Lords: 'Such Funding Should Be Protected'

The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has said that the government should be clear about its commitment to research funding in order to calm fears about cuts. In 'Setting Priorities for Publicly Funded Research', a report published on 1 April, it asked for clarfiication on how the government could keep its commitment to funding research whilst making the cuts to higher education and research announced in the Budget.

The Lords want research funding to be protected, and for the government to publish annual figures on all research spend, including that through government departments.

In addition, the Lords questioned the REF impact assessment, considering the 25% weighting to be too high.

Full details are available in this report.