Funding cut at Reading University - but boost for TVU

Adam Hewitt • Published 18 Mar 2010 16:30 0 Comments

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READING University is facing among the biggest cut in funding in the country.

The Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) announced today (Thursday) that the university's total grant would be 7.7% down this coming year to £50.7m, a £4.2m cut.

It is among the three-quarters of English universities facing real-terms budget cuts this year, after constant annual rises during the boom years.

Reading University's grant cut was the fourth highest in the country, just less than those announced for the Institute of Cancer Research, the Courtauld Institute of Art and the London Business School.

But much of the apparent cut this year is because last year it got a £3.7m one-off grant, the second highest in the country, as a 'moderation' payment to help it prepare for future cuts. Ignoring this, its cut this year would be only 0.8%, in line with most other universities.

Signs of the restructuring at the university appeared last week when it announced that job cuts were likely at its School of Systems Engineering, which performed poorly at the last all-important Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2008, and some science departments.

The university's total teaching funding this year will be £30.54m and its research funding is £18.26m. It will also receive £1.9m from the higher education innovation fund.

Spokesman Alex Brannen said: "The University had anticipated the reduction in Government funding and has for the past nine months been working with our staff towards saving £10.6m by 2012 through a reshaping exercise. To date, the University has identified around £9m of the savings needed."

He added: "We have worked hard to adapt the University to the harsher economic climate in which we now have to operate and which we expect to worsen in coming years. There is a clear need for prudent planning and playing to our strengths in this process and we are determined to ensure that the University of Reading emerges from this process in a stronger position, with the University's reputation as a leading, research-intensive centre of excellence for scholarship, teaching and learning enhanced."

He said the Hefce grant is only around a quarter of the university's income.

Sir Alan Langlands, chief executive of Hefce, said: "Managing in times of financial constraint is not easy, but we believe that universities and colleges will continue to meet the needs of students, users of research and the wider community as they have done in the past. Higher education represents an excellent investment for the country with every £1 spent yielding £3 to the economy."

Thames Valley University, which has one of its three campuses in Reading, is getting a slight bump in funding this year of 0.8%, after a huge 11.7% cut last year. It is getting £25.84m for teaching, £688,000 for research and £1.09m from the innovation fund, making a total grant of £27.62m, up from last year's £27.41m.

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