Warwick Manufacturing Group’s founder Lord Bhattacharyya, an ambassador for collaboration between businesses and universities, warned of tough times ahead at Insider’s special event.
Eighty representatives of Midlands
businesses and universities
came together at Conference
Aston in Birmingham for a networking
lunch and to listen to Lord ’s speech.
Not only did Bhattacharyya found the Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University ofWarwick – seen by many as the best example of universities and business working together – he is also a tremendously important voice on innovation and has the ear of senior government ministers.
Bhattacharyya spoke about the climate universities will be facing in the coming months and years: “They are facing large reductions in budgets, more than £900m over the next three years,” he said. “They don’t understand the cuts they will be facing.
“The government says teaching and research funding will still grow between 2009/10 and 2010/11, but the education sector is worried this will hamper new ideas being developed.”
This worrying situation is mirrored in the business world, where companies find it difficult to get funding for growth from a smaller financial sector. With that situation in mind, Bhattacharyya said the need for businesses and universities to work together is greater. “Collaboration in research and development is no longer a “nice to have” bonus to a prosperous economy but essential for the long-term success of the country,” he said.
“The match between British business and academic research seems natural. The UK’s higher education sector is a global strength. We are third in terms of the number of scientific papers produced, and second to the US in the number of citations we generate in journals.”
But further engagement is needed: “The flip side is that academics just don’t want to have an impact on the economy. They think it’s below their dignity because it’s not scholarship.”
Bhattacharyya believes the gap between research and commercial exploitation needs to be addressed. “Why is it that this region has the lowest economic indicators with all our great universities?” he asked. “To close that gap universities and business need to change. So how do we get professors who live in cloud cuckoo land and businessmen on the dance floor? Universities need to be much more outwardly focused.”
Bhattacharyya is concerned that within universities it is often thought that blue sky research is what really matters. “Yet when budgets are threatened, the impact of universities on the rest of society is the first line of defence for university pressure groups,” he said. “The government and the opposition are thinking about that impact, and the only way of doing that is by measuring performance.
“If funding is cut the Russell Group has warned of “a devastating effect on students and staff, and on Britain’s competitiveness, economy and ability to recover from recession. That sounds like an impact assessment to me.
“The whole country is facing severe public spending reductions whatever party wins the coming general election. So ministers will have to tighten belts in higher education, too.”
Bhattacharyya argues that universities need to adopt a new approach to industry and applied science. “We need to help researchers embrace applied science by rewarding that change,” he said. “The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) is responsible for this. It works by using state funding to attract investment from industry to fund applied science projects such as technology demonstrators, incubators and low-carbon research.
“The Technology Strategy Board has a budget of £1bn for the next three years for all applied research. To make a real contribution we should be investing at least £1bn each year.”
Also in: March 2010
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