Independence in Higher Education and Research
Quite often we are offered academic reports and studies from diverse academic organisations, which carry with them the assurance that these are nothing more than impartial academic discourse.
This must be the case because they were prepared and presented by independent academics, whos only thoughts are to report honestly and fairly on their particular subject. Of course because these are no more than truly independent academics, they have no particular political view point and they only offer an honest non-partisan assessment of the case in question. This inevitable makes it difficult to question the findings of these “independent†reports, what gives these reports power is their academic origin,thus implying or openly stating independence and objectivity.
Yet the EU spends millions each and every year on educational and research projects in the UK, these funds are distributed to organisations within the academic education establishment on the condition that they must deal with the issue of European integration”. Further research funding comes from our own government.
If for instance we take the UCL which includes The Constitution Unit run by Robert Hazell.
The Constitution Unit claims on its web page that it is the UK’s foremost independent research body on constitutional change. The Constitution Unit specialises in constitutional reform and comparative constitutional studies. It is independent and non-partisan, and the centre of a wide network of national and international experts.
The UCL web site states that; The Constitution unit has had a major influence on the Governments constitutional reform programme, publishing a series of major reports and briefings on devolution in Scotland and Wales, regional government in England, parliamentary reform, reform of the House of Lords, incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, freedom of information, referendums and electoral reform. The unit is a major resource for government and for a wide range of other interests. It will continue to act as a source of independent and expert information and advice.
The UCL website claims it has a growing influence on policy making at local, national and international levels, through diverse bodies such as the Constitution Unit, the Centre for Transport Studies, the School of Public Policy, the Centre for South East European Studies, the Environmental Change Research Centre and the International Centre for Health & Society.
Looking at the funding however gives a slightly different slant on the independence picture, we find that apart form general funding from HEFCE to the tune of £10251000 in 2004 and £10686000 in 2005. The UCL also received research grants from the British government totalling £1385000, and another £281000 from the EU in the same two year period.
Future plans for UCL Funding
from 2005 to 2008, UCl have sought funding for research of £210k from the ESRC, UK government and devolved governments. The ESRC Research Resources Board has offered £105k and the Scottish Executive £30k. The UK government (DCA, Scotland Office and Wales Office) are still considering whether to offer the remaining £75k.
It is not for me to question the independence of the academics, but when so much of their funding is derived from central government, devolved government and the EU, it does leave them open to questions of probity.
But if they are not financially independent, then perhaps their papers and publications show a degree of independence.
The EU has several funding lines open to universities one of which is the The Jean Monnet Program cosponsored by the European Commission to promote teaching about European integration. Sponsors working papers, research projects.
This from the Bruges Group on the Jean Monnet organisation;
The Bruges Group is an independent all-party think tank. Our independence is our strength allowing us to be free to follow our own policy agenda and put the national interest above party political considerations.
Nowhere, in the torrent of papers emanating from Jean Monnet courses, on the conference agendas, in the publications that pour from the word processors of Jean Monnet professors, will you find any reasoned (or any) arguments as to why the UK should leave the EU, why the euro should not replace the pound, why Euroscepticism is a legitimate and honourable political activity. You will not find Eurosceptics - prominent or otherwise - invited as guest lecturers on Jean Monnet courses, you will not find Eurosceptic tracts used as core teaching material (except for the purposes of rebuttal) and you will not find UK Independence Party MEPs addressing Jean Monnet conferences.
The “debate” is totally one-sided. It is, therefore, not a debate. It is propaganda, paid for by the British taxpayer, delivered by academics who - as was seen from the examples of their work in the British media - purport to be objective and impartial, but who are not.
Politically, the significance of this is profound. In the absence of a steady stream nationally-orientated policy ideas, contrasted with the flow of ideas on “European” themes, the EU is seen as the “only game in town”. This reinforces the myth that the future lies with “Europe” and lends credence to propaganda that there is no alternative to membership of the EU. As ordinary people become steadily more disillusioned by the policy vacuum, “Europe” wins the game by default.
To those of us who have studied the ways of the EU, all of this has a weary familiarity. The insistence of the EU on cross-border collaboration between universities - making funding conditional on such arrangements - exactly parallels its regional policy, where funds are made conditional on cross-border co-operation. What is happening in academia is a variation on the theme of “perforated sovereignty”, whereby sub-national organisations are encouraged to build contacts with like organisations in other member states, by-passing their national governments and thus diminishing their authority.
