Gyimah faces challenging brief

Sam Gyimah has received a lukewarm welcome by researchers, who warn his brief is fuller than ever and requires a balance between higher education and science.

Gyimah’s tray at his Whitehall office will be anything but empty. The effects of Brexit on research funding, the creation of the umbrella funding body UK Research and Innovation, the controversy surrounding the university regulator the Office for Students, a proposed review of higher-education funding and the ongoing row over vice-chancellors’ pay are just a few examples of developments he will have to wrestle with from day one.

“There will be a lot for Gyimah to get to grips with,” said Athene Donald, a professor of experimental physics at the University of Cambridge. “Universities have been an apparently easy target for criticism in recent months, but the issue of vice-chancellors’ pay is a distraction from ensuring the well-being of the sector. The new minister has a bulging in-tray of issues in play.”