PROTECT: PRIVATE COUNCIL MEETING Postgraduate Funding: BGP2 Funding Model Action Council is invited to:

AGENDA ITEM 7 14 December 2012 AHRC/C/12/56

discuss the implications for Councils previous decision in 2010 to reduce the overall expenditure on postgraduate funding in the context of the BGP2 scheme; approve the recommendation for discretion in the interpretation of award numbers for the BGP2 scheme.

Background 1. At its meeting in March 2010, Council endorsed the proposals (AHRC/C/10/05) associated with establishing the Block Grant Partnership Phase 2 (BGP2) funding stream. In the context of a steadily and rather steeply increasing commitment to PG support, this included an aspiration to bring down the overall percentage of the AHRCs budget spent on postgraduate funding from 40%+ to around one third of overall budget. The minutes of the meeting note that Council agreed that it was desirable to move towards the figure of 33% for postgraduate funding. The AHRCs Delivery Plan 2011-15 restated this commitment to reduce postgraduate funding to around one-third of current total budget; this one-third figure has also been stated in the draft AHRC Strategy 2013-18. 2. All figures expressed as a percentage of overall expenditure are, of course, subject to any future Spending Review outcome and associated budget settlement. For the purposes of the current paper, we have necessarily assumed that the funding for BGP2 represents a consistent percentage of current budget levels. 3. This paper sets out for discussion a number of key issues related to current projections for AHRC postgraduate funding via BGP2. The Annexes provide technical and financial information. Current situation 4. Council has had several discussions over the last 12 months relating to postgraduate funding. It is a pressing issue and has become an increasingly debated matter in the broader HE landscape. 5. Current expenditure: The AHRC currently spends including all postgraduate schemes not only BGP around 43% on postgraduate funding. BGP accounts for approximately 37% of total budget. 6. Numbers of BGP2s: The Council discussion in 2010 anticipated around 20-25 BGP2 awards to be made. Current guidance on the scheme anticipates 8-10 broad-based collaborations (Type A) across multiple disciplines and 5-10 smaller clusters (Type B) in specific disciplinary areas. 7. Collaborations and regional spread: The current structures for delivery of BGP2 encourage universities to come together in collaborative models. Many of these, as

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AGENDA ITEM 7 14 December 2012 AHRC/C/12/56 apparent from the BGP2 Expression of Interest stage earlier this year, are regionally based. The impact of the funding model may therefore have geographic implications based on current numbers/projected consortia.

8. Proposals going forward to full application stage: Council members will remember from the update following the Expression of Interest stage at the June 2012 meeting that 15 Type A proposals have proceeded to full application stage along with 15 Type B proposals. As each proposal has to bid for a minimum number of awards (see Annex A) there is a potential difficulty in the overall allocation supporting both disciplinary strength and regional diversity through the final BGP2 allocations. 9. Current studentship numbers projected for BGP2: The current studentship allocation for the BGP2 scheme is 450 doctoral awards per year. This is a representative figure given the actual awards will be a financial sum to each successful BGP2. The 450 represents a reduction of current funding levels for doctorates with the existing BGP1 scheme, which supports 625 new starters each year. This is in line with the aspiration from 2010 to reduce to around a third of overall expenditure. 10. BGP2 as a reputational issue: We need to recognise that the BGP award is not exclusively about the number of studentships awarded to institutions. Indeed, in many respects it is the quality kite-marking provided by the research council which is important to universities. There is also a reputational issue for the AHRC: postgraduate funding, as the feedback from the draft Strategy publication and other comments at events etc indicates, is a strongly felt issue among the research community. The potential damage to the AHRC in declaring for funding availability reasons that regions of the UK not of a sufficiently high quality or competitive standard to receive research council funding needs to be considered. 11. BGP2 significance for next decade: The funding under BGP2 will support five cohorts of students, meaning that the influence of the allocation will reach into the 2020s i.e. covering the next decade of postgraduate work in the arts and humanities. There is therefore a sustainability and strategic settlement issue involved. 12. Other AHRC PG funding: In relation to other funding schemes relevant to postgraduate support, the AHRC has recently increased its support for the Collaborative Doctoral Awards (CDA) scheme by 25% (from c.80 studentships per annum to 100). The CDA scheme also now includes a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) route for established non-HEI organisations like the AHRCs Independent Research Organisations (IROs; for example Tate, British Museum, British Library) to lead more strategic projects through the allocation of award clusters over several cohort years. There is also a modest level of postgraduate activity supported through project studentships attached to research grants, and other strategic investments such as the Knowledge Exchange Hubs for the Creative Economy have some limited PhD studentships.

PROTECT: PRIVATE Recommendations on BGP2

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13. It is crucial that Council resolve the issue of studentship number flexibility and associated budget issues at the December 2012 meeting in order to avoid an in principle decision being clouded by the possibility of particular outcomes. This needs to be a decision based on potential scenarios rather than known numbers or likely allocations. 14. We have brought forward the date of the BGP2 final panel meeting from September 2013 to July 2013. This will allow for Councils September 2013 meeting to consider the specific outcomes of the process. 15. Council is asked to consider whether it needs to revisit its 2010 statement in relation to the overall expenditure spent on postgraduate through the BGP2 mechanism. 16. Based on the information provided in this paper, including the technical annexes, and discussion at the meeting, Council is asked to agree to allow flexibility in interpretation of the allocation of studentships to BGP2 proposals. Council may wish to give a view on the parameters of that funding flexibility based on the overall indicative numbers in Annex C. 17. Council is also asked to confirm that the Executive needs to take a strategic view of the outcomes of BGP2 following peer review and the recommendation panel, including consideration of disciplinary coverage and regional spread and sustainability.

Mark Llewellyn Director of Research, November 2012

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AGENDA ITEM 7 14 December 2012 AHRC/C/12/56 Annex A: Minimum and Maximum studentship requests in bid types The BGP2 application consortia/single institution bids have had to work to a threshold as follows: Application Type Minimum number of studentships requested per annum 40 5 Maximum number of studentships requested per annum 60 10

Type A [Consortia/single HEIs able to demonstrate coverage across the AHRCs disciplinary remit] Type B [Specialist proposals in Modern Languages; Heritage; Creative and Performing Arts, including Design]

Annex B: Numbers of studentships requested under the BGP2 Expression of Interest stage The current total studentships available of 450 per annum alongside the minimum size of a Type A application at 40 studentships p.a. will potentially make outcome calculations too driven by the need to meet the 450 funding cap. Although 8-10 Type As is plausible it would only work on the basis that the consortia/research organisations have bid or will have to receive cohorts of funding at the lower end of the scale. This is not likely to be the case based on the size and scale of the consortia being submitted. The total number of studentships requested across all 30 proposals invited to proceed to full application stage is 4947 over 5 years, whereas we have 2250 studentships available over that period. These figures breakdown as follows: Application Type Type A 15 proposals Type B 15 proposals Total requested 4342 605

Most Type A proposals have requested the maximum number of studentships per year (60).

PROTECT: PRIVATE Annex C

AGENDA ITEM 7 14 December 2012 AHRC/C/12/56

Number of BGP2 studentships and indicative percentage of overall AHRC budget Number of BGP2 studentsh ips allocated // Financial Year 450 500 550 600 Notes: percentages indicate percentage within overall AHRC annual budget; budget assumed to remain at c.98M p.a. over entire duration, although of course this is subject to any future Spending Review; columns represent total % spending on BGP1, BGP: Capacity Building and BGP2 p.a. but exclude CDA/CDP scheme; including CDAs adds c.6% to each of the figures above; figures underpinning percentages represented include 2% p.a. inflation increase; figures do not include the funding spent on Cohort Development Funding; percentage decline rate from 2019/20 onwards indicative of the fact that BGP3 would need to kick in from 2019/20 cohort start. 2014/ 15 2015/ 16 2016/ 17 2017/ 18 2018/ 19 2019/ 20 2020/ 21 2021/ 22

34.8% 35.4% 36.0% 36.5%

32.0% 33.8% 35.5% 37.3%

32.4% 35.4% 38.3% 41.3%

33.0% 36.7% 40.3% 44.0%

33.7% 37.5% 41.2% 44.9%

28.6% 31.8% 35.0% 38.1%

17.5% 19.4% 21.4% 23.3%

5.9% 6.6% 7.2% 7.9%