Universities with high costs will lose funding

UNIVERSITIES with high teaching costs or poor research records will lose up to one per cent of funding in the coming year. The Higher Education Funding Council for England has warned of a continuing squeeze on departments which do not adapt.

The council's guidelines for distributing pounds 2,545m to more than 100 universities and higher education colleges in the coming financial year include a safety net to maintain stability, Professor Graeme Davies, the council's chief executive, said.

'But they may have to make difficult internal decisions. If they do nothing a process like this will be repeated. Some will have to concentrate their research on a narrower front.'

David Triesman, general secretary of the Association of University Teachers, said yesterday: 'The UK cannot afford the luxury of cutting further into its research base. Our priority must be growth. The Government has a straightforward question to answer: does it want a world-class education system and a world-class economy or not?'

Departments with poorly-rated research or higher than average teaching costs will find their funding progressively squeezed. The 'old' universities are more at risk than the former polytechnics which have reduced teaching costs as they expanded student numbers faster than the rest of the sector.

The Government's decision to halt the rapid expansion of student numbers and to cut fees for arts and social science subjects means that universities will not be able to boost their income by taking in more students. The only alternative will be to shed academic posts in departments which have higher than average costs.

Universities will be told their detailed allocations at the end of this month. In the meantime they are being reassured that no institution will find itself more than one per cent worse off in cash terms.

The eventual settlement will aim to boost part-time enrolments while removing incentives to recruit more full-time students.

Research funding of pounds 621m in 1993/94 is being concentrated on departments judged to be doing research of national excellence instead of being spread across all departments in the old universities as in the past. Universities will have to decide whether departments with weak research should become teaching-only.