end in a much more holistic and comprehensive assessment—a true baccalaureate.”
Then there needed to be a broader and more balanced curriculum as it was “essential that we develop the next generation of engineers, entrepreneurs and designers” and that a narrow focus on academic GCSEs was “driving out the very subjects that most help us to do that,” he stated.
Thirdly Halfon said careers advice was vital, and more had to be done to “create deep connections between the world of education and the world of work that inspire and motivate young people.” This included employers providing externships so that teachers could experience local businesses and merging duplicate careers organisations into a national skills service.
Finally he said that destinations for young people leaving schools and colleges had to be moved front and centre, “giving school leaders and teachers the freedom to deliver the outcomes that we want for our young people.” He said that a planned programme of skills reforms could only be a success only if it went hand in hand with a school system that was equally focused on preparing young people for work and adult life.

Halfon continued that the sustained expansion of degree apprenticeships was vital to “fundamentally address the issue of parity of esteem between academic and vocational education, which has plagued this country for far too long“.

He concluded that foundations must be laid in schools through a “broad and balanced curriculum, intensive employer engagement, and destination measures as a key driver of success” which would “create the basis for a holistic system that prepares young people for high-quality T-levels and apprenticeships as part of a blended route that breaks down the artificial divide between academic and technical education to create a real ladder of opportunity for our young people.”

Anne Milton (Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills) added that progress should “not be about who someone knows or actually about what they know, or where they live or where they come from; it should be about what skills they have.” On the curriculum she said that it was “important widen young people’s eyes to the opportunities that are out there” but “a good foundation in certain key subjects, such as English, maths and digital skills” was equally important.

Halfon asked the minister how the Government would enforce schools to implement legalisation to invite apprenticeship organisations and university technical colleges into schools and further education colleges. She said as the legalisation was only introduced in January it will still being monitored.

Widening Participation and Achievement

A manifesto for new Director of Fair Access and Participation – HEPI and Brightside have issued a report calling for the OfS to take specific steps in improving access to HE for those from underrepresented groups. Reaching the parts of society universities have missed: A manifesto for the new Director of Fair Access and Participation has contributions from NUS, Rob Halfon MP (Chair Education Select Committee), the Sutton Trust, and other ‘leading thinkers from academic and university administration, think tanks and the media’.

Taken from the HEPI blog on the report the proposals include:

experimenting with post-qualification admissions;
appointing a Commissioner for Student Mental Health;
requiring targets for students from care;
delivering mandatory unconscious bias training for staff;
granting fee waivers to asylum-seekers;
guaranteeing mentoring for every pupil who wants it;
curbing the use of unconditional offers (see note below);
mandating statistical returns on sexual orientation; and
founding new Oxbridge colleges to widen access.

Chris Millward, Director for Fair Access and Participation at OfS welcomed the manifesto, his response confirms he’ll discuss the ideas and refocuses on those priorities already announced, the push for common data indicators and a radical increase in ambition next year echo recent announcements. Chris said:

I am grateful for this wealth of expert advice, especially the contributions from students. I look forward to discussing these ideas with many of the authors today, and in the coming year as I develop the way that the OfS regulates access and participation.
I am pleased to see that many of the issues given priority are ones that I am already addressing in my guidance to universities and colleges….there are still wide gaps for mature students, for white males from the lowest income groups, and at the universities with the highest admissions requirements. And when students do enter higher education, certain groups also face real barriers to succeeding during and after their studies, particularly Black and Asian students and those with disabilities. I have made it clear to universities and colleges that I expect them to address these issues in their access and participation plans, which the OfS must approve if they wish to charge higher tuition fees.
Students need a genuine choice of routes into higher education at different points of life, including high quality technical routes, such as degree apprenticeships, that will work for students from all backgrounds. Students need a more transparent and sophisticated admissions system that tackles the gap between potential and opportunity at the point of entry.
And students need universities and employers to face up to the reasons for differential outcomes within and beyond higher education, and make changes that mean everyone has a fair chance.
To succeed across all of these areas, the higher education sector will also need more robust and common data, indicators and evidence of “what works”, and a longer term approach to evaluation and target-setting.
We will be focusing on all of these issues during the first year of the Office for Students. In doing so, we want to establish the basis for a radical increase in ambition next year, when we will agree new targets for universities and colleges to reduce the gaps in access, success and progression.

The report was picked up by The Times (focus on Oxbridge expansion) and The Guardian (focus on white working class boys access).

The position on unconditional offers is interesting – the recent wave of feeling against unconditional offers is interesting as previously it was seen as an effective and positive mechanism with which to engage non-traditional learners, especially care leavers. Arguments against it now are that it narrows the WP student’s choice perhaps leading to them selecting a lower status institution because of the unconditional offer rather than aspiring higher; that it may take up a place another ‘more deserving’ student could access; and that those with unconditional offers are not under pressure to perform as well in their level 3 exams.

Opportunity for Everyone

UUK have blogged on the Opportunity for everyone campaign and remind that HE’s role in aiding social mobility is more than increasing the earning potential of graduates:

many graduates lead fulfilling lives in rewarding careers such as nursing, teaching and social work, all of which make immense contributions to society and the economy but pay less on average.

UKK call for the OfS to

‘consider extending the duration of Access and Participation Plans to allow universities to take a longer-term, strategic approach to the issues facing their own university community’ and for ‘the OfS should work to introduce a more strategic and effective approach to target setting and monitoring, including support for universities to contextualise their applicants’ prior achievements’.

The UUK blog notes there is more work to be done by universities on reducing drop out and improving the percentage of good degrees for students from underrepresented backgrounds.

Disabled Students Parliamentary Question

Q – Roger Godsiff: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 24 April 2018 to Question 135864 on Disabled Students’ Allowances, what assessment his Department has made of trends in the level of reliance of disabled students’ on assistive technology.

A – Sam Gyimah: Information on the use of assistive technology in higher education can be found in this 2017 report, commissioned by the then Higher Education Funding Council for England.

International staff and students

Mobility report – Wonkhe summarise the Universities UK International (UUKi) publication of the fourth annual Gone International report. They explain the report again finds more positive outcomes for students (e.g. 4.7% more with firsts and 0.8% more in employment) who have studied abroad than for their peers who haven’t. In addition, this year, new analysis finds positive outcomes for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and for short-term study, work and volunteer placements (up to four weeks). Disadvantaged students are 3.6% less likely to study abroad than their more advantaged peers, despite benefitting more. The report is based on 2015/16 Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey data. 16,580 students chose international study, the highest-ever number, but at only 415 more than the previous year, this remains the same proportion (7.2%). 53.1% of all 2014/15 placements were via Erasmus+, through which the UK received record levels of funding and which the UK government has “guaranteed” to remain part of until 2020. (Summary from Wonkhe.)

International Staff: Parliamentary Question

Q – Gordon Marsden: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Home Secretary on the (a) current and (b) future costs of (i) visas and (ii) permanent residency documents for overseas academics to work at UK Universities.

A – Sam Gyimah: Department for Education officials meet regularly with Home Office officials to discuss a range of issues regarding overseas academic staff at UK universities. Border, immigration and citizenship fees are reviewed on an annual basis. The current visa fees are set out in the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Regulations 2018.

Cancelled Visas

Last week we told you about the Test of English for International Communication scandal whereby the Home Office cancelled the visas of 35,000 students suspected of cheating the English fluency test. It was revealed the methods used to determine cheating had a 20% error rate and up to 7,000 genuine students were prevented from studying. This week its reported the NUS have released a report produced following an investigation by their legal firm Bindmans LLP criticising the Government and calling for action and redress. We haven’t been able to find the report itself but The Financial Times have covered the story.

Research Integrity

Sam Gyimah was interviewed for the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee investigation into research integrity. The committee heard that universities should be held responsible for the full compliance of upholding standards of research integrity but the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation declined to assert that funding should be dependent on this. Other topics covered included concordant sign up, self-assessment and disclosure in clinical trials. Read the full summary of the session provided by Dods Consultants here.

Industrial strategy funding opportunities

This week the Government launched several new initiatives and challenges funded through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.

Resolving Social Challenges – On Thursday Oliver Dowden (Minister for Implementation) announced a series of competitions for tech firms to develop solutions tackling current social challenges. While the initiatives focus on the business sector some of the topics are interesting. Each contributes to the Government’s Grand Challenges – the data economy; clean growth; reducing plastic waster, tackling loneliness and healthy ageing and the future of mobility – the competition is designed to incentivise Britain’s tech firms to come up with innovative solutions to improve public services.

The forthcoming challenges:

Identifying terrorist still imagery (Home Office). Home Office research shows that more than two-thirds of terrorist propaganda disseminated online is still imagery. This project will support both Government analysis of, and broader efforts to remove, this harmful material.
Tracking waste through the waste chain, submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). A new technological approach could help record, check and track waste, helping boost productivity, reduce costs, and protect both human health and the environment.
Tackling loneliness and rural isolation, submitted by Monmouthshire Council. The government recognises that rural transport is vital to local communities, and businesses. A technological solution, exploiting vehicles with spare capacity could support rural economies.
Cutting traffic congestion, submitted by Department for Transport (DfT). Greater collection and new analysis of data could help target interventions to cut congestion.
Local authorities have large numbers of council vehicles crossing their areas every day. If they can be equipped with innovative data capture systems, they could understand potholes, litter, recycling, parking, air quality and more in real-time, every day, for no added cost. This could mean reduced service delivery costs and better local services.

