“The elite research-intensive universities are unlikely to be given any special protection against funding cuts when the formula for distributing more than £1.5 billion a year to support research is devised. After Times Higher Education went to press, the board of the Higher Education Funding Council for England was due to meet to discuss the 2009-10 funding allocations, amid lobbying from leading research institutions to protect their share of research funding. Last month’s research assessment exercise, which will be used to determine research funding, found that ‘world-leading’ research was distributed widely throughout the sector. Without special protections built in to the RAE funding formula, there will be a much wider distribution of cash across the sector. It is predicted that the top eight universities could lose in excess of £100 million …” (more)
[Zoë Corbyn, THE, 22 January]