Cut red tape hindering marine restoration to boost coastal towns
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The Guardian
16 hours ago
- The Guardian
Dismay as north of England universities miss out on share of £54m talent fund
Ministers have been accused of undermining innovation in the north of England after five universities from the south-east were awarded £10m to hire overseas talent – with none selected between Birmingham and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. Twelve universities across Britain have been handed a share of the government's £54m global talent fund, which Labour said would 'put rocket boosters' under its innovation plans. The money is intended to attract top international academics and was awarded to three 'golden triangle' universities – Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London – and two others from the south-east of England. MPs and researchers said it was 'deeply disappointing' that no universities in the north of England were chosen, given their strong research record and the government's stated aim to rebalance the UK economy. Chi Onwurah, the Labour chair of the Commons science, innovation and technology committee, said she was demanding an explanation from the science minister, Patrick Vallance. She said: 'I'm writing to Lord Vallance for further details on how the government selected the 12 institutions that will receive funding, and why no region north of Birmingham was prioritised. 'The process he set out in his response to me is neither evidence-based policy nor place-based policy, nor even policy-based evidence, but some kind of mishmash which does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. 'This funding decision seems to be at odds with the government's stated mission to boost opportunities in every part of the country, and I hope the minister will be able to provide clarity.' The global talent fund was administered by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), an arms-length government body. The Northern Powerhouse Partnership, a thinktank, said the criteria for selecting the universities was 'arbitrary and inconsistently applied' and unfairly overlooked large institutions such as Manchester, Durham, and York. It obtained UKRI's selection criteria under the Freedom of Information Act and found that seven northern universities met a key threshold of spending at least £5m on international research funding. These were Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle, Lancaster, Sheffield and Durham. It said many of these institutions were unfairly disadvantaged by two further criteria related to their proportion of overseas staff. Larger universities are less likely to meet the 35% quota of international staff given their size, it said, although the University of Manchester missed out by just 0.3%. Henri Murison, the chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said it welcomed the principle behind the fund but it 'undermines innovation in the north'. 'The north isn't pleading, it's simply asking not to be overlooked in favour of special treatment for nations like Wales, which, while important, are far smaller in scale,' he said. 'The north remains the UK's only credible economic counterweight to London and the greater south-east. If the government is serious about delivering growth across every part of the country, it cannot allow UKRI, the intermediary between government and our world-class research councils, to stand in the way of that ambition.' A government spokesperson said: 'The £54m global talent fund will help some of our leading universities and research institutions to attract top researchers and their teams to the UK. Institutions across all four nations of the UK were selected based on measurable criteria. 'We are determined to maximise the opportunities in every part of the country, including the north of England, through our regional growth strategy, by building more cross-national research partnerships, and by investing our record £22.6bn funding for R&D through schemes like the local innovation partnerships fund.'
The Herald Scotland
2 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Are all exams created equal? The data raises questions.
However, the SQA also publishes data showing the grade distribution breakdowns for all subjects and levels, which means that we can see how likely students are to get a particular grade in one subject compared to another. Analysis of this data reveals huge variations in grade distributions between subjects even when they have similar overall pass rates. Across all Higher courses, the percentage of pupils achieving an A grade varies from 100 percent in traditional Mandarin to just 10.9 percent in Health and Food Technology. The eight subjects with the highest A grade percentage are all languages, with the lowest proportion achieving top grades being 51.4 percent in French. In 2025 a total of 25 subjects – including English, Biology, Physics, Physical Education, Art and Design, and Applications of Maths – fewer than one third of passing grades were awarded as an A. When analysing the top ten most popular Highers (at least in terms of the number of pupils sitting the exam) we see that the chances of a student achieving an A grade vary dramatically from one subject to the next: 23.6 percent of English passes are judged to be an A, whereas the figure for Mathematics is 41.2 percent, despite the fact that the two have almost identical overall pass rates. These variations in grade distribution are not new, and they can also be seen at National 5 and Higher level. They do, however, raise questions about whether all courses and grades are genuinely comparable, and why students are dramatically more successful in some than in others.
Evening Standard
3 days ago
- Evening Standard
Cut red tape hindering marine restoration to boost coastal towns
The network is also calling on Labour to use the flood defences budget to fund more nature-based solutions and to designate more highly protected marine areas in English waters to protect against practices like bottom trawling, in which fishing gear is dragged across the seabed destroying habitats and scooping up a wide array of species.