The first of these competitions opens on Monday 14 May and runs for six weeks, with the remaining competitions being launched in subsequent months. Tech firms bidding to the fund will have free rein to create truly innovative fixes. Winning companies will be awarded up to £50,000 to develop their ideas.

Creative Industries – The Government has announced a funding competition – Audience of the future: demonstrators opening Monday 21 May. £16 million will be invested in 4 large scale creative industries demonstrator projects (£5-£10 million each) through the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. It aims to explore future global, mass market, commercial opportunities in the creative industries. Primarily this will be through pre-commercial collaboration at scale. Projects should significantly improve the current state of art in their field. The projects must explore new ways of communication with mass audiences (100,000+) using new immersive technologies and experiences that are a significant advancement on the state of art in the chosen area. The high level of innovation and scale should be capable of transforming the sector and replicable across the creative industries. The project should generate audience and consumer information that could be used to test the viability of new business models. The Government suggests that areas with strong potential could include moving images, access to live sporting events, visitor experiences in museums and galleries, and music and theatre performance. See here for more information.

A further £1 million is available for early-stage projects (£20-60k) that seek to understand customer needs for immersive experiences and the tools needed to deliver them. Early-stage projects should use human-centered design and look at audience behaviour to develop ideas for new products and services. Particular areas could include:

advancing the state-of-the-art with immersive experiences that are desirable and fit-for-purpose
producing high-quality immersive content cheaper, faster and in a way that is more accessible
improving physical devices such as eyewear and controllers, or haptic feedback
new digital platforms and services to deliver immersive content

See here for more information on the early-stage projects.

The PM spoke on Tuesday to praise Britain’s arts sector:

But of course, the value of culture and creativity lies not only in its economic strength. Just as important is the less tangible contribution that it makes to our national life. The work you do brings joy to millions. It fosters unity, gives us a common currency. It helps to define and build our sense of national character.
“Without culture […] society is but a jungle”. Your work is a vital part of our national life and our national economy, and I am absolutely committed to supporting it.
Our ambitious sector deal for the creative industries, announced just before Easter, will see a further £150 million invested by government and industry, spreading success and making the sector fit to face the future.

She also announced a £3 million fund of new money to support creative projects within the Northern Powerhouse region on Tuesday. Offering a mix of grants and loans, the social investment fund will be open to non-profit, community-based organisations that deliver a positive social impact. Full speech here.

Nurse Training

Nursing has been in the news again this week. A series of oral parliamentary questions reveal the Government’s unwavering approach towards nurse training and on Wednesday there was a debate on the Government’s plans to remove funding from post-graduate converters into nursing (announced in February). The removal affects the two-year course for those who hold degrees in other subjects. It is controversial as this is the fastest way to train a registered nurse and there is currently a shortage of 40,000 nurses in England. The change brings the post-graduate courses in line with the undergraduate nurse training which has already lost the NUS bursary and now falls under the student loan system.

The Commons debate was secured as a result of opposition pressure, following a report by the Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, which referenced evidence submitted by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The RCN arranged for a number of student nurses, who currently receive post-graduate funding, to visit parliament during April to meet MPs and peers and explain what financial support has meant for them.

Michael Lawton, who received the NHS post-graduate bursary and is currently working as a registered nurse, said:

“Without the bursary I couldn’t have applied and I wouldn’t be in a career I love, giving patients the great care they deserve. I know I make a difference every day. MPs I’ve spoken to are shocked at how many hours we do in clinical placement. By removing the bursary, the Government is asking people to pay to work on placements to keep the NHS afloat and that isn’t right.

Current post-graduate nursing student Georgie Ellmore-Jones said:

“After my undergraduate degree I was already in a lot of debt. When I looked at pursuing a career in nursing and saw it was funded, it made it more certain in my mind that I wanted to do it. At post-graduate level many of the students have families and children to look after so adding more debt will only discourage potential students.”

The Commons vote held for the Government and the postgraduate bursaries will be removed. Responses from the Opposition:

Angela Rayner (Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary) said: “The Government has badly failed the next generation of nurses today by forcing through further cuts to their support and burdening health students with yet more debt”.

Jonathan Ashworth (Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary) said: “The Government’s decision to abolish NHS bursaries has led to a huge fall in numbers applying for these courses and will make the NHS staffing crisis even worse. Now Ministers are pushing ahead with further bursary cuts in the face of all evidence. By cutting bursaries for postgraduate students, the Tories’ vote tonight makes it even harder for people to train to work in the NHS.”

On Tuesday there were a series of oral questions on nursing to the Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay).

Q – Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) & (Lab) Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op) & Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op): What assessment he has made of the effect of the withdrawal of NHS bursaries on applications for nursing degrees.

A – The Minister for Health (Stephen Barclay): Nursing remains a strong career choice, with more than 22,500 students placed during the 2017 UCAS application cycle. Demand for nursing places continues to outstrip the available training places.

Q – Gill Furniss: Figures from the Royal College of Nursing show that applications have fallen by 33% since the withdrawal of bursaries. At the same time, the Government’s Brexit shambles has led to a drastic decline in EU nursing applications. How many years of such decline do we have to see before the Secretary of State and the Minister will intervene?

A – Stephen Barclay: What matters is not the number of rejected applicants, but the increase in places—the number of people actually training to be a nurse. The reality is that 5,000 more nurses will be training each year up to 2020 as a result of the changes.

Q – Stella Creasy: The NHS already has 34,000 nursing vacancies. Given that there has been a 97% drop in nursing applications from the EU and that studies show that nearly half of all hospital shifts include agency nurses, will the Minister at least admit that cutting the bursary scheme has been a false economy for our NHS?

A – Stephen Barclay: It is not a false economy to increase the supply of nurses, which is what the changes have done. Indeed, they form part of a wider package of measures, including “Agenda for Change”, pay rises and the return to practice scheme, which has seen 4,355 starters returning to the profession. More and more nurses are being trained, which is why we now have over 13,000 more nurses than in 2010.

Q – Grahame Morris: I respectfully remind the Minister that this is about recruitment and retention. The RCN says that we can train a postgraduate nurse within 18 months, which is a significant untapped resource, so why are the Government planning to withdraw support from postgraduate nurses training, too?

A – Stephen Barclay: We have a debate involving postgraduate nursing tomorrow, but the intention is to increase the number of such nurses by removing the current cap, which means that many who want to apply for postgraduate courses cannot find the clinical places to do so. That is the nature of tomorrow’s debate, and I look forward to seeing the hon. Gentleman in the Chamber.

Q – Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): Will my hon. Friend, on top of the degree nursing apprenticeships, rapidly increase the nursing apprenticeship programme so nurses can earn while they learn, have no debt and get a skill that they and our country need?

A – Stephen Barclay: My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to signpost this as one of a suite of ways to increase the number of nurses in the profession. As he alludes to, there will be 5,000 nursing apprenticeships this year, and we are expanding the programme, with 7,500 starting next year.

Q – Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD): With every reputable independent body showing very clearly that we have a staffing crisis in the NHS nursing profession, can the Minister explain how cutting bursaries actually improves the situation?

A – Stephen Barclay: I am very happy to do so. We are removing the cap on the number of places covered by the bursaries and increasing the number of student places by 25%, which means that there will be 5,000 more nurses in training as a result of these changes.

Q – Dr Philippa Whitford (Central Ayrshire) (SNP): The Secretary of State’s removal of the nursing bursary and introduction of tuition fees have resulted in a 33% drop in applications in England. In Scotland, we have kept the bursary, a carer’s allowance and free tuition, which means that student nurses are up to £18,000 a year better off, and indeed they also earn more once they graduate. Does the Minister recognise that that is why applications in Scotland have remained stable while in England they have dropped by a third?

A- Stephen Barclay: The hon. Lady speaks with great authority on health matters, but, again, she misses the distinction between the number of applicants and the number of nurses in training. It is about how many places are available, and we are increasing by 25% the number of nurses in training. That is what will address the supply and address some of the vacancies in the profession.

Q – Dr Whitford: Workforce is a challenge for all four national health services across the UK, but, according to NHS Improvement, there are 36,000 nursing vacancies in England, more than twice the rate in Scotland. The Minister claims that more nurse students are training, but in fact there were 700 fewer in training in England last year, compared with an 8% increase in Scotland. The key difference is that in Scotland we are supporting the finances of student nurses, so will the Government accept that removing the nursing bursary was a mistake and reintroduce it?

