Familiar winners

Research elite further prosper from tweaks to funding formula, writes Alison Goddard.

London and the south east of England is likely to benefit further from changes to the funding weights for research deemed to be world-leading or internationally excellent in the Research Excellence Framework, reports Research Fortnight, our sister publication. It says that the golden triangle of Oxford, Cambridge, University College London, Imperial College London and King’s College London forms the only university group to benefit as a result of the changes announced on 20 February. The N8 Research Partnership of northern institutions, which was going to lose funding anyway, is set to get even less. In a related editorial, it says that the tweak to the funding formula will probably be seen as being for the benefit of Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge. It concludes: "By the time we went to press [on 23 February], the Russell Group was predictably satisfied with the outcome. Other mission groups were saying little. Their silence speaks volumes."

Scottish universities should better align the research they conduct with the needs of the Scottish economy, Ferdinand Von Prondzynski of the Robert Gordon University told a conference in Glasgow yesterday. We have a report, available only to full subscribers to HE, which details his call for the nation’s universities to conduct oil and gas-related research that is currently carried out in Houston.