June 2002/35
Issues paper

This report is for information only

Arts and humanities research infrastructure

Report to the HEFCE by JM Consulting

This is a review of the requirements for infrastructure for research in the arts and humanities in UK universities and colleges of higher education. It assesses the extent of remedial investment required, and sets out the conditions needed to manage this infrastructure on a sustainable basis. The report is primarily concerned with current needs, but looks at trends and developments and their implications for the infrastructure required to support them. It makes recommendations that need to be considered in the context of ones made in the related reports for teaching and learning (HEFCE 2002/31) and for science research infrastructure.

Table of contents and executive summary (read on-line)

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Executive summary and recommendations

1    Introduction
      Terms of reference
      The science report
      Study method
      Scope, definitions and terminology
      The report

2    Research in the arts and humanities
      The arts and humanities disciplines
      The importance of research in the arts and humanities
      The nature of research in the arts and humanities

3    The funding and management of this research
      Recurrent funding for these disciplines
      Activity costs
      The value of arts and humanities infrastructure
      Capital funding
      Management of assets and infrastructure

4    Findings on infrastructure needs
      Categories of investment needed
      Generic institutional infrastructure
      Well-found laboratory or equivalent
      Advanced or specialist facilities
      Recurrent investment needs
      Forward investment - continuing needs for replacement and renewal
      Summary of capital investment needs

Appendices

A Terms of reference and advisory group
B Report on responses to consultation

Glossary

Executive summary and recommendations

Introduction

1. This report reviews the requirements of infrastructure for research in the arts and humanities in UK universities and colleges. It assesses the extent of remedial investment required, and sets out the conditions needed to manage this research infrastructure on a sustainable basis.

2. Much of the infrastructure for research in the arts and humanities is shared with teaching in these subjects, and indeed much is generic to all university academic activity (for example, buildings, services, IT networks, libraries). This report focuses on the requirements for arts and humanities research, but these are only part of a broader picture. This report draws extensively upon the evidence and analysis contained in an earlier report - 'Study of science research infrastructure', published in March 2002 by the Office of Science and Technology (referred to as 'the science report' throughout this publication). A report on the infrastructure needs of teaching will also be published by the HEFCE.

3. The physical infrastructure in higher education institutions (HEIs) supporting teaching and research is made up of buildings with an insured value of approximately £26 billion, plus equipment and contents of a further £8 billion. Chapter 3 states that, for costing purposes, approximately 6% of this physical infrastructure can be attributed to arts and humanities research. The arts and humanities also rely on other resources outside institutions including libraries, collections, museums and galleries.

4. The infrastructure for research also includes some staff (for example, technicians); and recurrent funding for items such as maintenance contracts; library materials; small items of equipment and consumables; travel; and publications.

The arts and humanities

5. The nature of the arts and humanities disciplines and research are reviewed in chapter 2. They share a common framework of the nature of scholarship and academic enquiry with the sciences. Interdisciplinary work brings the arts and humanities and the sciences together. Traditional research methods in the humanities are evolving. Increasingly research in these disciplines is taking on features of science-based research, including team working; multi-centre collaborations; use of sophisticated information technology.

6. Like the sciences, the arts and humanities make a vital contribution to the UK economy and society. In particular, research in the arts and humanities underpins the UK's leading position in the creative, cultural, and heritage industries, which are some of the fastest-growing and most important export earners for the UK.

7. This is a diverse group of disciplines. For the purposes of this study, they can be envisaged as two groupings:

the more traditional arts and humanities subjects (for example, English, history, languages, philosophy, archaeology) which have by and large a common research methodology and culture;
the creative arts (for example, music, dance, digital media, fashion, design) which are newer as subjects in HE and have a less well-established research profile, and often much more specific infrastructure requirements.

8. Unlike the sciences, the traditional arts and humanities disciplines rarely have any dedicated research space equivalent to the research laboratory, and there have been limited opportunities for external funding of research (this has improved recently with the creation of the AHRB). This has been associated with a culture where much research is essentially done 'in the margins of teaching' using both facilities provided for teaching, and staff time (often evenings and vacations) when students are not using the space or demanding the attention of researchers. A related aspect has been, until recently, the relatively low expectations and ambitions of research staff in the arts and humanities in terms of the infrastructure and support they demand.

9. These features are not unique to the arts and humanities, but they are more characteristic of these disciplines. They can be considered a strength in some respects (notably the close relationship of teaching and research), but they have also undoubtedly held back the development and professionalisation of research in these disciplines and the development of their full potential.

