DISCUSSION ON BUFFER BODIES

 

Initiations of the Discussion

Folke Hjalmers ' point on buffer bodies:

In Sweden the universities worked very hard against one type of buffer body namely a buffer body which was the planning instance for all universities and gave a complete suggestion to the government; but had no money; it had also the responsibility for assessment even if that area was not so big at that time; now our buffer body is just an assessment body and suggests if certain universities shall have certain programs; because I didn’t attend that grope work I don’t know if these types of questions were raised but I should avoid the word important (see below).

Stig Ekman took up this point and developed it further in the following note:

After reading the latest draft, mails etc I just want to confirm that I don´t have principal objections or suggestions concerning this paper. I think that the changes made have made it even stronger.

One of the comments from Folke about buffers related to Swedish conditions I want however to stress a bit:

1. Our historical experiences of an agency with an impact on structures but without money are not so good seen from the university side. So when talking about buffers, we have to avoid that type of organizations which I would call "filters" instead off buffers.

2. Today the current Swedish discussion is about that the universities are expiring that the balance between basic grants for research and project related funding from research councils et al public funders have changed in a wrong way, which means that basic funding of research is a too small part of the total amount. If this is the problem it is not the highest priority to argue for more money allocated through councils etc.

Best regards
Stig

The Discussion

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Comment from Bahram Bekhradnia on Stig's point:

 

I am very interested by Stig's second point, which is paralleled by our experience in England .  However, I do not think this is strictly some th ing either about buffer bodies or about university autonomy (although it could be it does not have to be).

On Stig's first point, that is interesting and suggests that there is no point in buffers unless they have funding responsibility.  I personally agree that the main benefits of a buffer are lost if it is not responsible for funding, but this would be a very strong statement to make, and did not really arise in our discussions.  I wonder if the way to handle it is to include in one of the paragraphs which introduces the Buffer Body section something to the effect that "To be fully effective buffer bodies need to be responsible for distributing Government funds to universities"  and to say at the end of that paragraph, "Without such responsibilities the full benefits of buffer bodies are unlikely to be realised". 4

On the other hand I have to say that that is going further than the discussions that we had, and it might be preferable to say nothing here, in recognition of the fact that the Novi Sad statement cannot cover everything.

Best wishes
Bahram

 

Sjur Bergan 's response to Stig's points and Bahram's comment:

 

Dear Ladislav,

Thank you for forwarding Stig's comment, which is indeed interesting. I tend to agree with Bahram that stating that buffer institutions have to have funding responsibility would go beyond what we discussed at the conference.  As an additional example, if quality assurance agencies are considered buffer institutions, there is a complex debate on what the consequences of quality assurance should be: to what extent should the outcomes of a quality assurance review have a direct impact on public funding, and in what time perspective?  Is one unsatisfactory review sufficient to cut funding, or would this require sustained problems at an institution or in a program over a period of time?  Conversely, what should be the consequences of excellent QA results, where the argument that only sustained excellence should entail increased funding may be even stronger? The answers to these questions today seem to vary from country to country (and of course also on how serious the problems are perceived to be), but there does seem to be an agreement that QA agencies should not be funding bodies.  They may, however - depending on the system - provide valuable input to funding bodies.

I think Stig's point about the relationship between basic funding and project funding of research is a very interesting one, and possibly one that would merit a conference of its own.  Perhaps it above all has to do with the ability of modern societies to invest in sustained efforts that do not necessarily give immediate results - a kind of calculated risk taking in a longer time perspective: we don't know if a given research effort will produce results, yet we can make assumptions about this that are much more than random trying and failing.

I fully agree with a deadline of November 10 for commenting on the final version.  Unless there are major objections, I suggest you then declare this the final version.

Regards
Sjur

 

Roger McClure 's response to Stig's points:

 

1. Yes, any body has to have a clear purpose that evidently adds value. If there is a need to debate in any serious or lengthy way whether a particular body is adding value, then it should, in my view, be done away with. Quite apart from the poor return on the investment, there is also the issue of organizational clutter, so that you get to the point where managers and staff are spending too much of their time meeting and coordinating and not enough just getting on and doing.

2. As Bahram says, this is also a UK issue. Some parts of the Government seem to think that it will all be fixed by requiring research councils (i.e. the project funders) to pay full economic costs. Of course, this will help the finances of universities, but I think it misses the much bigger strategic point, namely, the direction of basic research is hard to predict and plan. Yet this is what project funders do. They have strategies, and they invite bids aligned with their strategies. This is OK as long as we accept it as a short to medium term strategy. But these strategies often turn out to have been misguided or simply not to have taken account of major breakthroughs which had not happened when the strategies were being devised. So it seems to me to be strategically essential to have a substantial separate stream of funding which goes directly to universities for them to deploy on basic research at their discretion. The universities are much closer to the action than anybody else and can respond much more quickly and flexibly to new lines of enquiry provided they have discretionary funds with which to do so. Once a new avenue is opened up, the project funders can come in behind.

This becomes a buffer body issue if we accept that buffer bodies can employ, more readily than ministries, staff who are expert in the allocation and management of funds and they can also guarantee objectivity in the distribution of the funds thereby avoiding actual or perceived political patronage.

All the best, Roger.   

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