The Bruges Group also has some details of other (now out of date) involvement of the EU in UK Academic institutions; The Leeds Metropolitan University website, for example, promotes its Business School and one of its departments, the Policy Research Institute, proudly boasting of “prestigious clients”, including the European Commission. It cites DGV as its “client”, the Directorate responsible for the European Social Fund.
Manchester University’s website parades a dedicated “European Policy Research Unit”, under its School of Government, heavily supported by EU funds. Simon Bulmer, one of the university academics, contributes to the EU’s ARENA programme, the programme of Advanced Research on the Europeanisation of the Nation State. In 1997, he delivered a paper on the “New Institutionalism”, analysing the Single Market and EU Governance.
Hull University proudly advertises its EU-funded “Euro Information Centre Humberside”, one of twenty similar centres in the UK, which claims to be a “first-stop-shop for information on European policies, programmes and legislation”. But the pride of place in Hull goes to the Centre for European Union Studies (CEUS), founded in 1990 under the directorship of Professor Juliet Lodge and now under the direction of Dr Mike Burgess. It obtains finances from a variety of EU programmes and the university also directed the UK-wide Jean Monnet Group of Experts on the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference.
York University hosts a Centre for Defence Economics, which boasts of having undertaken research for the European Commission. It also has a Centre for Experimental Economics which claims to have been financed from a number of sources, “most notably the Economic and Social Research Council of the United Kingdom and the European Commission”.
Lancaster University’s Management School has received funding from a variety of EU programmes. It received €300,000 over a two-year period from the European Commission’s Human Capital and Mobility (HCM) programme, and funding from the Training and Mobility of Researchers (TMR) and NECTAR programmes.
The University of Sheffield, which supports a “European Research Office” and hosts the web-site “Focus on Europe On-line”. In a foreword to this publication, the University’s Vice Chancellor, Sir Gareth Roberts FRS, proudly proclaims that the issue in which he writes “…continues to show the University of Sheffield’s commitment to achieving excellence in research by integrating the European Dimension in all areas of activity”.
Aston University’s Business School in Birmingham, which claims to be “one of the largest and most successful business schools in Europe”, also boasts of funding from the European Union. The London School of Economics hosts the “European Institute” and is a member of the “Community of European Management Schools”, all handsomely provided with EU funds.
Reading University runs the Graduate School of European and International Studies, with a director who occupies the Jean Monnet chair, using EU funding for projects on the likes of “European Citizenship and Constitutionalism”. Its Centre for International Business History is undertaking an EU funded project called CEMP (Creation of European Management Practice), which aims to judge “to what extent education, research and consulting contribute to the homogenisation of management knowledge from Europe”.
With EU funding, Cranfield University in Bedfordshire is coordinating a survey into “Human Resource Management” and is undertaking research on the “Euro Human Resource Manager” in collaboration with establishments in Germany, Spain and Slovakia. It is seeking to profile the education and training needs of personnel managers and to determine perceptions of future developments in the personnel role. Its Institute for Advanced Marketing counts as its leading sponsor the European Commission.
Surrey University’s Centre for Environmental Strategy, on the other hand, advertises its participation in a project called “Clean Development Mechanism” researching greenhouse gas emissions. This was funded by DGXII of the European Commission and involved six institutions across Europe.
Even the traditional universities are not immune from EU blandishments, with the prestigious Biosciences High Level Group (BHLG) launched by the Commission, boasting three Cambridge scientists amongst its 11 members: Professor Sir Tom Blundell; Prof. Derek Burke; and Prof. Anne McLaren.
The message should be clear to all of us, when an academic paper is presented as being from a Non-partisan and independent unit, then we perhaps ought to take that with a very large pinch of salt.
The EU has created a network of funding possibilities for both teaching and for research which is conditional on there being an EU dimension to the work. If this were not the case then where are all those academic papers suggesting why the UK should leave the EU, why the euro should not replace the pound, why Euroscepticism is a legitimate and honourable political activity, what are the benefits of an English parliament in a devolved Britain.
