FOUR out of five British university departments cannot carry out crucial scientific work because they lack the necessary equipment, according to a survey released by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals this week. Without an increase in government funding, Britain鈥檚 universities will not even be able to maintain their current standards of research, let alone compete internationally, the CVCP warns.
Department heads from the nearly 1000 British university departments involved in scientific and engineering research took part in the survey. PREST, the science policy research group at the University of Manchester, which conducted the survey, found that just over half the national stock of large scientific equipment costing over 拢14 000 has technical capability rated 鈥済ood鈥� or above. But it found 17 per cent to be poor or very poor. 鈥淚t is quite clear from the survey that a lot of the equipment universities have now is inadequate,鈥� says Michael Powell, the CVCP鈥檚 head of research policy.
PREST asked departments to detail priority items they would need for research planned for the next five years. From this the group calculated that the minimum cost of essential equipment adds up to at least 拢395 million. That, they point out, is about a third more than was spent by the same departments over the past five years on all research equipment鈥攏ot just priority items. 鈥淭his is not some wish list,鈥� says Powell. 鈥淚t is what they need to carry out research they expect to have funded.鈥�
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One section of the survey, which looked at physics, chemistry, bioscience and engineering departments at seven universities, reveals that much of the nation鈥檚 research equipment will soon become obsolete: a quarter of it will be unusable within three years, and 60 per cent within five years. About a fifth of the university equipment is already over 15 years old, and 9 per cent is over 25 years old. Mechanical engineering is saddled with the oldest stock: only 27 per cent of its equipment was purchased within the past five years.
As part of the study, PREST also surveyed 22 research directors in industry. They expressed concern that ongoing cuts in capital funding were forcing them to look abroad for research collaborations. 鈥淭ired-looking departments with pensioned equipment would not be viewed favourably. We seek collaboration because the university can do it quicker, better, cheaper than we can,鈥� said one.
Luke Georghiou, who coordinated the PREST survey, says: 鈥淎 central problem is that the funding system doesn鈥檛 seem to be able to cope with the funding of generic equipment鈥攊tems which can鈥檛 be easily charged to a single project.鈥�
