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The responses from the Scottish government and Academics for Yes to the serious concerns expressed by eminent research scientists (Scottish universities fear science brain drain, 1 September) are wholly unconvincing.
First, the claim by a source close to Mike Russell, the Scottish education secretary, that university research funding would be maintained in an independent Scotland is meaningless. The present Scottish government cannot bind any future government.
Second, the Academics for Yes claim that the extra cash which would have to be found is only £28m a year. This is a massive underestimate. Even making good the loss in Research Councils UK (RCUK) income from which Scotland benefits would cost around three to four times that amount.
More seriously, it ignores the equally important loss in funding from UK charities, especially those which fund the medical research at which Scotland excels. For example, one of the most important, the Wellcome Trust, has rules that prevent it funding research outside the UK on terms as favourable as the research it funds in the UK.
It also disregards the damage to collaboration between researchers in Scotland and those elsewhere in the UK. It would become increasingly attractive to leading researchers to locate themselves, and even whole research groups, south of the new border. As your report makes clear, some are already considering this seriously.
Third, Academics for Yes have argued that the current research collaboration between the UK and the EU is a model for the future. This is naive. There is no common research area between the UK and the EU, and EU research funding is tiny compared with that of RCUK.
They have also claimed that a common research area is compatible with “Scottish interests being better and more consistently represented”. There is no foundation for this claim. Scotland is already exceptionally well represented on RCUK decision-making bodies, and if a single research area were negotiated at all it would have to be on the basis of uniform rules for all.
David Caldwell
Edinburgh
• It is always disappointing how astonishingly narrow, selfish and self-interested some academics can appear. Scotland’s referendum vote should be based on what is best for the Scottish people, not just for a privileged few. Academics should take account of what will improve social and economic justice most in the country. A former chief medical officer in July stated that a yes vote could be “positive” for health in Scotland.
In small European countries, similar in size and economic activity to Scotland, university researchers, including those in public health and life sciences, have prospered and collaborate globally. Industries, international agencies and governments invest in their research in these countries. Critically, such researchers continue to contribute to the health and wellbeing of their own countries.
So why should good researchers fear independence and flee? An academic this week described UK universities as “docile and whimpering, following the orders of its masters without question”. Hopefully many Scottish academics will break that trend and vote yes on 18 September.
Andrew Watterson
Burnside
• Nicola Sturgeon (Profile, 6 September) says: “I prepare very carefully for everything I do in politics.” What preparation preceded her statement in 2006 that “the growing student debt burden is not sustainable” and promise that “we will introduce grants to replace loans”? These proposals were, she added, “sound and affordable”.
Since the SNP gained office in 2007, Scotland has been the only part of the UK to cut the value of student grants, reducing its spending on these by around one-third. Annual student borrowing is now two-and-a-half times higher.
Only in Scotland does the government expect those starting from households in the lowest third of the income distribution to leave university owing it the most, now up to £27,000. Those from better-off backgrounds leave with less debt, often in practice little or none. In Scotland uniquely, those who started with the least end up paying back much the most.
Point this out and you can expect vigorous criticism from a government more inclined, in this area at least, to compare itself with England than take responsibility for its own decisions about the distribution of resources here.
In 2006, Ms Sturgeon astutely observed: “You don’t have to stop and think for very long to realise that a graduate with £11,000 or more of debt will find it much harder than one without to buy a home, start a business or save for their retirement.” That’s why long-term effects of Scottish student support policy are so profoundly regressive. The pity is that to say so in Scotland in 2014 appears to be almost taboo.
Lucy Hunter Blackburn
Edinburgh
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