Another day brings yet another cabinet reshuffle to a weary Britain, but to the university community, it was welcome news to see “science” getting a dedicated department and a seat at the cabinet table. It fits with Rishi Sunak’s pledge to make the UK a “science and technology superpower” and was partially in response to a cross-party House of Lords science and technology committee report on the UK’s “somewhat incoherent” international science policy.
Across the world, Britain is renowned for its universities and world-leading research. A scholarship to study at Oxford, the world’s oldest English-speaking university, is what brought me from tropical Miami to England, and then Scotland. Sadly, the past decade has seen the UK university sector losing its lustre for students and faculty. While it’s easy to talk about making science a priority, supporting world-leading research requires action and concrete steps that go beyond rhetoric. To make the UK a “science superpower” means addressing at least three crucial components.
The first is the people who make up universities: students, researchers, teaching fellows, support staff, lecturers and professors. Brexit, and the associated drop in immigration, means that we are attracting less top talent at all levels than before leaving the EU. This is clear from the student numbers: roughly 40% fewer EU students applied to UK universities in 2021 than in 2020. Instead, these students are largely going to EU countries such as Germany and Ireland, as well as Canada.
Similarly, Brexit – and the wider tightening of immigration policy – has made it difficult to hire (and retain) international faculty members. This has ramifications for science collaboration and research. Building a research team is similar to building a top football team: you recruit the best players with the right skill set, expertise and training, regardless of nationality. It’s like trying to manage Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool FC with heavy incentives to only hire British players. The programme I’ve been running, the Global Health Governance Programme, which does research on pandemic preparedness and outbreak management has had team members from Tanzania, India, Ghana, Germany, Japan, Australia, Nigeria, New Zealand and Canada.
The second component is research funding: grants are essential to be able to conduct experiments, hire staff, do fieldwork, publish papers, do public engagement, meet collaborators and fund students. Funding from the EU – which has always been a vital source of research income – has plummeted. Cambridge University’s funding from a large European research programme has fallen from £62m a year to the grand total of £0. The loss of EU research funding has real challenges if you’re trying to do the daily work of “science”: you have to write grant applications and get funding to do the projects you think are important. But if there are fewer pots available to apply to, it becomes harder to explore new avenues of research (what politicians like to call “innovation”). And this adds to the pressure faculty members feel to leave Britain and head to the EU or North America where more resources are available.
The third factor is worker morale, as the cost-of-living crisis makes daily life difficult. ONS data reveals that lecturers have experienced the largest decline in real wages, second only to teachers. This has led to 18 days of strikes organised by the University and College Union. However, pay isn’t the only focus of the strikes: they are also about increased workload and precarity for many early career researchers on short-term contracts. This is not unique to the university sector: it’s true also of healthcare workers, teachers and many other public sector employees.
People who work in universities, whether developing a vaccine, measuring the impact of climate change or understanding the origins of the universe, do it because their work brings meaning and value. At the core of science are individuals with a passion to study a particular issue, improve knowledge and teach future generations, do research to further the field and improve the human condition. This is why people who have studied for seven or eight years are willing to work long hours for relatively low pay in relation to their expertise and knowledge, but due to the cost of living crisis an increasing number of talented people are considering whether science is something they can afford to go into, and others may be ready to give it all up and work in the private sector.
The simple fact is that science in Britain is in a weaker position because of Brexit. This has been compounded by the general Tory-linked disdain for “experts”, public sector employees and poor management of the economy. Sunak can talk all he wants about science and universities in Britain – but until the real issues are confronted, it’s just lip service.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