10. This pattern of working is changing as a result of the pressures of the RAE, and the work done by the AHRB. This change of culture will help to maximise the potential of these disciplines and their contribution to the economy and society. It also has implications for the level of infrastructure support required, which now needs to increase significantly.

The environment for arts and humanities research

11. In the science report, a related series of historic factors and financial pressures are discussed that have combined to create a situation in higher education where the physical assets of universities and colleges have been undervalued, and under-invested, relative to what would be regarded as good long-term asset management in a commercial business. The principal influences here have included:

the past public-funded culture of higher education;
the large number of 1960s and 1970s buildings, which are already unsuitable in many cases, and near the end of their design life;
perverse incentives in the way that capital and recurrent funding of universities has rewarded expansion and new development, and has not facilitated whole-life asset management;
recurrent funding of research below full economic costs;
the long-term decline in the unit of resource for teaching;
issues about the strategic management of estates, particularly in the more traditional research universities which have been led by academic officers, and have not given priority to long-term estates strategy or to commercial property and investment skills;
the absence of properly integrated research and resource strategies in institutions.

12. Institutions have varied in their degree of success in managing these pressures. However, perverse incentives in the funding mean that those which have practised self-help, rather than relying on or waiting for Government schemes, may now fear that, to the extent that they have reduced their infrastructure problems, they have made themselves less eligible for future funding schemes.

13. Additional factors have contributed to a situation where the degree of under-investment is probably relatively greater in the arts and humanities than in the sciences. These include:

lack of external sources of funding and the traditional humanities model of research discussed above have constrained the level of research activity, in particular the use of more expensive or specialist infrastructure;
the small size of many arts and humanities departments and their relative inability to command a high priority within their institutions, partly because the laboratory-based subjects have had health and safety legislation and other external pressures. By contrast, arts and humanities subjects have been perceived to be 'able to cope' with sub-optimal infrastructure;
Government policy has treated the arts and humanities differently from the sciences and social sciences and has not, until recently, recognised the scale of their relevance and contribution to national economic and social objectives;
some short-term problems in recent years as a result of institutions struggling to find matching funds for JIF and SRIF projects in the sciences. These have had an adverse effect on the levels of investment that would otherwise have been made in teaching and in the arts and humanities.

14. All this adds up to a picture where there is a significant requirement for remedial investment across the whole higher education generic institutional infrastructure, and the arts and humanities have probably done less well on average than the sciences. They have of course not benefited from any infrastructure investments equivalent to JIF and SRIF.

15. There have been capital funding schemes available for the arts and humanities. The science report shows that out of a total of approximately £4 billion in capital funds allocated to institutions over the past 10-12 years, approximately 30% was in principle accessible by the arts and humanities. There are examples where arts and humanities have benefited from infrastructure investments which are on a par with the best in the sciences. However, the picture is both discipline- and institution-specific, and overall there is still a significant unmet need.

Investment needed in infrastructure for arts and humanities research

16. As was found for the sciences, and for teaching, the investment needs in infrastructure for research in the arts and humanities can be grouped into five categories, which are reviewed in detail in Chapter 4. Four of them are considered below:

Remedial capital investment, subdivides into three categories
- Generic institutional infrastructure
- Well-found laboratory or equivalent
- Advanced or specialist facilities
Recurrent investment needs - departmental funds etc

Generic institutional infrastructure

17. This includes buildings; services; equipment; libraries and ICT at the generic institutional level. It would include specific buildings or facilities such as theatres and studios which are an essential part of the infrastructure for the disciplines currently in the institution. Lack of adequate and appropriate space in which to do research is a serious constraint in the humanities, which do not generally have dedicated spaces for research. More generally, growth in student numbers and limited external funding has put severe pressure on staff rooms, graduate common rooms, studios and performance spaces and other spaces which are critical for research.

18. Generic institutional needs have been assessed in this and companion studies using a common method across all research and teaching. The findings, based on detailed assessments at 12 case study institutions, lead to a conclusion that the sum required for remedial investment in the generic institutional infrastructure for the arts and humanities is £0.5 billion. The equivalent figure for teaching is £4.6 billion, and £2.7 billion for science research.

19. This level of remedial investment will ensure that:

there is adequate space for the current level of work;
no buildings are in maintenance condition categories C or D, and they are fit-for-purpose i.e. functionally suitable; including appropriate estates rationalisation where necessary;
there is no outstanding borrowing associated with these buildings;
they comply with legislative requirements for health and safety and disabled access.