A – Stephen Barclay: The distinction the hon. Lady fails to make is that in England we are increasing the number of nurses in training by 25%; we are ensuring that nurses who have left the profession can return through the return-to-work programme; and we are introducing significant additional pay through “Agenda for Change”. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) said, we are also creating new routes so that those who come into the NHS through other routes, such as by joining as a healthcare assistant, are not trapped in those roles but are able to progress, because the Conservative party backs people who want to progress in their careers. Healthcare assistants who want to progress into nursing should have that opportunity.

Q – Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab): When defending the decision to scrap bursaries, the Secretary of State said that, if done right, it could provide up to 20,000 extra nursing posts by 2020. Well, that figure now looks wildly optimistic, with applications down two years in a row. Is it not time that Ministers admitted they have got this one wrong and joined the Opposition in the Lobby tomorrow to vote against any further extensions to this failed policy?

A – Stephen Barclay: If Members vote against the policy tomorrow, the reality is that they will be voting for a cap on the number of postgraduate nurses going into the system, and therefore they will be saying that more people should be rejected—more people should lose the opportunity to become nurses—because they want to have a cap that restricts the supply of teaching places.

Consultations

Click here to view the updated consultation tracker. Email us on policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you’d like to contribute to any of the current consultations.

Other news

Did you know that Sarah also writes political updates covering specific academic areas on the BU Research Blog,– read the latest one here and watch out for these under the “policy” tag.

Bees: On Tuesday Ben Bradley (Conservative, Mansfield) made his case for a Private Members’ Bill to make provision about the protection of pollinators. Permission to progress the Bill was granted and our regional MP Oliver Letwin will take part in presenting the bill.

Journals: Inside Higher Ed talks of the American Universities ending costly journal subscriptions with major publishers.

Mental Health: The Commons Education, Health and Social Care Committees have published their response to the inquiry on young people’s mental health: The Government’s Green Paper on mental health: failing a generation. An oral parliamentary question was also asked on the topic on Tuesday:

Q – Helen Whately: I welcome the Green Paper on mental health in schools, which was published earlier this year, but it does prompt a question about the mental health of students in further and higher education. Does my right hon. Friend have any plans to look into that issue? If he does not, may I urge him to do so?

A – Jackie Doyle-Price: I thank my hon. Friend for her question and her continued industry on these matters. As she mentioned, the Green Paper outlined plans to set up a new national strategic partnership focused on improving the mental health of 16 to 25-year-olds. That partnership is likely to support and build on sector-led initiatives in higher education, such as Universities UK’s #stepchange project, whose launch I attended in September. The strategy calls on higher education leaders to adopt mental health as a strategic priority, to take a whole-university approach to mental health and to embed it across policies, courses and practices.

Plastics: The Government have announced a new research and innovation hub to tackle plastic waste in the oceans.

Anti-cheating efforts: The Times has an article on a Lincoln University that is using ‘personalised essays to stamp out plagiarism’. The short article doesn’t go into detail on how the personalisation is achieved except: Degrees at the university, including a course in business, are offering alternative assessments that are both practical and written. A spokesman said: “In this way, the evidence each student produces is highly individual and it would be extremely difficult for an unrelated third party to be able to fulfil the requirements of the assignment brief. Although this method of assessment cannot be used as a panacea to the issue — nor is it appropriate in every situation — it raises the question of how appropriate current assessment methods are and to what extent they evidence personal learning.”

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

May 8, 2018

Virtual Problems STEAMLab

BU research, Events, Research Training, Uncategorized apekalski

On Wednesday, 6^th June 2018, BU’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Office will be facilitating a STEAMLab event on Virtual problems.

Which means…?

We’re seeking to come up with novel research which addresses the challenges of new immersive technology.

So, who should attend?

We want anyone who thinks they might have something to contribute, and who is available all day on Wednesday 6th June to come along. We will also be inviting relevant external attendees to contribute to the day. We welcome academics, NGO/business/government representatives/SMEs who wish to contribute to having a positive impact through addressing the challenges.

What do I need to prepare in advance? What will the STEAMLab entail?

Absolutely nothing in advance. During the STEAMLab, you’ll be guided through a process which results in the development of research ideas. The process facilitates creativity, potentially leading to innovative and interdisciplinary research ideas. These ideas will be explored with other attendees, and further developed based on the feedback received.

What if I don’t have time to think about ideas in advance?

You don’t need to do this. Some inspiring speakers with a range of backgrounds will be coming along to give your ideas…

What about afterwards? Do I need to go away and do loads of work?

Well… that depends! The STEAMLab will result in some novel research ideas. Some of these may be progressed immediately; others might need more time to think about. You may find common ground with other attendees which you choose to take forward in other ways, such as writing a paper or applying for research funding. Support will be available to progress project ideas after the day.

What if my topic area is really specific, such as health?

Your contribution will be very welcome! One of the main benefits of a STEAMlab event is to bring together individuals with a range of backgrounds and specialisms who are able to see things just that bit differently to one another.

So, is this just networking?

Definitely not! It is a facilitated session with the primary intention of developing innovative research ideas, which also enables the development of networks. It gives you the opportunity to explore research ideas which you may develop over time, together with the chance to find common ground with academics from across BU and beyond.

So, how do I book onto this event?

To take part in this exciting opportunity, all participants should complete the Virtual Problems-challenges-STEAMLab-Application-Form and return this to RKEDevFramework@bournemouth.ac.uk by 25th May. Places are strictly limited and you will be be contacted to confirm a place place on the STEAMLab with arrangements nearer the time. The event will be held in Bournemouth at the Fusion building.

By applying, you agree to attend for the full duration of the event on 6th June (c. 9:30 – 16:30). Spaces will be confirmed on 1/6/18.

If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact Alexandra Pekalski RKEO Research Facilitator.

May 1, 2018

Virtual Problems STEAMLab

BU research, Events, innovation, Knowledge Exchange apekalski

On Wednesday, 6^th June 2018, BU’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Office will be facilitating a STEAMLab event on Virtual problems.

Which means…?

We’re seeking to come up with novel research which addresses the challenges of new immersive technology.

So, who should attend?

What do I need to prepare in advance? What will the STEAMLab entail?

What if I don’t have time to think about ideas in advance?

You don’t need to do this. Some inspiring speakers with a range of backgrounds will be coming along to give your ideas…

What about afterwards? Do I need to go away and do loads of work?

What if my topic area is really specific, such as health?

So, is this just networking?

So, how do I book onto this event?

By applying, you agree to attend for the full duration of the event on 6th June (c. 9:30 – 16:30). Spaces will be confirmed on 1/6/18.

If you have any queries prior to submitting your application, please contact Alexandra Pekalski RKEO Research Facilitator.

February 27, 2018

Faraday Battery Challenge: Innovation R&D, round 2 DEADLINE: 28/3/18

BU research emilner

Funding of £500k-£15m is available for innovation projects lasting up to 30 months that will help address the commercial challenges of battery innovation, development and manufacture through the UK supply chains. The deadline for applications is 28/3/18.

All projects must involve at least one SME and must be conducted in collaboration. To find out more, please click here.

February 27, 2018

Digital health technology catalyst round 2: DEADLINE 18/4/18

BU research emilner

Are you working with an SME on a digital health project? Industrial research and developmental project have funds available for £300k-£1m for projects lasting up to 30 months and work with at least one other partner. All projects should start by August 2018. Areas of importance include:

1. Improving health, and closing the health and wellbeing gap with:

cancer diagnosis and treatment
mental health early stage intervention and treatment
diabetes risk and incidence reduction

2. Transforming care, and closing the care and quality gap with:

urgent and emergency care provision
management of primary care workload
enabling patient choice in elective care

3. Controlling costs and enabling change, and closing the finance and efficiency gap through the use of technology to maintain or improve levels of care with reduced spending.

Please note, all projects must be led by a UK business and must have at least one other partner. For further details, please go here.

January 3, 2018

Places still available- Meeting the Industrial Challenges – 8/1/18

Events, RKE development framework emilner

Start the New Year learning about new opportunities. This session will detail what we’ve learned about preparing projects in relation to meeting the UK governments Industrial Challenges. While specifically addressing the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, other avenues will also be explored covering how academia and industry can work together.

• Attendees will learn about the latest Industrial Challenge related schemes
• Attendees will learn the which partners are eligible for specific funding calls
• Attendees will gain insight into what has been learnt prior ISCF applications

This session on “Meeting the Industrial Challenges” will run throughout 2018 at regular intervals to provide the latest updates to the Industrial Strategy Challenges Fund and related schemes. Spaces are still available for the first session taking place next week on 8/1/18, 13:00-14:00. To book onto the course please click here.

December 4, 2017

HE policy update for the w/e 1st December 2017

BU research, Business Engagement, EU, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Fusion themes, HEIF, Impact, innovation, international, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Transfer Partnership, PG research, policy, Public engagement, Research assessment, Research news, Uncategorized jforster

The KEF is coming

On 1^st December, HEFCE launched a consultation on the new Knowledge Exchange Framework – the KEF – which was announced earlier in the Autumn by the Jo Johnson – as the “third leg” of the HE stool*. Putting aside the rather unflattering stool analogy, we prefer to think of this as the third side of the Fusion triangle. (For those of you who have not yet looked at the staff consultation on the BU2025 strategy, spoiler alert – the proposed new Fusion device is more of a vaguely triangular swirl. Much more inclusive and dynamic. And better colours than the red and yellow of the previous one.) But anyway, knowledge exchange is an important part of what we do at BU and this is important.

