Haven’t you heard that UK academia is in meltdown - 5000 job losses this year? This is like saying we should be shipping in steel workers. Earth to journos…
What? Immigrants? But what will Nigel say? I suppose we could balance the numbers by deporting some idiots. We could start with the frothing loons who still think brexit was a good idea.
Won’t happen. Britain chased out Germany’s best scientists thus ensuring American dominance of science post 1939 (Germany was dominant before no matter what Britain pretended). China will gobble up the best if it can and the rest, will disperse including to the EU.
The existing science budget has no slack, success rates for bids to UKRI are already very low. I'm all for supporting researchers fleeing the USA but the budget has to be expanded or this will fail.
Given that UK universities are currently in financial meltdown, this seems a challenge. US academic salaries are vastly better than the UK, which has fallen well behind countries like Ireland.
Perhaps instead of always investment in the golden triangle and the continuous prevailing view of people who went to Oxbridge, we should perhaps invest in the north? Maybe?
Perhaps given the investment, the L'pool-manc-sheff-leeds-hull-york-durham triangle could have the same effect?
Would he like to identify which current UK scientists should be defunded? Which labs? Which drug trials? We could double the UK's research budget and still leave excellent, homegrown projects on the table.
You know we'd have to increase the budget by billions and if we're going to do that then it is better to retain and rehire existing staff than get an influx of us based researchers with no labs, no funding and no projects?
Not just labs and "basic" infrastructure, there'd have to be billions put into major research facilities too. Including building several we don't have.
Yeah, I mean there's just no understanding of what's required. By all means massively expand science budgets but it's a years long process of building the infrastructure as well as hiring talent. You can't just hire a whole bunch of people and expect them to deliver 'science' like that.
Given that the real wages of postdoctoral researchers in the UK have gone down by over 20% since 2008, I don't see the UK as an attractive place to work for fleeing researchers either.
I can imagine there are a few niche UK geographical spots where it could be done speedier if you transplanted most of a lab - e.g AZ's old Alderley R&D site is mostly empty, & plenty of trained scientists in the NW need jobs. But most such sites would be 'incubators', not Unis. And would cost £££.
And making it 'private research institute not Uni' would help w the postdoc salaries issue for 'transplants', as private sector pays better.
Maybe if a few British billionaires were to DONATE the money? As a patriotic gesture? To make up for all the tax they've avoided for the last few decades?
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The country that actually has an abundance of affordable housing will win this race. And those are few.
Perhaps given the investment, the L'pool-manc-sheff-leeds-hull-york-durham triangle could have the same effect?
Neither of those cities has shown any willingness to grow (people live there to avoid the hoi polloi).
To get growth in the North & the Midlands, just invest there directly.
Maybe if a few British billionaires were to DONATE the money? As a patriotic gesture? To make up for all the tax they've avoided for the last few decades?