Universities under fire for wasting money on ‘pointless’ research

UNIVERSITIES are wasting time and public money on “pointless” research to get funding and push themselves up the rankings, a think tank has claimed.

The Institute of Economic Affairs argued that government funding to high- er education institutions — representing 4 per cent of the total universities receive — should be scrapped because it generates “perverse incentives”.

It said this funding should instead be given to local education councils so they could manage the money and allocate it where they saw fit.

The IEA’s research highlighted “seri- ous shortfalls” in the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which allocates £1.5 billion of funding.

It warned that the funding seriously distorts the behaviour of universities and leads them “to try to game the system in very damaging ways”.

Len Shackleton, one of the authors of the report, told The Daily Telegraph: “Academics focus on getting papers in particular journals rather than genuine scholarship.

“At the institutional level, universities spend huge amounts of resources trying to raise their REF ranking very often trying to game the system.”

The report added: “More generally, there is a strong case for reducing the total amount of government subsidy for research and expecting universities to generate their own support for research and scholarship or support it by reducing overhead costs.”

Universities in the past have come under criticism for funding research that includes studies into why cookies crumble, why woodpeckers don’t get headaches and how to make the perfect piece of toast.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England yesterday announced £150 million in cuts to university funding. Dr Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group, warned that the cuts would “affect universities’ ability to invest for the future”.