AHRC Announces Emergency 'Car Park Excavation' Scheme

AHRC: 'Plenty more where he came from'

The excitement surrounding the discovery of the remains of the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, under a car park in Leicester in August 2012, was reignited by his reburial at the weekend.

The AHRC has responded to the public excitement by issuing a NERC-style 'urgency' grant for anyone interested in digging up a local car park in the hope of finding a king.

London Riots: How Long until RCUK Issues a Call for Proposals?

As someone who’s spent a good deal of time on the funding block, I’ve always been impressed at how the Research Councils are able to jump on contemporary political bandwagons. Of course, they wouldn’t see at it as such. They would see it as providing research that will answer societies concerns. After 9/11 and 7/7, it was all about answering the threat from terrorism, particularly Islamic terrorism. Around the same time as Kyoto, it was all about ‘Living with Environmental Change’. In the most recent Delivery Plans all the talk was informed by the 2008 economic crisis, of ‘enabl[ing] the development of robust government and private sector strategies to ensure sustainable growth’ (ESRC Delivery Plan 2011-15). Sometimes they take this too far, and the AHRC has had its fingers burnt by appearing to not only jump on the ‘Big Society’ bandwagon, but sit beside the driver and do his bidding.

So how long do you think it will be before a call for proposals is issued around gangs, riots and criminality? My guess is six months to a year, perhaps shoehorned into the ESRC’s ‘Influencing Behaviour’ or ‘Vibrant and Fair Society’ strands. However, there’s a warning from a blog I read recently about the dangers inherent in adjusting your research funding policy in light of current affairs. Remember all the funding that went on terrorism in the mid-noughties? Has it had any real effect? Are we any closer to understanding or preventing terrorism or acts of carnage? Or has the cycle turned, naturally, to other issues? The events in Norway show that individuals or groups can still kill indiscriminately, and that ‘Global Uncertainties’ are no nearer resolution.

Whilst I accept the rationale behind the Research Council's wish to meet contemporary challenges, and of the push to integrate university research with the wider society through the impact agenda, perhaps the time has come to recognise that following the curve of current events is somewhat fruitless. Should the Research Councils now unshackle academics so that they can pursue whatever research is good rather than whatever research is political?

Haldane RIP?

For anyone who read the splurge of thematic priorities that was the AHRC Delivery Plan 2011-15, there was an interesting twist to the tale in the Observer on Sunday. Apparently the government had the Council 'over a barrel', and was demanding that they prioritise work on 'the Big Society', otherwise it would withdraw £100m of funding.
It's depressing news. Not only do the arts and humanities already receive the smallest share of the science budget, but a chunk of what they do get now has to be directed towards the spurious goals of the 'Big Society'.
There's a wider issue here. The government's alleged demands infringe on the demarcation between political priorities and independent research marked out in the Haldance principle 90 years ago. Whilst the origin of the principle is up for dispute, it's establishment since the 1960s should be treasured and guarded. Instead, a recent government - ahem - 'clarification' of the principle said (to quote the Observer) 'that research bodies must work to the government's national objectives, although the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that ministers will not meddle in individual projects.'
Not very reassuring. So will researchers take the King's shilling and scrabble aboard the Big Society, or make a stand against this political interference?