Systems not silos in Ottoline Leyser’s valedictory select committee appearance

It must be exceptionally hard to run an organisation like UKRI.

It’s not just that it has billions of pounds to manage but that it must do so permanently in the public eye. It does not enjoy the clarity of businesses of comparable size in that it does not exist to make money. It does not benefit from the cloistered solicitude of private R&D funding which has no call to ministers, governments, or the public. UKRI is a portfolio manager but it is a political project whose purpose is never settled and always debated.

At the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee the now ex-chief executive of UKRI, Ottoline Leyser, had the opportunity to reflect on the challenges of steering such an enormous and public enterprise. Like all select committees there were more questions than time but a clear idea emerged. Reforming research is hard especially if the reformers are focussed on policy initiatives above system reform.

Much to the chagrin of the drama lovers the committee assiduously avoided asking Leyser about her relationship with former minister and occasional academic libeller Michelle Donelan. Much to the delight of policy lovers the committee did ask Leyser about what UKRI should be doing, how its work might be measured, and her advice for her successor.

To Leyser’s mind UKRI’s biggest challenge is data. Because of its size UKRI has a challenge in accessing real-time data to understand underlying research trends, the impact of funding, and underpinning this intelligence with the right data frameworks. While Leyser could point toward successes like streamlining financial flows, changing the culture of UKRI to be more enabling of the research councils, she frequently stressed that live data was the key to the success of the research ecosystem.

Leyser said she is a “huge fan of science and technology framework” when pushed about reconciling economic growth with blue-sky research (she sees no contradiction between the two). The impression given by Leyser is that trying to pin down UKRI to a set of long-term SMART targets, as advocated by the National Audit Office, is the wrong approach. This is because UKRI’s work exists as a series of inputs that are hard to measure and a set of outputs that are diffused into the economy and are even harder to measure.

Instead, UKRI’s former chief executive imagines a more flexible approach to funding because of the dynamic needs of the economy. She is against a “ringfenced pot of money to do every new thing” but acknowledges trust is crucial for greater funding flexibility. If the UK is to compete globally its strength can be the coordination of resources which requires changing the underlying research incentives. To Leyser’s mind the fundamental challenge is that universities through funding allocations and league tables are incentivised to carry out large volumes of research. She said to the committee that “we need to get away from the idea that more is better,” a sentiment reflected in the government’s recent white paper.

As the key advocate for much of the REF reform Leyser repeated the idea that REF is about organisations not individuals. She said that:

we need to break the idea that research is all about a particular layer of individuals. They are obviously critical but so is all the stuff around them.

This sentiment sits squarely in the wider appeal for investment in research systems that account for a mix of skills, flexible funding allocations, greater interdisciplinarity, and more porosity between business and research. The narrative of the whole committee gave the context for REF reform which has at times felt absent when discussed in isolation.

It feels odd to ask the previous incumbent of a role about the future of their former employers. Nevertheless, from this appearance a coherent strategy among all of the business of the research ecosystem emerged. Namely, fund fewer things better underpinned by a stable political settlement, move incentives towards institutions and strengths, allow flexibility in funding where appropriate and targeted funding where it aligns with government missions, and evaluate in real-time and through continual reflection on the effectiveness of evaluation itself.

Hard to disagree, even harder to do, and yet to be seen how much of this will survive the new postholder.