Efficient innovation

Research becomes ever more concentrated despite its funding being protected by a "ring fence", writes Alison Goddard.

The government is developing a new long-term strategy for science and innovation that will be released later this year, David Willetts, the universities and science minster, said yesterday. Innovation policy is not only a potential oxymoron but also of ever increasing importance to universities which argue that higher education drives economic growth. Yesterday the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills published its annual innovation report, accompanied by three sister volumes which noted a decline in the number of research leaders and a fall in the number of PhD students.

Mr Willetts has acquired an odd bedfellow in the form of George Galloway, MP for Bradford West. Announcing the annual grants for English universities for 2014-15, Mr Willetts stated that he was "very concerned about the upward drift of salaries of some top management". Mr Galloway has tabled an early day motion that calls on the government to ensure that vice-chancellors’ pay increases only by the same percentage as that of their staff. So far, he is the only signatory. Our sister publication Research Fortnight has a report.