Hansard

Kenny MacAskill will be pleased to hear that I intend to make a fleeting reference to Finland in my contribution to the debate.

For once, I am disappointed in the minister and her commitment to research and development. Last week, when she came to Dumfries to deliver the inaugural Crichton Foundation lecture at the Crichton campus—I assured the campus that I would mention it in my contribution—she told us that, while in Finland with the First Minister on a visit to the Nokia facility, she came across a remarkable innovation that would be the pride of any research department of a university in Scotland. The innovation was a dress that had in-built telephones and which converted itself into a desk and keyboard. I was under the impression that the minister had given an assurance that she would wear such a dress to the chamber. To date, she has not done so, but we live in expectation.

We live in a time of miracles. This morning, we even had a contribution to the debate from the SNP. Those of us who served on the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee while the report was being formulated have not always been familiar with such an occurrence. I would have preferred Kenny MacAskill to have made his contribution during the course of the formulation of the report.

The convener of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, whom I exclude from those remarks, referred to Professor Bernard King. The professor indicated that the committee's report was indeed proof of miracles. I would not go quite as far as that, but there is no doubt that the report has made an important contribution to the funding of further and higher education in Scotland. That is a subject to which the committee must return in its current lifelong learning inquiry. The inquiry is an enormous piece of work and I am sure that we will have the same support from the clerks and clear guidance from the convener that we enjoyed during the preparation of the report we are debating today.

I joined the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee after it had begun the inquiry into research funding. As has been alluded to, the inquiry began as a result of the substantial concerns that were expressed by higher education institutions and others regarding SHEFC's proposed changes in relative allocations, which was intended as a consultation exercise. As became clear during the committee's inquiry, considerable support existed in the sector for a reduction in the number of subject areas and for other measures that would simplify the system and make it more transparent. However, SHEFC lacked an evidence base to back up the proposed reduction in the number of subject areas, from 22 down to six.

As the convener of the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee pointed out in the committee press release when the report was launched, SHEFC underestimated the difficulty of developing an evidence base to underpin its new formula. What was worse was that SHEFC failed completely to appreciate that any major change in the funding allocation must be founded upon a strong evidence base. As the committee pointed out, at the very least, evidence should have been the starting point for SHEFC's review. It should also have been discussed openly.

SHEFC responded somewhat defensively to the initial criticisms. However, as our inquiry progressed, it was clear that SHEFC was able to enter a dialogue with Universities Scotland. I was pleased to receive a copy of the letter in which Professor Graeme Davies, convener of the Universities Scotland policy funding group, said that there had been a renewed and productive dialogue between SHEFC and Universities Scotland. Professor Davies also highlighted the real importance of the issue when he wrote:

"There is relatively little I want to add about the review of research funding other than to reiterate the importance of increasing the resource available to support research activity within the Higher Education sector since this activity is so critical to Scotland's international competitiveness and its future economic success. It represents a crucial and high return investment and we should be thinking less about mechanisms and formula for dividing up the cake and more about how we can increase the size of the cake so that our country can prosper."

My colleagues will return to that point during the course of the debate. While it is important to review the conclusions of the report—I will come to those in a moment—we must also discuss how to grow the funds that are available to universities in Scotland for research and, in particular, how to open the door for private funding, which evidence-taking sessions suggest is out there, and from which international institutions have benefited.

I turn to the substantive recommendations in the report. It is clear that the committee believes that SHEFC profoundly mishandled the teaching review and that it should go back to the drawing board. I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say on the specifics of the recommendations. Without going through each of them as other members have done, I would like to pick up on one or two.

Members have already highlighted SHEFC's proposal to exclude level 3-rated departments from receipt of RAE funds. Anyone who attended SPIKE, the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on information, knowledge and enlightenment, when Chris van der Kuyl of VIS Entertainments spoke about the future of the games industry—Dr Richard Simpson was one—would understand the enormous contribution that the games industry has made. That industry is not a traditional industry and many of us know little of the detail of it. However—if we can move our children from their PlayStations—we sometimes get to share in the output, and we understand the incredible importance and growth of that industry. The University of Abertay Dundee is to be congratulated on the work that it has done to develop the games industry. The approach that SHEFC adopted initially would have been detrimental to such work.

The other recommendation that I highlight is the need for business and academia to work more closely. We took quite a bit of evidence on that, and it was clear that the existing mechanisms for funding research in higher education do not necessarily reinforce the links between academia and industry. Those ties need to be strengthened if we want Scotland to become a true competitor in the global market. It has become evident, for example, that patents and commercial spin-outs are not always as highly valued as papers published in academic journals. As Des McNulty, among others, was keen to point out, both have their place, but that culture must be altered if we are to reap the benefits of the most recent findings of academics.

In evidence to the committee, we were told:

"Without question, academic staff members who are good at conducting first-class research in science and engineering are also the people who are most likely to create technologies with a commercial future and to be interested in participating in the commercialisation of those technologies."—[Official Report, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, 8 May 2001; c 1777.]

It was clear from the evidence that, over the past 10 years, university staff have become much more aware of the commercial value of their research and have formed good and valuable ideas.

However, ideas on their own are not enough. Greater parity is needed between an academic approach and that of industry. Industry is constantly open to using the latest research findings to move its technology forward, and we must find the mechanisms that enable us to do that. That may require universities and other institutions to examine some of their internal structures to determine whether they militate against effective commercialisation of research. Evidence we heard on the length of time it takes to get a response from university courts in relation to a proposal made the Scottish Executive look good in its turnaround time for correspondence. There has to be a better way for academics to consider proposals from business—Professor Beaumont highlighted that in his evidence. It is not just an issue of funding; cultural change must come about in the institutions themselves.

On an international scale, it is possible that Scottish universities can lead the way in international marketing and development of their ideas abroad. However, another important point that emerged from the evidence was that there must be closer co-operation and collaboration between universities. We have all seen examples of less than co-operative attitudes between institutions. That must change. One of the major, globally significant projects that was used as an example of what can be achieved with collaboration was the human genome project.

I am pleased that SHEFC, in its response to the report, welcomed the report's thoroughness. SHEFC indicated that such reviews always arouse some controversy—and rightly so, it said. However, I am sure that the review raised far more controversy than SHEFC anticipated. That gives an insight into how SHEFC thinks and shows that the concerns—and the inquiry—were justified.

I agree with Professor Bernard King in the conclusion of his article in The Scotsman on 24 October that the public could quite rightly ask why it required far-sighted intervention from the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee to get SHEFC to listen. It is clear that mistakes were made and a flawed process was embarked upon. However, what has resulted is an important report that, during the course of its preparation, touched on many other issues of equal importance that need to be debated if we are to produce the enterprising economy and effective lifelong learning that we need in Scotland. I am hopeful that, when we return to the Parliament to debate the committee's report on lifelong learning as a whole, that too will be heralded by Professor King and others as miraculous.