Whose universities are they anyway?
Independent academic research is critical to solve some of our most pressing problems. But universities are being captured by big business with government support and taxpayer’s money
Universities, their research and teaching are critical guarantors of the public good. Through independent research and teaching they have been at the forefront of tackling some of the most critical issues we face and challenging the vested interests that often lie at their source. This position has been made possible because universities have remained beyond the grasp of commercial pressures.
Over the last 10 years, this tradition of independence has come under ever-greater threat as successive governments have sought to restructure higher education to meet the needs of business. From being discouraged, engagement with industry has effectively become obligatory. Universities are increasingly required to deliver corporate research and teaching tailored to the needs of business. And this is supported by the government and backed up with funds from the public purse.
The first step in this restructuring has been the wholesale reform of the funding arrangements for universities. This reform has been traced by George Monbiot, in his book Captive State. Its beginnings lie in a 1993 White Paper on science, published by the Conservative Government called ‘Realising Our Potential’. Its purpose was ‘to produce a better match between publicly funded strategic research and the needs of industry’. The research councils, which distribute most of the money for science, would be obliged to develop ‘more extensive and deeper links…with industry’.
This agenda for reform, set in motion by the Conservative government was then wholeheartedly embraced by the incoming Labour administration. In a 1998 White Paper on competitiveness, the Labour Government in the UK launched a reach-out fund to encourage universities to ‘work more effectively with business’. The role of the higher education funding councils, which provide the core money for the universities, was redefined ‘to ensure that higher education is responsive to the needs of business and industry’.
The outcome of these changes is that public funding has not only been diverted from public concerns to private interests, it has been cut. Between 1983 and 1999, public research funds in Britain declined in real terms by 20 per cent. In 1999 the Higher Education Funding Council for England reported that it’s budget had been reduced by 35 per cent in real terms over the previous eight years. Consequently some 30 per cent of universities would fall into debt over the following year.
Universities that have been starved of funding have therefore had little choice but to turn to business for help. And business, recognising the opportunity on offer, has been only too happy to step into the breach. As a consequence external funding in higher education rose by 21.9% between 1994/95 and 1999/2000 and it continues to grow as a percentage of total income.
The independent researchers Greg Muttitt and Chris Grimshaw have examined the influence of oil companies on British universities. Some university faculties, they discovered, have become largely dependent upon industrial money: private funding is no longer an element of their budget but its core component. Aberdeen's geology department, for example, boasts that "Industrial contracts and sponsorship now account for more than two-thirds of our research income, support over one-third of our lecturing staff, fund nearly all our postgraduates, and even provide appropriate components of our undergraduate > training."
This shift in funding has a number of consequences. It is now common practice for business to offer a wide variety of sponsorship and funding to UK universities. To take just a few examples, Cambridge has a Shell Chair in Chemical engineering, a Glaxo chair of Molecular Parasitology, a Unilever chair of Molecular Science, A PriceWaterhouse Chair of financial accounting and a Marks and Spencer Chair of Farm Animal Health and Food Science . At Heriott Watt there is an Enterprise Oil building and at Warwick there is the BP Modern Records centre.
The result of this shift in funding has been the second step in the reform of higher education: the corporate takeover of the academic research agenda. The research agenda within universities has, in other words, been reshaped to meet the needs of business. Universities with burgeoning corporate funds and dwindling public finance have been effectively forced to auction their research programmes to the highest bidder.
It is now industry that determines what research receives funding; and it is only interested in research geared towards commercial goals and interests. Even within individual disciplines, the agenda is distorted by the fact that funding tends to flow to academics supportive of corporate positions. Universities, therefore, are left facing a Hobson’s choice: compromise their academic freedom by accepting ever greater private funding or maintain their freedom and lose their funding.
The most glaring example is that of the Oil industry. According to a report, Degrees of Capture, published by the New Economics Foundation, Corporate Watch and Platform, 75% of the total R&D expenditure in UK universities relevant to the Oil and Gas industry is focussed on finding new fields and how to exploit them. Projects focussing on environmental impact and safety, account for less than 5% of all research. UK geologists, who should be at the forefront of the debate on climate change, are now reluctant to admit the link between fossil fuels and global warming, because doing so would involve biting the hand that feeds them.
Most worrying though is the fact that this capture of the academic research agenda is not only being supported in principle by the government, but backed up with public funds. Shrivelling public funds are being diverted from non-commercial research to support corporate research efforts. Over 50% of the Oil and Gas R&D projects in UK universities are fully funded by the taxpayer and a further 23% receive part public funding. This equates to some £40 million of public money spent every year on furthering fossil fuel research : research that results in private profit for some of the largest and most profitable companies in the world.
The Royal Society of Chemistry was clear in its evidence to the Dearing Committee, that universities ‘must be providers of research that is independent of market forces and a source of expertise that is independent of powerful vested interests.’ Yet five times as much money is spent in British Universities on research into oil and gas as on research into renewable sources of energy. This means, in other words, that there is an inverse relationship between research needs and research funds. It also calls into question the role of universities as centres of intelligent critical enquiry and the guarantors of the public good.
Publicly funded research and (hence its distortion) is important, not just in its own right, but because the research agenda informs the teaching agenda. This is some clear evidence that the distortion of research is already been passed on to teaching, as industry exerts an unprecedented level of influence over course content.
Curricula are now designed, in partnership with business, to meet the needs of business. Some degree courses, for example, now entirely specialise in oil and gas. Many geology courses now have compulsory modules in petroleum geology. Often areas of study are set in consultation with industry representatives. The Principal of Robert Gordon University, to take one example, is ‘proud that the university’s courses are highly responsive to the needs of employers – our staff do not just sit down and wait to hear news’ .
The argument for an academic syllabus designed with the requirements of business in mind is that this enhances the earning potential and so the life chances of students at British Universities. Laudable as this aim appears, it is, in terms of the current solution at least, also riddled with problems.
The interim Lambert Review report notes that there have been a number of occasions where courses had been ‘designed to suit a business’ requirements and had then been made redundant when the business changed direction’.
Public money, in other words, had been used to deliver corporate training that was subsequently proven value-less. Students, trained in business’ ideal image, have found their employment prospects and so their life chances, shattered in an instant.
For both society and students, higher education exists to produce more than a vocational workforce. What business wants are people trained to best meet its immediate needs. And what business needs most is often what the rest of society needs least. If we are only educated vocationally, then the only worlds we can imagine are those dominated by business.
Universities and the work they perform are critical to the nature and make up of society. If higher education is structured to meet the needs of business, then many of the most important questions raised by the advance of business; globalisation, environmental damage, iniquitous trade and poverty will either go unanswered or will only ever be allowed to have answers favourable to industry. We will have spent limited time, money and effort imagining other, hopefully better ways of doing things. Education is the foundation stone of modern society. Its benefits, both immediate and long-term, must belong to the whole of society. It’s future must not be auctioned to the highest bidder, for the benefit of so few.
© Andrew Leedham November 2003