Transcript Document

2ND ANNUAL MEETING OF ESRC WITH
LEARNED SOCIETIES
27TH OCTOBER 2010
CHANGE, CONTINUITY AND THE
SPENDING REVIEW
Change: New Chief Executive
Paul Boyle
Previously:
School of Geography and Geosciences
University of St Andrews
President, BS for Population Studies 2007-9
Co-Director, Centre for Population Change
Director of Longitudinal Studies Centre, Scotland
Responsible for Scottish LS to August 2010
Research
Population Geography, inc migration, fertility
interests:
& family dynamics, Health Geography.
Change: New Committee and Network
Structure
Governance Structure
Change: New Committee and Network
Structure
New Structure:
Grants Delivery Group
Panel B
Panel A
Education
Psychology
Linguistics
Sociology
Social Work
Social Policy
Social Legal
Area Studies
Anthropology
Stats & Methods
Politics & Int. Studies
Science and Technology Studies
Peer Review College
Panel C
Economics
Management
Demography
Env. Planning
Geography
History
Change: New Peer Review College
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1800 UK academics
50 overseas academics
250 ‘user’ members
Thanks to learned societies for their nominations!
Response rates already much improved. Classifications to be
developed further.
N.B. Maximum call on reviewers is 8 per year.
Continuity/Change
 Economic and societal impact
N.B. broad framework
 Lifecycle approach – application to evaluation
 pathways to impact
 impact toolkit
 Taking Stock: case study portfolio
Continuity
Enduring values, clear commitment to:
Quality
Impact
Independence
Continuity
Partnership working
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Partners who share the quality, impact and independence values
ESRC operated partnerships bring in £25m. to social science,
externally granted partnerships – at least as much again.
Internally operated e.g. DFID poverty alleviation; civil society
Centres; public health centres
Externally operated e.g. National Prevention Research Initiative;
Assisted Living; Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation
Continue but greater strategic focus and emphasis on ESRC as
knowledge broker –N.B. business (financial services, retail and
perhaps green business models/technologies)
Continuity
Core data infrastructure, for example:
 Economic and Social Data Service
 Birth Cohort Studies
 Household Panel Study
Continuity but linkage to administrative data and ensuring
optimal use of infrastructure.
Continuity
Development of methods
 especially, but not exclusively quantitative
methods
 importance of innovation in research methods
 importance of mixed methods.
Continuity/Change
Postgraduate Training
 greater institutional concentration of funding
 greater proportion of studentships in priority
areas
 high quality DTC proposals being considered
with a view to early 2011 announcement.
Continuity
Importance of innovation in Research:
 welcome bold, ambitious proposals
 new Peer Review College should help
 time of austerity is not time for modest, incremental
research
Continuity
Interdisciplinarity, within and beyond social science
Challenge based approach to interdisciplinarity by RCUK
Programmes, n.b. social science participation in all current
6 RCUK Programmes
But never interdisciplinarity for its own sake, always as a
means to the end of “excellence with impact”.
Continuity-Social Science at the Core
Social Science lies at the heart of understanding and
tackling complex challenges facing society
o Social science remains essential and central to all the
cross-Council themes
o This fact increasingly recognised by all the Research
Councils
o A reduction in ESRC’s budget would have detrimental
effect on the whole RCUK research agenda
Continuity
International dimensions of social science
 global challenges – climate change, poverty, security
 facilitate international collaboration, that is
administratively light for researcher
 European agenda: Innovation Union, Eurohorcs/ESF
 Global agenda: US, India, China, Latin America…
Spending Review
 Process:
announcement of 20th October
Council 22nd October
new Delivery Plans for Research Councils,
public in December
between now and then adjustments will be
made between RC allocations
 Outcome to date: “Despite enormous pressure on public
spending, the overall level of funding for science and
research programmes has been protected in cash terms”
Spending Review
Issues for all Research Councils:
 “implement the efficiency savings identified by Bill
Wakeham”
 programme and capital spend
 demand management
 administration costs to be reduced by at least 33% over
the Spending Review period.
Spending Review
Issues for ESRC:
 greater focus than 7 challenges provide (see next slide)
 fewer competitions providing more flexible opportunities
e.g. merger of large grants/Centres
 importance of provision for new researchers
 end/transform less effective schemes – mid career
fellowships? smaller awards?
 any evolution of QR.
Spending Review-Priority Areas
o New strategic investments will be highly focused - 7
challenges remain important but we will not have
sufficient funds to support new work in all of the areas
o The priorities be kept under regular review and be
flexible and responsive
o Need to maximise impact of existing investments and
may need to ask some existing investments to refocus
their activities
2ND ANNUAL MEETING OF ESRC WITH
LEARNED SOCIETIES
27TH OCTOBER 2010
CHANGE, CONTINUITY AND THE
SPENDING REVIEW
- ANY QUESTIONS?