20. This remedial investment on generic infrastructure for arts and humanities should not be made in an isolated and ring-fenced way. To allow the greatest benefits of any investment, it should be made as part of a holistic institutional strategy for this physical infrastructure, and managed alongside parallel investments in the generic infrastructure for teaching and for science research.

21. Eligibility for funding should include the whole spectrum of arts and humanities disciplines. Needs for any one discipline will vary by institution, depending on the type of research they do, and the past investment they have been able to make. Funding should be made available to all institutions on a formula basis that recognises current institutional size and research strengths. It should cover buildings and associated services and facilities, including library buildings and IT networks, but not include staffing or the purchase of library material.

Well-found laboratory or equivalent

22. The well-found laboratory is a discipline-specific requirement related to specific equipment and environments for research in addition to the space and services provided as part of the generic institutional infrastructure. In the arts and humanities this includes theatre equipment, musical instruments, music technology centres, workshops, costumes, arts and craft materials, specialist IT equipment (but not PCs and recurrent departmental expenditure), archives or collections (but not general library contents).

23. This definition excludes major capital projects (such as a theatre, library) which are too large to be regarded as departmental or discipline requirements. These would either fall within the generic institutional infrastructure (if they needed renewal), or, if they represent an extension of research capacity, might be in the advanced category (see below).

24. As discussed in chapter 4, it is not easy to assess the needs of the well-found laboratory for the arts and humanities. Reliable estimates of equipment value or need were not obtained in the timescale of this study. In the sciences, national surveys by PREST exist, and it is easier with well established streams of external funding to identify 'what would normally be expected' in (say) an RAE 5* physics department. It will be some time before such benchmarks can be used in the arts and humanities.

25. Chapter 4 quotes individual examples of need. Until there is a more robust basis for evaluating need, only a broad extrapolation can be made. On this basis, the well-found laboratory requirement for remedial investment in contents and equipment in the arts and humanities can be assumed to be about £50 million for the UK HE sector. This equates to approximately £3,000 per staff member, and is 10% of the size of the remedial well-found laboratory need identified in science.

26. This sum could be considered to be included within the remedial requirement for the generic infrastructure (rounded to £0.5 billion).

27. As part of the development of the strategies recommended below, institutions should become more aware of their equipment and facilities needs for arts and humanities research, and thus be able to provide specific estimates of need. The only other way to produce a more robust figure at this stage would be to do a national survey analogous to the ones done for science research.

Advanced or specialist facilities

28. This category covers specialist research centres and state-of-the-art facilities which are usually too costly to be provided at departmental level, or from routine research grants or contracts. These will not be needed in every research-active department or institution, but in a few national centres which are at the forefront of their discipline. As in science, they will often represent (at least partly) an advance in the national capacity for research which has the aim of enabling UK research to remain at the leading edge of the disciplines concerned. This investment (like JIF in the sciences) is therefore partly remedial and partly developmental.

29. There is no ready method to provide an objective estimate of the scale of need here. However, there are a small number of 'big projects' which will contribute to keeping UK arts and humanities research competitive on the world stage, and to ensuring the vibrancy and development of the disciplines concerned. Such projects could include:

major libraries projects - to increase access to research materials by scholars across the UK;
humanities centres: analogous interdisciplinary research centres to those which have been created in the sciences, often using JIF or SRIF funds;
major performance and creative arts facilities;
storage and digitisation projects to provide a national research facility for UK scholars.

30. As in the sciences, such projects deserve funding on a national competitive basis to ensure that they are high quality. It would be appropriate to establish a national public scheme of a similar general nature to JIF for advances in arts and humanities research infrastructure.

31. A suitable level of funding for this would be of the order of £100 million, spread over a period of five years. This could be managed as a ring-fenced element within the equivalent scheme recommended for the sciences in the science report.

Recurrent investment needs

32. As well as these capital requirements, recurrent needs can be identified in terms of the right level and type of support to academic staff (to permit adequate time for research); technicians and other support staff; departmental expenditure on minor equipment; maintenance contracts; travel; journals and books; conferences etc. These funds have been squeezed by the recent years of efficiency gains in higher education, and in many examples, case study institutions were suffering reduced research productivity as a result. The shortfalls in this area vary greatly and a general estimate could not be made. Funding activity closer to a full economic basis would enable institutions to remedy these gaps.

