New research guidelines threat to academic freedom, warns UCU

Guidance from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), in its Research Excellence Framework, has confirmed that 25% of future research will be assessed on 'economic impacts.'
 
The union warned today that focusing research in areas dictated by government or business could result in many other areas of valuable research missing out on vital funding. Furthermore, UCU expressed serious concerns that unless universities have complete freedom to properly conduct their own rigorous research there was a very real risk to institutions' academic freedom.
 
In April, Alistair Darling reallocated £106 million of research funding towards areas with 'predicted economic potential'. However, earlier this month leading scientists from the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CASE) warned that scientific breakthroughs could be put at risk because of the inherent difficulty of trying to predict what research would create the biggest impact.
 
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Academic research should never be at the behest of market forces. History has taught us that some of the biggest breakthroughs have come from speculative research and it is wrong to try and measure projects purely on their economic potential.
 
'Academic research benefits all of society and we shouldn't be looking to reduce its scope and power. If Britain wants to be a world leader in innovation it should be listening to academics, not just the siren calls of big business. Unless we have an urgent review of research assessment in this country there is a very real chance that many vital projects will lose out. We are already on the edge of a very slippery slope.'