The consultation, which closes at the end of January, will give us a chance to contribute to the design of this framework. The HEFCE press release says “The KEF metrics system will provide more information for the public and businesses on the performance of universities in knowledge exchange – how they share knowledge, expertise and other assets for the benefit of the economy and society. The aim is to provide regularly updated data that enables fair comparison between institutions’ performance in knowledge exchange. This will help to support further improvements in universities and promote accountability, responsiveness to economic and societal needs and effective use of public funds.”

So much like the TEF this is being pitched as being about value for money and choice (for those interested in funding research or choosing where to work). And, like the REF (indirectly), and as with the TEF (at least as originally planned – more on this later), there are cash incentives for universities to do well in this new framework via HEIF funding.

“The KEF metrics will help support the Industrial Strategy, which includes the commitment announced on 27 November to increase Higher Education Innovation Funding to £250 million by 2020-21. This increase will allow Universities to work with businesses of all sizes to support the delivery of the Industrial Strategy in diverse ways.”

And of course, like the TEF, the key to all of it is the metrics. A metrics working group has been established – details of the people are below.

There are only 5 questions, as follows.

What approaches and data need to be used to ensure a fair and meaningful comparison between different universities, taking into account factors that might impact individual institution’s knowledge exchange performance (such as research income, size or local economic conditions), whilst allowing identification of relative performance? How should benchmarking be used?
Other than HE-BCI survey data, what other existing sources of data could be used to inform a framework, and how should it be used?
What new (or not currently collected) data might be useful to such a framework?
How should KEF metrics be visualised to ensure they are simple, transparent and useful to a non-specialist audience?
Any other comments?

This is a bit of a concern. If it measures research income, there is a great risk of it being circular – and therefore not inclusive across the sector. This would conflict with the principles behind the Industrial Strategy – which are about focussing on areas of strength – wherever they are. We would prefer it not to be entirely metrics based (as we said for the TEF – where the written submission became a key part of the process and had a significant impact on the outcome in some cases).

Questions 2 and 3 are the opportunities to get into this debate – even through the questions are framed as questions about metrics. The letter from the Minister commissioning the work is a bit more helpful: “The design process should: …

Consider whether additional metrics can be devised and collected to provide a more comprehensive view of the effectiveness of universities’ external engagement, whilst having regard to the burden and cost of collection.
Take into account factors that might impact individual universities’ knowledge exchange performance, such as the university’s research income, size or local economic conditions, to ensure comparability between institutions …”

We will be working with RKEO to draft a BU response to this, so please contact policy@bournemouth.ac.uk if you would like to contribute to this process.

The key people involved: “The technical group, chaired by Professor Richard Jones FRS, University of Sheffield, will advise HEFCE and later RE on the design and delivery of the new KEF metrics system. The group’s members have been chosen to provide expertise in knowledge exchange metrics and external insights on performance. The members of the KEF metrics technical advisory group are:

Chair: Professor Richard Jones, FRS, Professor of Physics, University of Sheffield. EPSRC Council Member.
Tomas Coates Ulrichsen, Research Associate, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation, University of Cambridge.
Alice Frost, Head of Knowledge Exchange policy, HEFCE / Research England.
Alice Hu Wagner, Managing Director for Strategy, Economics and Markets, British Business Bank.
Professor Graeme Reid, Professor of Science and Research Policy, University College London. Member of the Research England Council.
Mr Peter Saraga CBE, FREng, Senior Independent Member on the Research England Council. Former Managing Director of Philips Research Laboratories UK, Chair of HEFCE’s UKRPIF panel, and formerly President of the Institute of Physics and Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
Stian Westlake, Policy Adviser to the Minister for State for Universities, Research and Innovation at Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).
BEIS observer: Carolyn Reeve / Thomas Crawley.
HEFCE / Office for Students observers: Mario Ferelli, Richard Puttock
Higher Educations Statistics Agency (HESA) observer: Andy Youell, Director of Data Policy and Governance, HESA.
Head of secretariat: Hamish McAlpine, HEFCE / Research England

Professor Trevor McMillan, Vice-Chancellor of Keele University, has been leading work on the principles and good practices of university knowledge exchange since 2015. He will continue to do so, including providing advice to UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). For the KEF metrics system, Professor McMillan and his university expert group will advise on the value of the exercise for good practice development within universities”.

*(with REF and TEF – we’re in TLA chaos. Even though the TEF is now TESOF (SO = student outcomes) but we’re not allowed to call it that). Arguably as has been noted elsewhere, the KEF should be KEEF – Knowledge Exchange Excellence Framework). As we have also noted before, many voices have suggested that the OfS should be the OfSHE (Office for Students and Higher Education). But TLAs are the thing, it seems).

And…the major review of fees and funding….

We have discussed the options for fees and funding a lot recently, as the “national debate” that followed the election was continued over the summer and the debate shifted to whether there would be a review or not after the Conservative Party Conference in October. The Minister told Wonkfest in early November to watch for it in the budget, but no…. The BBC reported on 1^st December that it is actually happening – so please keep watching this space.

Future of skills and lifelong learning report

The Government Office for Science have issued the Future of Skills and Lifelong Learning report. In 112 pages it sets out a pathway to develop skills in the UK to support the Industrial Strategy, productivity and improve wages (and health and wellbeing along the way).

The focus on workplace learning, placements and work experience, and the role of extra-curricular activities are very interesting and consistent with the BU approach in many ways – so this is interesting for us. It also raises interesting questions about supply and demand and information flows.

To quote from the executive summary:

“Young adults in the UK have relatively poor literacy and numeracy and there are signs that we are falling further behind international competitors. …Seven OECD countries have numeracy scores equal to or higher than the UK for all age groups, and the number of countries increases considerably if the UK’s high-performing 60-65 age group is excluded. Literacy for UK 16-19 year-olds is ahead of only Chile and Turkey among a group of 24 (mostly OECD) countries. Literacy and numeracy performance varies between UK regions, with London and the South East achieving the highest scores …There is also evidence of intergenerational effects, with poor parental attainment reflected in the educational outcomes of the child. Breaking out of this cycle may require interventions that target both the parent and child, for example family learning programmes. Improvements to literacy and numeracy continue beyond school and higher education into the early years of work, suggesting that workplace environments play an important role in developing these skills.
Employers believe labour market entrants are not properly prepared for the workforce; again the UK compares poorly against other countries. Employers are looking not only for better literacy and numeracy, relevant qualifications and/or discipline-specific training but also for more positive attitudes towards work as well as ‘character’ attributes. Greater collaboration between employers and education providers may help to ensure that education-leavers are equipped with the skills that are in demand. Work placements and experience can help individuals gain the non-academic skills desired by employers. However, only around one-third of employers offer these opportunities and they are predominantly found in the South East of England. Informal learning also has a part to play, including participation in peer-to-peer learning or sports and other extra-curricular activities.
The UK has relatively large mismatches between the supply of and the demand for skills. Skills underutilisation is particularly high in the UK, while at the same time there are shortages of some particular high-level skills. Such mismatches imply that education providers are not offering, or students are not selecting, the courses that match with employers’ skills needs, and that future skill needs are not being fully anticipated. Improving the quality of and access to labour market information may be able to help address this.
Many places and sectors in the UK are in “low skills equilibrium”. A low skills equilibrium occurs when the availability of low-skilled jobs is matched by a low-skilled workforce, such that students have limited incentives to gain higher skills (or to remain in that place if they have them) and employers adapt to but are constrained by the skills supply. This is a stable equilibrium that can only be changed if supply and demand for skills are addressed together. If only the supply of skills improves, not the demand, it will create surplus and underutilisation or prompt migration to where those skills are in demand. This suggests that close partnerships between employers and providers of education and training are required to avoid mismatches, or improved infrastructure is needed to facilitate longer commuting distances.
Participation in formal learning declines with age. Adult learning is in overall decline and is disproportionately taken up by wealthier, more highly skilled individuals. Formal workplace training has also declined over the last 15 years. This may in part be explained by the fact that learning by adults aged 55+ has shifted from formal to ‘informal’ channels in the last decade or so, with higher socio-economic groups more likely to engage in such self-directed or peer-driven learning, potentially because of positive prior experience of education. While cost and lack of time are reported as common barriers to adult learning for individuals of all skill levels, individuals with no qualifications are more likely to cite attitudinal barriers including lack of confidence, lack of interest, and feeling too old to learn. However, low skilled individuals or those from poor socio-economic backgrounds and minority groups, reap the greatest rewards from learning. If the former trend persists, it suggests that older and particularly lower skilled individuals will be especially vulnerable in a future labour market that is likely to place a premium on lifelong learning.