33. More generally, the sector needs to be funded, and to manage its infrastructure on a basis that is sustainable and will not lead to a recurrence of this level of deficit in investment. Over the long term, institutions should be investing approximately 4% of their insured asset value on an annual basis to allow for necessary renewal and replacement of buildings and equipment. (They need to plan to spend over 5% to take into account cost inflation.) Institutions are currently spending just over 50% of this required level (see the science report).

Benefits from this investment

34. The benefits of research in the arts and humanities are discussed in chapter 2. The evidence of a need for remedial investment is summarised in chapter 4, and at one level it is simply good stewardship of national resources to manage and maintain the infrastructure for the arts and humanities in a condition where it can make a full contribution to the Government's aims for higher education.

35. On a positive note, it is clear that the UK's leading position in the creative, cultural and heritage industries is underpinned by our performance and reputation in scholarship, teaching and research in the arts and humanities. Enabling universities and colleges to realise the full potential of their work in these disciplines can make a major contribution to exports, to employment, to the development of UK-based industries and professions, and to the broader economic and social objectives of the Government (see chapter 3 for details).

Recommendations: towards a sustainable infrastructure

36. These recommendations need to be considered in the context of those made for the science research infrastructure, and for teaching. They are intended to provide the conditions for achieving the benefits discussed above and maintaining the infrastructure on a sustainable basis, so that further emergency remedial programmes should not be required.

Recommendation 1. A policy initiative, supported by Government and the funding councils, is needed to clarify and support the responsibility of institutions for planning and investing to maintain their own physical infrastructure on a sustainable basis.

37. As part of this, institutions should be required to assess their own infrastructure needs, and to prepare an asset management strategy, including a five-year plan for remedial investment in both generic and research infrastructure, clearly linked to their estates and research strategies. Submission of such a strategy should be made a condition of the remedial capital funding in Recommendation 2, but funding councils should not interpret this as requiring detailed scrutiny of institutions' plans, which would create extra work for both institutions and the funding councils.

Recommendation 2. The Government should provide a capital funding scheme, allocated to institutions on a formulaic basis and spread over several years to address the £0.5 billion (2001 prices) remedial backlog investment in existing infrastructure (generic plus well-found laboratory or equivalent) identified above.

38. The funding should be allocated on a broadly similar basis to SRIF, i.e. selectively by formula according to research volume and quality. Unlike SRIF, institutions should not be required to provide directly matching funds as the effect of this would be to inhibit or delay the necessary remedial investment.

39. Value for money for this funding would be achieved by:

the requirement for a holistic institutional strategy for infrastructure linked to academic strategies;
the flexibility of the allocations - like SRIF, institutions will be able to target their own priorities and will therefore be motivated to stretch the money available;
the contributions from other sources which institutions will need to build into their five-year investment plans. These conditions should be interpreted in a flexible way by the funding councils with the aim of maximising the support to the research infrastructure rather than seeking any particular narrowly defined conditions to be met by institutions.

Recommendation 3. The Government should facilitate action to improve the recurrent funding of research so that, over time, institutions become capable of covering the full costs of the research work they do, including sustainability of their infrastructure.

40. This recommendation is intended to promote a process by which all interested parties, including the main funders of research, discuss how, over time, the funding of research can be put onto a sustainable basis, in which universities are not required to subsidise the research they carry. In the sciences, the recommendations of the Quinquennial Review of the Research Councils, just completed, appear to envisage a suitable mechanism for this (the funders forum).

41. It is not anticipated that this recommendation will lead to an overnight change, but the critical first step is to obtain recognition of the damaging effects of the 'low-price culture' and a recognition that universities are acting in the national interest when they take steps to change this. The debate and dialogue which will hopefully develop as a result of this report and of the actions under Recommendation 1 will significantly assist this process.

Recommendation 4. To address the evolving needs of UK capability in advanced research in the arts and humanities, a more selective project-based scheme is needed for a limited number of advanced research facilities, perhaps at a level of £100 million over a five-year period.

42. This is a different purpose from sector-wide remedial investment, and the scheme could appropriately be designed on a different basis. However, any bids to this scheme could sensibly be reviewed in the light of the five-year strategies being developed by institutions under Recommendation 1. The funds could be released in response to proposals submitted by institutions, perhaps invited to do so in particular disciplines where the AHRB assess that there is a national interest in improving the research capability of the UK.

43. This is the 'premium end' of research, and institutions operating at these levels would be expected to generate some funds to re-invest in their own infrastructure. It would therefore be reasonable to expect institutions to make some matching investment in these projects, as they did for the later rounds of JIF in the sciences.

June 2002/35 Issues paper