Select committee: Scottish Affairs Committee
Conclusion 127
First Report - Universities and Scotland
Published 28 May 2021
Addressed to Scotland Office
Scottish Affairs Committee Universities and Scotland All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Alastair Sim, Universities Scotland, told us that Scotland’s voice within UKRI was “still something that needs vigilance”.298 He was keen to see a “strong Scottish research voice on the board of UKRI” in succession to Sir Ian Diamond from the University of Aberdeen.299 He went on to say: [Integrating Research England into UKRI was not] necessarily the best thing to do. It does give a kind of instinctive closeness to a subset of UK institutions within UKRI just because there are some institutions they work more closely with than others because of the Research England embedding. We argued at the time, given the whole of the UK’s interest in UKRI and given also that devolved administrations are quite major funders of research, that they should have a structurally integral role in deciding UKRI’s priorities, along with the UK Government. I do not think that ever quite happened. I do not think anyone is acting with bad intent, but there is a sort of gravity of things. For instance, in the most recent project to support Covid, the research grant for that, only about 5% came to Scotland.300
From: Scottish Affairs Committee, First Report - Universities and Scotland (HC 54), 28 May 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 27 April 2022 (deadline 28 July 2021).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government's response sets out continued work with the devolved administrations and existing UK-wide policies on international students, immigration, research funding and talent, and states it will submit a response to the earlier Immigration and Scotland report "shortly".
- On the Turing Scheme, it confirmed funding for three years, including "£110 million for the 2022/23 Academic Year". It states the scheme "prioritises pupils, students and learners over staff and inward mobility funding", and says the first year's impact will be evaluated.
- On Erasmus+, it states that President Von Der Leyen "has previously confirmed that association by part of a country is not legally possible".
- On UKRI, it states that Board appointees "are not recruited to represent any constituency, sector or regional grouping", while a legal requirement to have regard to research conditions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is taken into account. It says Research England's place on the Executive Committee reflects its status as a legal component of UKRI.
- On visa costs, it states that "UK visa fees are broadly in line with our competitors" and that it will "continue to keep visa fees under review".