And one conclusion:

“Analysis of the wage benefits associated with higher levels of education suggests that the returns on learning are substantial. A 2013 estimate found that an individual who has earned a bachelor’s degree will earn on average £210,000 more over the course of their lifetime, after taxes and loan costs, than someone with only A-levels. The benefit is greater for women, at £252,000 than for men, at £168,0006 (BIS, 2013b, p.5).”

Industrial Strategy

As noted, this was published last week and we are still digesting it (another 100+ pages). However, at least the models are simplified from the Green Paper (10 pillars etc). Now it has 5 foundations: Ideas, People, Infrastructure, Business Environment and Places and 4 grand challenges. The paper says “Our focus on them responds to the detailed feedback to the Green Paper”.

To coincide with the publication of the Industrial Strategy White Paper, UUK has published new guidance for businesses on how best to involve and engage with universities when developing a sector deal.

So what is actually going to happen? There is more detail below – and some practical steps to implement it:

“We will create an independent Industrial Strategy Council that will develop measures to assess and evaluate our Industrial Strategy and make recommendations to the government. The Council will have access to relevant government data and will be funded to commission specific evaluation projects as appropriate. It will be drawn from leading business men and women, investors, economists and academics from across the UK.”
“Investing in R&D to transform our economy. For the UK to become the most innovative country in the world we need a generational increase in public and private R&D investment. In this strategy we commit to reach 2.4 per cent of GDP investment in R&D by 2027 and to reach 3 per cent of GDP in the longer term, placing us in the top quartile of OECD countries. If we meet this target we will transform our economy. It could increase public and private R&D investment by as much as £80bn over the next 10 years, with much wider benefits across the UK economy.”

To do this:

As a first step we will invest an additional £2.3bn over what was previously planned in 2021/22, raising total public investment in R&D to approximately £12.5bn in that year alone.
We will work with industry in the coming months to develop a roadmap for meeting this target. This will provide a framework to drive business investment in R&D and focus on key sectors, technologies and clusters, including by optimising government investment to drive private investment in R&D and considering further opportunities to improve the business environment, including access to finance, regulatory frameworks, and intellectual property. This will maximise the impact of public investment in science and innovation to support businesses to invest more and drive outputs to realise our commitment to invest 2.4 per cent of GDP in R&D.
We will invest a further £725m in a second wave of the Industrial Strategy Challenge programme across the UK to respond to some of the greatest global challenges and opportunities – from climate change to automation….
We will invest £300m over the next three years in world-class talent including in priority areas aligned with the Industrial Strategy, such as artificial intelligence, to enhance our skilled workforce and attract private sector R&D investment. This investment will focus on collaboration and the flow of people between industry and academia and interdisciplinary and cutting-edge research and innovation to support the Industrial Strategy programme and the Grand Challenges. Support will range from Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and PhD programmes, with strong and flexible links to industry, to prestigious awards that support rising stars and the top talent from both the UK and overseas.
We will work with our leading universities, research institutes and UK Research and Innovation to increase global investors’ R&D activities taking place in the UK. Of the world’s 2,500 top R&D investors, just 50 businesses are responsible for 40 per cent of private sector investment globally. If we could attract an additional five per cent of R&D from these top 50, UK based R&D would increase by around a third.
We will work with UKRI to develop a new competitive Strategic Priorities Fund…This will support high quality R&D priorities which would otherwise be missed – multidisciplinary and inter-disciplinary programmes identified by researchers and businesses at the cutting edge of research and innovation. …. UK Research and Innovation strategy will deliver a real-terms increase in council budgets of approximately 20 per cent between 2015/16 and 2019/20. We will also increase support for Quality-Related research through Research England. This recognises the vital importance of providing underpinning funding for our world-leading universities to invest in the excellence and impact of their research and ensure the sustainability of our research infrastructure.
We will improve the UK tax system to support innovation. ….
We will make it easier to finance innovation by increasing the resources for government agencies that promote and fund innovation like Innovate UK – our world leading innovation agency that supports businesses across the UK to collaborate and innovate – and the British Business Bank..
We are also allocating a further £44m of grant funding to enable Innovate UK to fund £150m of responsive grant competitions in 2017/18. This will allow it to support hundreds more high-growth businesses, collaborations and industries to innovate and compete in future global markets. In addition, Innovate UK will pilot new ways of financing innovation: – £50m Innovation Loans pilot over the next two years to target the most promising projects in viable businesses on the cusp of commercialisation, but not yet ready to access loans from commercial lenders; and – an Investment Accelerator pilot to bring in seed equity alongside grant funding by matching the most innovative early stage businesses with investors. …
We will develop an agile approach to regulation that promotes innovation, the growth of new sectors, and innovative market entrants while ensuring effective protections for citizens and the environment. An example is establishing a clear framework for autonomous vehicles and, through our Digital Charter, building agreement on the ethical and effective use of new technologies and data. …
We will improve public procurement as an important source of finance for innovative businesses that does not dilute their equity and gives an endorsement for others to invest. …. we will refocus the [Small Business Research Initiative] SBRI programme to increase its impact for innovative businesses, aligning it with Grand Challenges and building capability in the public sector to drive productivity by adopting SBRI solutions. As a first step, this month we announced a new GovTech Catalyst with a GovTech Fund of up to £20m over three years, which will use SBRI to support tech firms to provide the government with innovative solutions for more efficient public services

“We will:

Ideas:

raise total research and development(R&D) investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027;
increase the rate of R&D tax credit to 12 per cent;
invest £725m in new Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund programmes to capture the value of innovation;

People

establish a technical education system that rivals the best in the world to stand alongside our world-class higher education system;
invest an additional £406m in maths, digital and technical education, helping to address the shortage of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) skills;
create a new National Retraining Scheme that supports people to re-skill, beginning with a £64m investment for digital and construction training;

Infrastructure

increase the National Productivity Investment Fund to £31bn, supporting investments in transport, housing and digital infrastructure;
support electric vehicles through £400m charging infrastructure investment and an extra £100m to extend the plug-in car grant;
boost our digital infrastructure with over £1bn of public investment, including £176m for 5G and £200m for local areas to encourage roll out of full-fibre networks;

Business Environment

launch and roll-out Sector Deals – partnerships between government and industry aiming to increase sector productivity. The first Sector Deals are in life sciences, construction, artificial intelligence and the automotive sector;
drive over £20bn of investment in innovative and high potential businesses, including through establishing a new £2.5bn Investment Fund, incubated in the British Business Bank;
launch a review of the actions that could be most effective in improving the productivity and growth of small and medium-sized businesses, including how to address what has been called the ‘long tail’ of lower productivity firms;

Places

agree Local Industrial Strategies that build on local strengths and deliver on economic opportunities;
create a new Transforming Cities fund that will provide £1.7bn for intra-city transport. This will fund projects that drive productivity by improving connections within city regions; and
provide £42m to pilot a Teacher Development Premium. This will test the impact of a £1000 budget for high-quality professional development for teachers working in areas that have fallen behind.
These policies, alongside the many others set out in this document, are the first strategic actions of a long-term approach to transform our levels of productivity and our earning power as a nation, as businesses, as places, and as individuals. We are ready to be judged on our performance in implementing them.

Student visas

The Home Office released quarterly and annual immigration statistics including data on study visas here: Why do people come to the UK? (3) To study

The data relating to study found in the year ending September 2017:

An increase of 8 per cent in Short-term student visas
A 6 per cent increase in University sponsored study visa application
Increases of 9 per cent for Russell Group universities to 87,362,
A decrease of 4 per cent in applications for the Further education sector

Nationalities data for the year ending September 2017 (top 5):

China: +15 per cent
United States: +6 per cent
India: +27 per cent
Hong Kong: +5 per cent
Saudi Arabia: -2 per cent

The lead story is the rise in visa applications for Indian students, with the first annual rise in applications since 2010: THE Article. [thanks to Dods for the summary].

Jo Johnson has tweeted about this.

Committee inquiries

Two parliamentary committees on issues of key importance to the higher education sector are now taking written evidence.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights inquiry into freedom of speech in universities has a deadline for written evidence of 15 December, while the Treasury Committee’s inquiry into student loans will accept submissions until 31 December.

Earlier this week Professor Julia Buckingham, Vice-Chancellor of Brunel University London, represented UUK before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee in relation to its ongoing inquiry into the economics of higher, further and technical education.

Subscribe!

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JANE FORSTER | SARAH CARTER

Policy Advisor Policy & Public Affairs Officer

65111 65070

Follow: @PolicyBU on Twitter | policy@bournemouth.ac.uk

November 27, 2017

HE policy update for the w/e 24th November 2017

BU Challenges, Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Fusion, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, policy, Research news jforster

Industrial Strategy

A little bit late this week, but that gave us the opportunity to include a reference to the Industrial Strategy, launched today. It has just been published and you can find it here. It sounds as if it hasn’t moved on much from the Green Paper – read our end of summer summary here.

