Chamber and committees

Could the universities provide any more support to research students? I have visited facilities at the University of Glasgow where some amazing joint work is being done in partnership with charities. Could that be expanded?

Thank you for that.

The UK and European Union trade and co-operation agreement includes provisions that allow the UK to continue to participate in some EU programmes, such as horizon Europe for research and Copernicus for space. Horizon 2020 has been worth €711 million to Scottish organisations since 2014. We know that no agreement has been reached since the TCA was introduced in January. Has that impacted on research already? Do you anticipate that it will have an impact? What can be done to get that moving?

The question will be short. It is specifically for Karen Watt and is about something in the SFC report about the research council funding share and whether we should consider whether we are positioned appropriately to win new types of funding from the UKRI. How can we be better positioned?

Thanks, Karen. Professor Boyne, do you have anything to add to that?

We are agreed. Thank you.

The public part of today’s meeting is at an end, and we will consider our final agenda items in private. Thank you, and good afternoon.

Thank you.

Research excellence framework results for 2021 show that Scotland’s universities presented research that was judged to be world-leading or of four-star quality; 86 per cent of what was submitted was world-leading or internationally excellent. Could either or both of you share some examples of good practice and of what has led to that success, so that we can learn from that and build upon it? If anything can be done better, it would be helpful for us to hear about that.

Thank you.

Karen, do you have anything to add to that?

Welcome back. Our next agenda item is consideration of subordinate legislation—the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Rules of Procedure in Children’s Hearings) Amendment Rules 2022. The instrument is subject to the negative procedure and seeks to ensure that the rules about the composition of pre-hearing panels are consistent with the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011.

Does anybody have any comments to make on the Scottish statutory instrument? No one is indicating that they wish to make comments. Does the committee agree that it does not wish to make any recommendations on the instrument?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank Pam Gosal for allowing Parliament, through her motion, to reflect on the remarkable success of Scottish universities.

In contributing to the debate I will highlight, in particular, the successes of the University of Glasgow and the University of Strathclyde, which are located in my Glasgow Kelvin constituency.

Glasgow university has been ranked 13th and Strathclyde has been ranked 33rd in the Research Excellence Framework’s rankings of 129 institutions. Those are highly creditable rankings, and both universities should be proud of their performance, which has been achieved through intense focus and effort on the part of the staff, who also have busy teaching timetables and student welfare responsibilities. The University of Glasgow’s achievement is particularly exceptional, so I pay tribute to the university’s leadership team for its vision and commitment, and to the researchers who have delivered that result for the University of Glasgow and Scotland.

Before the summer recess, I visited the breathtaking new Mazumdar-Shaw?advanced research centre, which is known as the ARC. The new building is central to Glasgow university’s research strategy. Moreover, the unique concept of creating world-changing research that contributes to solving global challenges is a huge credit to the institution and its academics.

As members might know, the advanced research centre brings together more than 500 leading researchers in a building that was specifically designed to break down organisational structures, to facilitate collaboration and to provide true societal impact. By housing diverse teams in the same building, the ARC exposes individuals and research areas to one another so that they can collaborate, which increases opportunities for interdisciplinary working on global challenges. The building has exceptional features and accommodation. I encourage everyone to go and visit it, because the ground floor is open to the public at all times.

The fact that Glasgow university has achieved that remarkable ranking is all the more impressive because it has done so while also widening access for students from Scotland’s most deprived areas and achieving a ranking of 19th out of 1,046 international institutions in the world for its positive impact on society in the?Times Higher Education?impact rankings earlier this year.

I note, too, the quality of Strathclyde university’s research and its impact, which has been recognised by the Scottish Government’s significant investment in university ventures, including the advanced forming research centre and the Centre for Continuous Manufacturing and Advanced Crystallisation. It is also reflected in Strathclyde university’s leading role in national centres, including the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland and the medicines manufacturing innovation centre.

I will sound a note of serious concern. Brexit might not yet have dealt a “hammer blow” to research in Scottish universities, but we read earlier this year that one of Scotland’s top cancer experts is considering moving a major research project abroad, amid political turmoil and warnings that a Brexit-linked impasse over European Union funding will starve universities of talent.

In July this year, The Herald newspaper reported that Dr Payam Gammage, who works at the Cancer Research UK Beatson institute in Glasgow, warned that the UK’s departure from the £80 billion horizon Europe programme is accelerating Britain’s decline from being a global centre for scientific excellence. He also said that the development would significantly reduce Scotland’s appeal to overseas researchers and stressed that it is already proving to be impossible to attract applications from individuals in EU states.

That is not what Scotland voted for, but I will close on a note of hope that Scotland will return—sooner rather than later—to the EU’s valuable collaborative institutions, and that we will safeguard the ongoing excellence of our universities’ research input and output.