Dilution and devolution

Scotland’s universities will share research funding more evenly than in the past, writes Lucy Hunter Blackburn.

As the Scottish referendum vote approached last year, the government told the Scottish Funding Council: “Our universities are renowned for the excellence of their teaching and research, and their prominent position in world rankings bears this out. You should enable them to continue this success.”

Now the funding council has announced that the university in Scotland usually found highest up those rankings, Edinburgh, will lose 10 per cent of its core research funding by 2017 (in cash: the real-terms loss will be nearer to 14 per cent), the third-largest percentage loss of any institution. This is despite the university improving its performance in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework, rising from fifth to fourth place in Research Fortnight’s UK research power ranking. The funding council has not gone rogue; it is following the policies set by the Scottish government itself.