Scottish Week: research, innovation and regional growth

This is the fourth blog in HEPI’s Scottish Week. It was kindly authored by Professor Nicholas Forsyth, Provost of the University of Aberdeen and Convener of Universities Scotland Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee.

Read the first blog in the series here, the second blog here, and the third blog here.

The North East of Scotland is a powerful example of the direct value that university research and innovation can add to industry and regional economic prosperity. As the region undergoes a decades‑long economic transition from its position at the heart of the oil and gas sector to becoming a world‑leading hub for energy transition and renewables, universities are vital partners in that journey. They help ensure that sector‑specific challenges are addressed and opportunities are fully realised in the interests of job creation, economic growth, and achieving net‑zero goals. The National Decommissioning Centre, Just Transition Lab, and Centre for Energy Transition at the University of Aberdeen and Robert Gordon University’s Energy Transition Institute all offer the energy industry access to cutting-edge research, thought-leadership, and exclusive state-of-the-art facilities and equipment.

The long-term evolution of the energy industry, as we’re witnessing in the North East, provides a strongly relevant context for the Scottish university sector’s Future Framework, which is the single biggest ask universities are making of all political parties in the May elections. The Framework will review the funding precarity facing Scotland’s universities and look at the drivers of change facing the sector over the next 20 years. The goal is to ensure that funding and policy levers for universities in Scotland are future-proofed, building-in agility in anticipation of changing needs.

Research funding is within the Framework’s scope because it is one of the interwoven funding threads for teaching, research, and innovation within a university, and a siloed attempt to solve the question of financial sustainability of institutions would be deeply unhelpful. Curiosity-driven research and the application and translation of that research are a core part of what makes universities such an economic asset to Scotland. It is to the credit of the Scottish Government, which is a co-commissioner and co-owner of the Framework, that it recognised the need to look at university sustainability holistically.

One challenge the Framework is likely to have in the research space is how to navigate the boundaries between reserved and devolved research and innovation policy, given that our universities operate across both spheres. UKRI will sit on the project team for this strand of the work, alongside Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council colleagues, so we are all part of this conversation. Whilst Scotland seeks to chart its own course for change over the next 20 years, research funding policy at the UK level is already shifting. UKRI’s plan to reshape the research landscape towards greater specialisation could lead to an increased concentration of funding in areas of existing strength. Scotland’s universities have always valued being part of the wider UK research ecosystem (a position that is not constitutional). As we develop Scotland’s long‑term vision for the sector, we are keen to engage with UKRI and DSIT to ensure that UK‑level policy implementation does not unintentionally weaken Scotland’s research and innovation ecosystem or entrench inequalities in access to funding – particularly when our ambition in the Framework is to achieve the opposite.

The Framework aims to deliver final options by the end of this year, and given it has a 20-year timeframe for delivery, there are other policy asks in Universities Scotland’s manifesto which are focused on the shorter-to-medium term horizon of the next Government and Parliament. We want to see a Cabinet position created with responsibility for research. Costing nothing to deliver, the new brief would recognise research as a cultural, economic and social asset for Scotland, and as core to the pipeline of innovation (which has previously been given Ministerial responsibility). Such a role could also bring a new level of convening power across portfolios, connecting university R&D into the economy, the NHS, and the environment more effectively than has been achieved in the recent past.

In the innovation space, we have concerns about how cluttered and short-term the landscape can be, making it hard for universities, businesses and others to navigate. Arguably, the scale of that task is better suited to conversations within the Framework exercise, but in the meantime, Scotland should double down on initiatives that do have impact. Committing to the Proof of Concept Fund on an enhanced and multi-year basis would offer stability and confidence to everyone in the innovation and investor community. Delivery early in the next Government would be a helpful signal of stability for business development over the next five years.

One indicator consistent across all polls for the Scottish election is that we’re likely to see more political diversity in Parliament from May onward. Yet in spite of this political diversity, there is agreement across the spectrum that Scotland needs sustainable economic growth. Universities are a route to that, both in their own right if supported to be successful and sustainable, but also in an enabling role for our existing industry base, and to ensure that there will be an emergence of new and growing industries born in Scotland, creating and protecting jobs for the next generation.

Want to understand more about Scotland and higher education?

In 2024, to mark 25 years since the devolution of powers to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, HEPI and The Education Group London published the collection of essays ‘Evolution of Devolution‘. It provides a comprehensive analysis of how higher education policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have evolved over the past quarter of a century.