Social Policy Association members may have seen the report in
yesterday's (19th July) Guardian about the potential job losses
resulting from the increasingly selective allocation of research
resources. Please see below a letter which the SPA Chair and
Vice Chair have sent to the Guardian in response to that report.
Together with the Social Policy Joint University Committee, the
SPA has also written to Professor Howard Newby expressing
concern at the consequences of the post-RAE resource
distribution. This correspondence is included in the next issue of
SPA News which will be distributed next week
Dear Sir
The report in Thursday’s Guardian (Research fund plans
‘threaten 8000 jobs’) highlights the potentially disastrous human
resource consequences of plans to allocate the bulk of research
funding only to university departments rated 5 and above in the
recent Research Assessment Exercise. But there is another
consequence that has been relatively overlooked – the need to
sustain skilled applied social research capacity at local and
regional levels, in order to contributes to the development,
implementation and evaluation of social and economic policies.
New Labour has produced a torrent of such policies –
economic regeneration, social renewal, the modernisation of
public services, to name but a few. The first few years saw a
distinctive focus on area-based initiatives (the ‘Zone’ era); more
recently central government has favoured the implementation of
national policies in flexible ways that meet local needs and
circumstances.
But effective local implementation requires research and
development support - to identify and quantify areas of need; to
monitor implementation and change; and, if necessary, to
reshape implementation strategies to better meet local priorities.
And this support also needs to be available locally, if it is to be
informed and effective. This capacity is seriously threatened by
the over-concentration of research funding. The Social Policy
Association, which represents nearly 600 academics and other
social science researchers, has also written to the Higher
Education Funding Council setting out these concerns. The
response was depressingly negative.
Professor Alan Deacon
Chair, Social Policy Association
University of Leeds
Professor Caroline Glendinning
Vice-Chair, Social Policy Association
University of Manchester
Caroline Glendinning
Professor of Social Policy
National Primary Care Research and Development Centre
Williamson Building
University of Manchester
Manchester M13 9PL
Tel 0161 275 7607
Fax 0161 275 7601
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