As the UK’s public sector nervously awaits forthcoming cuts, the great and the good of the scientific world are pleading for the axe to fall on someone else.
In today’s Times there are two letters from industry leaders urging the coalition government to support universities and not be too unpleasant to them. This follows the suggestion last week from universities minister David Willetts that students and their degrees were a “burden on the taxpayer that had to be tackled”.
In one letter, vice-presidents from AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Airbus, GlaxoSmithKline join to ask that the government invest in both education and public sector research.
“We value the scientific and engineering talent that flows from the UK’s world-class universities and publicly funded research base, and how the tax regime supports research and development investment,” they state, although they omit to add “and we’ll take our money elsewhere if it changes”.
In the other letter, various banking and consultancy high flyers also suggest supporting universities might be a good plan. “It is only by recognising the essential contribution that universities make to our economy that we can begin the long road to economic recovery,” they write.
Some kind of serious cuts are in the works for research and universities. Expect the campaigning from interest groups to step up ahead of the emergency budget on 22 June and the real slicing in the comprehensive spending review in the autumn.
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