Assessment change sparks protest

research councils and other funding agencies around the world, it has in recent years made headlines by investing record sums in infrastructure projects. In the Joint Infrastructure Fund, the grants given by the trust in partnership with the UK government and its research councils are often used as a lever to make government money available. For instance, the trust might approach the government with the plan to invest significant funds into a major building project on condition that the government matches the amount. Examples of infrastructure projects include the Diamond synchrotron and the Sanger Institute. With the current reduction of its assets on the one hand, and a UK government that has provided science with satisfactory budget increases over the last few years, the trust — with its new director and new finance plan — may want to reconsider whether it really has to be a bigger spender than the government. It may decide to leave the replacement of ageing infrastructure at UK universities in the hands of the government, and focus on driving forwards the most promising new research projects. After all, its mission is about research and health, not about UK universities. Unlike government agencies, the trust is free to place its money wherever it considers it most efficient in terms of research that saves and improves lives. Seeing that many more and younger lives can be saved by curing malaria than by treating prostate cancer, there might, for instance, be a case for investing more of it in the third world. If the trust decides to place its funding differently from the way it has done in recent years, that might result in a considerable shake-up to be felt far and wide. Britain's researchers have been doing quite well from government funds for science projects in recent years compared with many other countries. But such funds address only half the issue for university researchers because their institution must also stump up funds and this arm of the system has been seriously under pressure. Therefore the government has been trying to use a mechanism to reward the best research departments with the highest share of the funding cake. But the latest efforts to boost further the funding for the very best departments appear to have backfired, as researchers show increasing concern about the manner in which those departments will be identified. how departments within this group can be …