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Problems at Liverpool John Moores University, highlighted by a shoddy examination paper, are examined in detail.

The government aims to build a new 175 million pounds sterling research unit near Oxford in southern England, with scientific research units in northern England and Scotland becoming increasingly concerned about the growing divide in the 'knowledge economy.' Europe and industry are more keen to invest in facilities in southern England, with 250 million pounds sterling being invested by the Higher Education Funding Council in London alone. Researchers in southern England also earn higher salaries than those in the north.

Reactions to the announcement of a deal between US software giant Microsoft and Cambridge University in Jun. 1997 have been mixed. Some see Microsoft's 50 million pound sterling software research laboratory in Cambridge, England, as another step in the company's quest for world domination, but others insist that the university will benefit just as much as Microsoft. Microsoft Research VP Dr Rick Rashid stresses that the research carried out at the Microsoft laboratory will be determined by the interests of the 25 people who will be recruited to the centre over the next year.

A survey by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has revealed overwhelming support among Britain's universities for closer links. The survey, commissioned by the Dearing Inquiry into the future of higher education, also showed that universities agree on the need for financial incentives to promote collaboration. Universities identified competition for students and research funds as the largest obstacle to closer links between institutions. Dearing has praised the University of Sheffield's partnerships with local businesses, hospitals and universities as the epitome of good practise.

Britain's Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) published postgraduate guidelines in Dec. 1996 in a first attempt at a national code of practice. The guidelines are designed to ensure that students' complaints are acted upon, that mechanisms to help the student-supervisor relationship are in place and that there is no bias in choosing external examiners. However, although every university has officially endorsed the guidelines, they have not been endorsed by the research councils which fund most PhDs. Furthermore, the HEQC has no policing powers over universities.

The announcement in Dec. 1996 of the results of the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was quickly followed by the drawing up of a plethora of football-like league tables as academics argued over which universities had performed best. The Higher Education Funding Council for England will use the RAE results as the basis for distributing 700 million pounds sterling to the universities in 1997-98. Departments awarded the new top five-star rating will receive extra funds while more than 750 departments awarded ratings of one or two are likely to receive nothing.

Those seeking to enter higher education in the UK can now choose to do so with alternative qualifications to A levels. Advanced General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs), for example, have become more popular, and more than 25,000 advanced GNVQ students applied to universities and higher education colleges in 1997, with almost 17,000 embarking on degree courses. Indeed, almost 100,000 of the 275,000 students who entered university in 1997 did not follow the traditional A level route.

UK government education ministers now regard the further education sector as playing a vital role in attracting more students from poor areas into education after school. Secretary of State for Education David Blunkett has announced an additional 255 million pounds sterling for further education colleges in 1999, with student numbers set to rise by at least 420,000 in the period to 2001. Furthermore, the Dept for Education and Employment will make an additional 280 million pounds sterling available for the higher education sector in 1999 to 2000, with 50 million pounds sterling of this going to research.

The creation of a council for the arts and humanities was one of the Dearing report's main proposals for university research but neither the Office of Science and Technology (OST) nor the Dept. for Education and Employment are willing to take it on. The OST argues that housing the proposed Arts and Humanities Research Council within its existing structure would create serious problems. The Higher Education Funding Council for England is to establish a new administrative board to manage grants for arts and humanities projects until a decision on a research council is made.

Britain's new Labour government has already started to reshape its complex research funding landscape although an 18-month freeze on departmental budgets means no immediate increase in research and development spending. The Government will carry out a fundamental review of science policy and establish a National Endowment Fund for Science, Technology and the Arts. The Dearing Inquiry into the future of higher education is expected to recommend that around 100 million pounds sterling of funds be transferred from the higher education funding councils to the research councils.

Critics of the peer review system whereby academics anonymously judge each others' research proposals, job applications and scientific claims, have had some of their worst fears confirmed by a study by two Swedish researchers. The study points to widespread nepotism and sexism in the peer review system, prompting some critics to call for more openness and others to call for more anonymity. However referees who are experts in their field would be likely to know who they were reviewing even if researchers' applications and proposals were anonymous.

Sir Ron Dearing's inquiry into the future of higher education is likely to support further expansion of student numbers when it reports in summer 1997, despite the Dept. for Education and Employment's forecast that there will be more graduates than graduate jobs by the year 2000. The Dearing inquiry is likely to be influenced by the social arguments in submissions from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and the Assn. of University Teachers. These call for further expansion of student numbers to enable an improvement in the participation rates of people from working-class backgrounds.

The 12 universities known as the 94 group have proved unable to explain how their new 'special loan scheme' for postgraduate students differs from the loans already available to postgraduates generally. The universities presented the scheme in Dec. 1996 as a very positive move that would make low-cost borrowing available to students studying for higher degrees. However Midland Bank conceded in Apr. 1997 that the scheme is effectively the same as its professional studies loan scheme for postgraduates following courses that 'improve career prospects.'

The transfer of up to 100 million pounds sterling of research funds from the higher education funding councils to the research councils proposed by the Government's most senior advisory body on science policy would greatly simplify the avenues through which academics apply for research funding. Support would no longer be provided through large block grants distributed to the universities by the higher education funding councils but directly to researchers through research council grants. However this would result in support being skewed towards Britain's highest-rated research groups.

The Dearing Inquiry into the future of higher education will receive further evidence of the need for a radical overhaul of the way in which the Government supports research in universities when it receives dramatic figures from the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP). The CVCP figures show that universities are facing a 520 million pound sterling/yr. gap in funding for the various facilities that support research. Meanwhile Britain's large pharmaceutical companies are working to make politicians aware of the decaying state of research infrastructure and equipment.

The chemistry research group at Essex University, England, has become one of the first victims of the 1996 Research Assessment Exercise, its two rating having prompted its disbandment. Departments rated two and below, other than those rated two in the former polytechnics, will receive no research funds from the Higher Education Funding Council for England for 1997/98. Doubts have been expressed about the survival of the University of East Anglia's chemistry department which has slipped from a four- to a three-rating. Even Imperial College's five-rated chemistry department will lose money.

Criticism of the Research Assessment Exercises used by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to distribute infrastructure research funds to university departments was expressed by both the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in their submissions to the Dearing Inquiry in Nov. 1996. However there are signs that the Dearing Inquiry into the future of universities will recommend that research funds be concentrated in the best-rated university departments, irrespective of the views expressed in submissions.