Headlines, courtesy of Dods, are:

Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund will invest £725 million in new programmes to capture the value of innovation
first ‘Sector Deals’ – to help sectors grow and equip businesses for future opportunities
4 ‘Grand Challenges’ which will take advantage of global trends to put the UK at the forefront of the industries of the future.

Sector Deals will include construction, life sciences, automotive and AI the first to benefit from these new strategic and long-term partnerships with government, backed by private sector co-investment. Work will continue with other sectors on transformative sector deals.

4 Grand Challenges; global trends that will shape our rapidly changing future and which the UK must embrace to ensure we harness all the opportunities they bring, they are:

artificial intelligence – we will put the UK at the forefront of the artificial intelligence and data revolution
clean growth – we will maximise the advantages for UK industry from the global shift to clean growth
ageing society – we will harness the power of innovation to help meet the needs of an ageing society
future of mobility – we will become a world leader in the way people, goods and services move

To ensure that the government is held to account on its progress in meeting the ambitions set out in the strategy, an Independent Industrial Strategy Council will be launched in 2018 to make recommendations to government on how it measures success.

Linked to this, ahead of the budget, the PM announced a boost to research funding. The Government will make an additional investment of £2.3 billion in 2021/22 (total R&D investment £12.5 billion in 2021/22). They will also work with industry to boost R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP by 2027 (possible increase of £80 billion over next 10 years).

The Business Secretary, Greg Clark said: “Through our Industrial Strategy we are committed to building a knowledge and innovation-led economy and this increase in R&D investment, to 2.4 per cent of GDP, is a landmark moment for the country. The UK is a world leader in science and innovation. By delivering this significant increase as part of our Industrial Strategy, we are building on our strengths and working with business to ensure that UK scientists and researchers continue to push the boundaries of innovation.”

Budget and the fees review

And having mentioned the budget – we were expecting an announcement about HE fees and funding, but there wasn’t one. There was a hint about post-study visas. As you will recall, if you have been following the “national debate” since May, a “major review” was promised by the PM at the Conservative Party conference in October with a freeze on fee increases in the meantime and nothing has been heard since. Fee increases for were put on hold – so that there are currently no planned increases for 2018/19 or beyond. Wonkhe have noticed that the “red book” that comes out with the budget has confirmed that this freeze is planned for 2 years but nothing is said beyond that. So the review may still be on the cards, but maybe the budget was too soon, or too risky, a forum for that announcement.

And with that in mind, note this bit from the summary of the Lords Select Committee proceedings below “Cross-subsidy is worth a major inquiry in its own right.”

Parliamentary Questions

Following the Panorama programme disclosing alleged abuse of the student loan system, questions were asked in Parliament last week

Gordon Marsden: What safeguards her Department operates to prevent the abuse of student loan funding by private Higher Education providers. [113082]

Joseph Johnson:

Higher Education Institutions that are designated for student support must, on an annual basis, meet robust standards for quality, financial sustainability, and management and governance.
Designated Alternative Providers without their own Degree Awarding Powers are also subject to student number controls, limiting the number of students eligible for student support that they can recruit each year.
The Department can and does use sanctions where breaches of the conditions of designation are identified, including the suspension or removal of designation for student support where we have serious concerns about providers.
Following the passage of the Higher Education and Research Act, the Office for Students (OfS) will be established formally in January 2018. It will provide, for the first time, a single regulator for higher education providers regardless of how they are funded. The OfS will have powers to assess the quality of, and standards applied to all English Higher Education provision.
The OfS will place a focus on students and greater emphasis on ensuring value for money for students and taxpayers. There will continue to be tough and rigorous tests for providers who want to enter the system and enable students from all backgrounds to receive funding.

Angela Rayner: What additional funding allocation her Department will receive for each of the next three financial years to fund the increased RAB charge resulting from the increase to post-2012 loan repayment thresholds. [113058]

Joseph Johnson:

The Government has frozen tuition fees for academic year 2018/19 and for financial year 2018-19 has raised both the repayment threshold and the thresholds at which variable interest rates apply to borrowers in repayment.
The repayment threshold will rise from £21,000 to £25,000 for the 2018-19 financial year (from 6 April 2018). Following the threshold change, interest will be charged at RPI for those earning below £25,000 (compared to £21,000 before) and at RPI+3% for those earning above £45,000 (compared to £41,000 before), with interest applied on a sliding scale for those earning between those two thresholds.
The long-term cost of the student loan system is reflected in the Resource Accounting and Budgeting (RAB) Charge, which measures the proportion of loan outlay that we expect not to be repaid when future repayments are valued in present terms. In each of the financial years (a) 2017-18, (b) 2018-19 and (c) 2019-20, the RAB charge for higher education loans is expected to change from around 30% under the previous policy to between 40% and 45% under the new policy.
The allocated budget for RAB expenditure forms part of the total resource departmental expenditure limit. It is disclosed within the depreciation figure set out within the annual report and accounts. In the 2016-17 annual report and accounts, this was forecast to be £3.5bn for 2017-18, £3.9bn for 2018-19 and £4.3bn in 2019-20. As in prior years, the 2017-18 budget and future budgets will be reviewed as part of the annual Estimates process and confirmed in the published Estimates documents.
The cost of the system is a conscious investment in young people. It is the policy subsidy required to make higher and further education widely available, achieving the Government’s objectives of increasing the skills in the economy and ensuring access to university for all with the potential to benefit.

Gordon Marsden: What monitoring and scrutiny of student recruitment agents for private Higher Education and Further Education providers her Department undertakes. [113080]

Joseph Johnson:

All higher and further education providers are accountable for their respective recruitment practices. If those breach the respective conditions for funding then a consequence may be regulatory sanctions or termination of their contract. Providers are subject to robust regular monitoring for standards for quality, financial sustainability and management and governance.
And in the meantime, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee investigation into the Economics of Higher, Further and Technical Education continues. This week’s update comes from the oral evidence heard on 14 November.

Q: To what extent do you think technical education can be delivered through higher education institutions?

Professor Patrick Bailey (DVC, London South Bank University): all the universities are delivering higher education courses that include enormous amounts of information directly relevant to workplaces. Most…ensure that all their students will have professional practice and some of the technical skills that are going to be required when they move into jobs afterwards. There is a move…to ensure that students are job-ready when they leave. There is a misconception that there are technical skills and pure academic subjects. Even those that would be defined as purely academic now have significant components that ensure that people are ready for a wide range of tasks. Many universities are also well directed towards developing the technical skills.
Pam Tatlow (Chief Executive, MillionPlus): If you want to deliver learning and qualifications that match what employers want and the reality of students’ lives, whatever their age, there is a very good case for a more flexible funding system where you fund by credit or module. That would reflect the reality of the lives of students, both the younger ones and the older ones already in the workplace…. However, it would not be for the Chancellor to introduce the primary legislation we need to create a more flexible funding system. The Government missed an opportunity to do that in both the Education Act 2011 and the Higher Education and Research Act 2017.
Professor Bailey: There is a subtlety here in that once students are enrolled on a three-year programme, universities are penalised in how they are judged if students do not progress through to that degree… across the sector overall we are losing the opportunity to upskill a wide range of people who could meet the needs of the industries around the UK, which are crying out for levels 4, 5 and 6 in particular.
Professor Bailey: The universities are extremely well placed to take level 4s and upwards. However…the ability to have a break and to exit at an early stage without a penalty increases the opportunity for many, particularly part-time and mature students who are challenged in other ways. There is a continuum: the idea that it is either FE or HE is wrong. FE does not have either the expertise or facilities to deliver at level 6 and rarely at level 5. Crucially, more and more universities like mine are working closely with FE to ensure that students feel they have a choice, as they come through level 3, either to go to level 4 at FE or move to a higher education degree at a university. It comes back to giving choice and ensuring that students have the chance to develop skills to their maximum potential.
Lord Burns: The same question has been on my mind. Are you saying that you can see a world in which universities are going to do both HE and FE work? I can see that FE cannot do the university work but over the years I have watched universities becoming involved in more and more different areas…with mergers, they are getting bigger and bigger. Is the end product here that universities will try to do everything over the age of 18?
Pam Tatlow: No.
Sir Anthony Seldon (VC, Buckingham University): I disagree…some universities will embrace FE. I think we will see a top tier—Oxford, Imperial et al−that becomes more research-focused, competing in the world tables and other, more regionally-based, universities that will come down to FE and even UTCs and academies and go all the way through. We do not know, but that is my sense: that the new binary divide will be between HE and FE but with less research and with high research at the top end. Who knows?

Is there a disparity in the available funding higher education and further technical education? If so, how would you address it?

