THE 19 top-rated universities in the UK formed the elite Russell Group in the 1990s. This bothered me greatly then and increasingly now that I am chairman of the university court of one of the world鈥檚 great research universities, Edinburgh. Does this influence the government when it comes to funding research in any of the non-Russell Group universities?
David King, the government鈥檚 chief scientist, recently told me: 鈥淲e shouldn鈥檛 expect every department to try to emulate the basic research in our leading research departments.鈥� He went on to insist that they should aspire to high standards in other areas, such as teaching and 鈥渞egional research and knowledge transfer鈥�, which he dubbed RRKT.
The term RRKT is an improvement on 鈥渁pplied research鈥�, which can sound second-rate. In fact, it refers to first-class research that supports industry or the public sector within the university鈥檚 own region. King gave me examples of two top RRKT centres, both of which involve high-quality research and are being used as the basis for PhD theses. One is at Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, which has established the UK鈥檚 leading centre in brewing research. Its business arm, Smart Brewing Services, provides the UK brewing industry with world-class expertise in microbiological analysis, research and training. The second is at the University of Greenwich, which is collaborating with local hospitals to develop novel IT systems for use in healthcare.
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It is in these sorts of context that research and research assessment become more meaningful.
FORTY years ago the late Bill Hewlett and the late Dave Packard came to my West Lothian constituency to set up what was to become the largest of their European factories. Among the multitude of products made by Hewlett-Packard are ink-jet printers, devices that are said to have completely changed the nature of counterfeiting (快猫短视频, 24 May, p 10). I asked Paul Boateng, chief secretary to the Treasury, what the Treasury was doing about this.
Boateng replied that the Bank of England takes counterfeiting most seriously. The latest banknotes incorporate a number of security features making them difficult to counterfeit even with digital printing devices. These include special paper with a characteristic feel, a watermark and a feature that can only be seen under ultraviolet light. On some notes, a hologram changes from the denomination to an image of Britannia. And all notes have a partially embedded silver dashed metallic strip. The Bank of England continues to identify and develop security features to keep a step ahead of advances in technology, said Boateng.
I gather that it sensibly wants to ensure information about these and other security features are widely available to the public.
