THE: REF results reopen funding debate

Our chair, Professor Steve West, has been quoted in media coverage of the Research Excellent Framework exercise 2014 in Times Higher Education.
The story suggests that the increase in the proportion of academic research classed as world-leading or internationally excellent has reopened the debate about how quality-related funding is distributed.
Meanwhile, Steve West, chair of University Alliance, said that the question of how university research is funded is “critical” at a time when public spending is under scrutiny.
“Previous funding decisions have been right to seek out and fund the teams doing leading research rather than picking winners at an institutional level,” he said. The best way to maintain the UK’s global standing as a research nation is to continue funding excellence “wherever it is found”, he argued.
Read our full statement and coverage of Alliance universities’s REF results here.

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