Professor Mike Thomas (VC, University of Central Lancashire): Yes, there is a disparity. I can tell you how we are addressing it…We feel that when you do an undergraduate degree—four years for engineering or five years for medicine and so on—you should also be allowed the opportunity to do an apprenticeship at the same time, so that when you qualify and graduate you may be, say, a four-year engineering degree-holder but you may also be a trained fitter or plumber. If you are doing construction, you could do joinery or carpentry. We tested this model internally in the university. We have 1,000 student start-ups at the university, which is quite a large number for the economy of Lancashire, creating about 3,000 jobs over three years, with a turnover of about £500,000 on average. Many of them come from fashion and the arts, because when they get their degree they set up on their own. When we piloted this internally at the university, we found that our art students, particularly fashion students, wanted to do a certificate in accountancy because they were setting up their own businesses, but they were not allowed to do it because it involved different funding or different institution.
We are modelling a system in the university whereby students can do that. At the moment, we are picking up the fees. Engineers can train through a long-term apprenticeship levy. Arts and fashion students can train to get other types of qualifications. We do not take the hierarchical vertical view of learning; we take a horizontal model and work with 21 FE colleges so that our students can go there on Wednesday afternoons or spend four to six months in employment. The piloting with BAE involves them doing two years of a degree in the university, but in the final year they move to a levy and a degree apprenticeship, so that reduces their fee loans. They pick up an “Earn as you Learn” as they go along, and they graduate with a degree and an apprenticeship at the same time. We think that we meet the employer need.
The difficulty is the silo payment; you have to have an EFA or an ESF payment or a student loan. We think there should be one payment and that undergraduates should be allowed to do apprenticeships and respond to the lifelong learning. For me, it is self-evident that people need support, in relation to what Peter said. We are living longer and people are doing different jobs. Even if they stay in the same firms, the technologies in that firm will change so they will need to relearn anyway as they go along, but those opportunities are not there. We are very much modelling a horizontal model.
Lord Turnbull: I think you are telling us that we are going down a cul-de-sac in thinking of tertiary education as having these two divisions, HE and FE apprenticeships, and that we want to create something that is seen across this whole system… You heard in the previous session that you can go along the pathways and every time you hit a block there is some kind of regulatory funding decision to the effect that, “When you get here, you cannot get on to the next stage”.
The committee then moved on to discuss the blockages and how it could be easier for people to move across different models.
Professor David Latchman: This emphasis on the student and the student outcome is the key, because we have a system that is basically like the school system: you leave school at 18 and you will never go back. Our system is predicated on you requiring an undergraduate degree, 18 to 21, and never needing that again. Somehow or another, within the funding envelope or in some other way, we have to get to this lifelong learning issue, because the world is changing. What you do at 21 is not going to be what you do at 51, and to assume that you will never need to get other qualifications between 21 and 61 or whatever is madness in today’s world.

Q: What kind of future do you see for degree apprenticeships?

Professor Bailey: I can see an engagement from business and industry more generally, which has picked up as they have had to pay the levy and have realised the financial implications and how it affects them, and that has been really positive.
Pam Tatlow: The Institute for Apprenticeships does not understand HE standards, which is a major issue…there is an inflexibility in the Government’s approach to the use of the apprenticeship levy. There could be some relaxation…. There is a bit of a numbers game going on when actually we need degree apprenticeships to be allied with programmes where it makes sense. We are dependent on the employers recruiting to degree apprenticeships; it is not our gig. We need the employers to be convinced that this is what is going to deliver for them.
Professor Bailey: The concern…is that a tranche of standards have been identified by the professions, which need to be superimposed on the qualification requirements that we have for degrees—in particular critical thinking, working in teams, synthesising information and taking complex problems.. there are high-level skills that would benefit anybody within a technical discipline, but how the technical part is defined is rather more specific within those particular disciplines. They can complement each other, but it makes it a very complicated process for us, because we have to run the whole degree programme and map that across a different set of standards that the apprenticeships require. However…I think it has provided an additional incentive for employers to become engaged in how we develop qualifications.

TEF

Professor Bailey: [we] were aware that we were using very weak proxies to identify the quality of education in the UK. We did our very best to combine the crude metrics that were used to identify which rating institutions should get with the provider statement that went alongside it. The thing that came across really strongly from the teaching excellence framework was how little difference there was in the quality of provision. At the beginning, it was assumed that there were outstanding institutions and others that were performing very poorly and it was important to identify those extremes. In the end, you obtained what I will call a black mark if you were 2% below the standard in an area being measured, such as the quality of the facilities. You got a gold star if you were 2% above that. That tells us that the differences across the sector were very much smaller than people outside higher education had perceived…As to how it has helped students, it is probably slightly limited because the range is smaller than had been perceived at the outset.

Cross-subsidisation of research

Lord Darling of Roulanish: Jo Johnson, the Universities Minister, said recently that he wanted to see a reduction in the cross-subsidy between courses. What is your view on that?
Professor Simon Marginson: Cross-subsidy is worth a major inquiry in its own right. It is a complex problem, and it is an information issue in part. The tendency has been for us to find every way and means we can to subsidise and build research, because research is not only integral to the role of universities but has become central to their national and global competition…Of course, teaching and research are integrally related. It is not as if, when you subsidise research, you do nothing but teaching. It becomes a more complicated problem. Some disciplines are cross-subsidised by others. In many institutions, I suspect that the relatively low-cost business programmes, which generate high volumes of students, with large numbers of international students paying full fees and so on, subsidise a lot of other activity.

OfS consultation (part 3)

We continue our series on the OfS consultation on the future regulatory framework with the 4^th objective of the OfS on value for money for students and a look at how the OfS will regulate the HE market (as opposed to how they will regulate individual providers, which we will come back to in a future update).

Objective 4: that all students, from all backgrounds, receive value for money

“Providers have a responsibility to ensure that students are able to secure value for money for their investment in their education, just as students have a responsibility to engage with their own learning and take the opportunities higher education offers.”
“Transparency is also central to promoting value for money for students and protecting their rights, shining a light on provider activities and ensuring they are held to account. Students must be assured that the investment they are making in their future is worthwhile, and will be able to challenge institutions that do not deliver on their commitments.”
Under the management and governance condition (see the section on this below), providers in the Approved categories will be expected to be demonstrably responsible for operating openly, honestly, accountably and with integrity, and will be required to publish a statement on the steps they have taken to ensure value for money for students and taxpayers which provides transparency about their use of resources and income. Providers should design this statement to allow students to see how their money is spent, following examples from other sectors, such as Local Authorities publishing breakdowns of how Council Tax is spent. ….Where there are substantial concerns the OfS may carry out an efficiency study to scrutinise whether a provider is providing value for money to both its students and the taxpayer.”
“Higher education providers are autonomous institutions, and they are solely responsible for setting the salaries of their staff. However, the taxpayer is the sector’s most significant single funder and there is a legitimate public interest in their efficiency, including of senior staff pay. There will be a new ongoing registration condition requiring providers to publish the number of staff paid over £100,000 per annum, and to explain their justification for pay above £150,000.”
“Arrangements will be made for the publication of data on senior staff remuneration, including in relation to protected characteristics such as gender and ethnicity. Where issues with senior staff pay lead to substantiated concerns over governance, the OfS will be able to arrange for efficiency reviews into the providers.”

Consultation question: What more could the OfS do to ensure students receive value for money?

Market regulation – Chapter 2

“Effective competition compels providers to focus on students’ needs and aspirations, drives up outcomes that students care about, puts downward pressure on costs, leads to more efficient allocation of resources between providers, and catalyses innovation. The higher education sector in England is well suited to market mechanisms driving continuous improvement “

“It does not, however, follow from these features that an entirely laissez-faire approach is appropriate. Higher education is a service unlike any other:

there are almost never repeat “purchases” of the same type of higher educational courses by an individual student – the market is in most cases a one-shot game
many of the primary benefits to the student (for instance improved learning, knowledge, and skills, greater earnings and career prospects, and personal fulfilment) are not received immediately; they are spread out over their life time. This exposes the market to distortions such as time inconsistency (where students’ preferences change over time) and temporal discounting (where students value the benefits of higher education less because they occur in the future)
similarly, the cost of higher education is often not paid immediately, but rather paid for after through graduate repayments, which in most instances are subsidised by the state. This too, creates temporal distortions, and exposes the sector to moral hazard (where students may take greater risks because they do not necessarily bear the full cost of the degree)
there are (currently) significant information asymmetries, and prospective students often make decisions with limited reliable information
in the case of undergraduate degrees, there is a price cap in place for some providers. In practice, providers sometimes compete in terms of the grades they require to admit students, rather than on price
institutional failure has significant repercussions for current, past, and (in some cases) potential future students, as well as wider social and political consequences. This is why the OfS’s regulatory framework is designed to prevent sudden, unplanned market exit (in particular through its approach to early warning monitoring), and support students to continue their studies if their original provider can no longer deliver their course. The creative destruction witnessed in more traditional markets, though still a powerful and relevant tool, has the potential to carry greater costs
there are both private and non-profit organisation competing in the provision of similar services”

Student engagement: “The OfS will engage with students to ensure the student voice is not only heard clearly, but that students actively shape the OfS and – by extension – the sector itself. Alongside the student representation on the Board and Student Panel, the OfS will seek the input of individual students and their representative bodies, including student unions.”

The Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF): “In accordance with the provisions set out in HERA, a statutory Independent Review of the TEF will likely take place in academic year 2018/19 and will report in time to influence the assessment framework for assessments taking place in academic year 2019/20 (TEF Year 5). Depending on the findings of the Independent Review and of the subject pilots, this will also be the first year of subject level TEF. The assessments taking place in academic year 2019/20 will therefore constitute the completion of the TEF development process. This will be a significant milestone for the TEF, which has the potential to evolve over time as the Research Excellence Framework (REF) has done.”

Proposed on-going condition: Condition P: “The provider must participate in the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF).”

Consultation question: Do you agree or disagree that participation in the TEF should be a general condition for providers in the Approved categories with 500 or more students?

Removing unnecessary barriers to entry (for new providers that meet a high bar): “The OfS and HERA will enable new providers in particular through the mechanisms below:

Simplification of the regulatory landscape:
No requirement for a track record
Increased options for market entry
Recognition of diversity
Reduction in burden
Grant funding and registration fees
Validation”

Accelerated courses: ”HERA includes powers for the Government (subject to approval by Parliament) to set the annual tuition fee cap – for accelerated courses only – at a higher level than their standard equivalent. This should incentivise more providers to offer accelerated courses, increasing choice for students. At the same time, the cost for a student taking an accelerated course which is subject to the new fee caps will be less than that of the same course over a longer time period. The Government will consult shortly on specific proposals for accelerated courses.”

Teaching grant: “The teaching grant is designed to support a range of activities and provision …The majority of the funding is used to support provision where the cost is greater than the amount received as tuition fee income either because the course is costly to provide, because the location brings about additional costs or additional opportunities, or the provision is highly specialised, as with the support provided to our world-leading specialist institutions. The teaching grant supports efforts to improve social mobility by widening access to under-represented or disadvantaged students and ensuring their continued participation and success in higher education. Funding also supports innovation and the national academic broadband infrastructure. The OfS will continue with this approach, but it will also wish to deploy the teaching grant strategically, taking into account Government priorities. This will enable it to influence sector level outcomes“

Widening Participation – Parliamentary question

Q – David Lammy (Lab): Whether she has made an assessment of the effectiveness of steps taken by Oxford and Cambridge Universities to improve access and widen participation from under-represented groups; and if she will make a statement.

A – Joseph Johnson (Con):. …the Director [of Fair Access (DfA)] negotiates with institutions to ensure that Access Agreements are stretching and appropriately demanding. Higher Education Institutions are independent from Government and autonomous – legislation specifically precludes Government from interfering with university admissions.
In our guidance to the DfA, published in February 2016, we asked for the most selective institutions, which include the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge, to make faster progress on widening access, and to ensure their outreach is more effective. The guidance acknowledged that within this group of institutions there is wide variation, with some demonstrating little progress.
Access agreements for the 2018/19 academic year show that the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge plan to spend over £22 million on measures to further improve access and student success for students from disadvantaged and under-represented backgrounds.
Following the introduction of the Higher Education and Research Act, from January 2018, the Office for Students (OfS), with a new Director for Fair Access and Participation appointed by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, will take on responsibility for widening participation in higher education. The OfS will have a statutory duty to promote equality of opportunity across the whole lifecycle for disadvantaged students, not just access. As a result, widening access and participation will be at the core of the OfS’ functions. In addition, our reforms will introduce a Transparency Duty requiring higher education providers to publish application, offer, acceptance, drop-out and attainment rates of students broken down by ethnicity, gender and socio-economic background. This will shine a spotlight on those higher education institutions that need to go further and faster to widen participation in higher education.

Consultations

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November 2, 2017

Final Report of the Industrial Strategy Commission published

BU research emilner

The final report of the Industrial Strategy Commission has been published.

Key sections include:

The research and development landscape
Investment in Infrastructure
Decarbonisation of the energy economy
Health and social care at the centre of industrial strategy
Unlocking long-term investment
Supporting high-value industries and building export capacity
Enabling growth everywhere

If you would like to discuss your research, and how your research networks can fit within the UK’s Industrial Strategy, please contact Ehren Milner, Research Facilitator for Industrial Collaboration (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk).

October 2, 2017

Creative Industries Clusters Programme – Creative R&D Partnerships Call Launched- Internal Process

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The AHRC Creative R&D Partnerships Call has been launched with funds available of £6-9m per collective R&D partnership. Any application that BU submits with its partners is likely to be diverse in nature and could accommodate many sub-projects (work packages) in relation to themes around the Creative Industries.

The will be an internal process to manage the applications to this fund. Applicants will be asked to complete a short form detailing their proposed programme by 9/10/17.

For further details and a copy of the form, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk).

August 14, 2017

2017 Industrial Innovation Fellowships and Industrial Mobility Fellowships

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RCUK (UKRI) have announced that up to 24 Industrial Innovation Fellowships for Early Career Researchers will be supported as part of the National Productivity Fund. NERC will be delivering the fellowships as Industrial Innovations Fellowships and Industrial Mobility Fellowships. Successful applicants will be expected to commence their fellowships by the 1st of January 2018 at the latest.

The Industrial Innovations fellowships are 3.5 year awards for a single named researcher. The Industrial Mobility Fellowships are 6-12 month fellowships that enable ECRs to spend time exploring interdisciplinary solutions while placed within industry. Both fund must have research clearly aligned with one or more of the challenge areas of the governments Industrial Strategy of:

Clean energy;
Robotics and AI;
Satellites and space;
Leading edge healthcare and medicine;
Manufacturing and materials;
Biotechnology and synthetic biology;
Transformative digital technologies (including big data and analytics);
Quantum technologies;
Technologies for the creative industries;
Building a resilient economy.

A total fund of £8.86m is available for the Industrial Innovations Fellowships and there are no specific funding limits to applicants other than a restriction that no equipment cost may exceed £10k. Industrial Mobility Fellowships are anticipated to have budgets between £50k-100k depending on the duration of the award.

For further information, or to check the suitability of these funds, please contact your faculty Research Facilitator (Ehren Milner, emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk or Lisa Gale-Andrews, lgaleandrews@bournemouth.ac.uk).

August 3, 2017

£80m for the Creative Industries Clusters Programme

BU research, Funding opportunities emilner

The AHRC have announced that £80m will be made available through the AHRC as part of the Governments Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) to support eight research and development partnerships between industry and a group of universities to respond to challenges identified by the creative industries in 2018. The pre-call document may be found here.

It is expected that the call for proposals to host the Policy and Evidence Centre in relation to this fund will by made available in October 2017.

For further information, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk).

July 13, 2017

Industrial Strategy Commission Report Released

BU research, Funding opportunities, Research news emilner

The Industrial Strategy Commission was launched on March 6th 2017. The first comprehensive report on how the UK government will make long-term investments into innovative business related activity and research has been released and may be found here.

Much of the report focuses on the requirements of an economic management strategy and the vision of what it is expected long-term investment will lead towards. A short summary of this may be found here.

How to use this information:

Check to see if the research you are planning to undertake may fit under the foundational vision set forth in the report
Consider if the research you plan to undertake can be made to contribute to this vision with some alteration
Be prepared- funding calls from the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund may come at short notice from a number of funding sources.

For Bournemouth University academics who may have queries about how your research may fit within future schemes, please contact Ehren Milner (emilner@bournemouth.ac.uk) or Lisa Gale-Andrews (lgaleandrews@bournemouth.ac.uk).

March 9, 2017

Chancellor announces first round of Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund funding in Spring Budget

Funding opportunities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Exchange and Impact Team jcodling

The first tranche of challenges supported by the Industrial Strategy Challenge fund (ISCF) has been welcomed by research and innovation leaders. The spring budget announced an initial investment of £270 million in 2017 to 2018. This is to kick-start the development of disruptive technologies that have the potential to transform the UK economy.

First announced by the Prime Minister at the 2016 CBI Annual Conference, the ISCF will help identify and develop UK industries that are fit for the future, driving progress in technologies where the UK can build on our existing areas of industrial and research strength.

In his Budget speech earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond announced funding for the first three competitions in the ISCF:

Leading the world in the development, design and manufacture of batteries that will power the next generation of electric vehicles, helping to tackle air pollution
Developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence and robotics systems that will operate in extreme and hazardous environments, including off-shore energy, nuclear energy, space and deep mining
Accelerating patient access to new drugs and treatments through developing brand new medicine manufacturing technologies, helping to improve public health

Read in full.

Tagged / Industrial Strategy challenge fund

Technical assistance for grant applications – workshop places available!

Faraday Battery Challenge: Innovation R&D, round 2 DEADLINE: 28/3/18

Digital health technology catalyst round 2: DEADLINE 18/4/18

Places still available- Meeting the Industrial Challenges – 8/1/18

HE policy update for the w/e 1st December 2017

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Final Report of the Industrial Strategy Commission published

Creative Industries Clusters Programme – Creative R&D Partnerships Call Launched- Internal Process

2017 Industrial Innovation Fellowships and Industrial Mobility Fellowships

£80m for the Creative Industries Clusters Programme

Industrial Strategy Commission Report Released

Chancellor announces first round of Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund funding in Spring Budget

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