More details on how I think this can be achieved though improved mechanisms for commercialising the results of research can be found at:

http://www.rtaylor.co.uk/cambridge-higher-education-cuts.html#ip

The conservatives were represented by Cllr Chris Howell.

National Union of Students president Wes Streeting encouraged NUS members present to sign up, with their home and university addresses, to a service the NUS will be running to alert its members to candidate’s opinions on tuition fees and perhaps other matters.

Personally I’m not entirely confident with either Zeichner or Streeting’s promises.

I have also been very impressed by the US system (which my brother has gone through) where there is a much greater emphasis on explicit teaching positions (i.e. the TA positions, where the emphasis is very much on the teaching with research slotted in when you can). It is also worth noting that the US system seems to produce good results, although it is hard to know how much of this is the structure and how much the funding levels. But much of the teaching there is essentially done by grad students to fund their own Ph.Ds.

I can’t help feeling, though, that all this slightly misses the point. In the UK, the underlying problem seems to me that we undervalue skilled technical work and so anything other than a classical academic/university education is somehow seen as second class training. This undermined the concept of both secondary moderns and polytechnics. The idea that 50% of people should continue in some sort of training seems very sensible (indeed, why stop at 50%?). The idea that university is the right vehicle for this training seems, to me, absurd.

In the best universities undergraduate courses are influenced significantly by the research work carried out at the institutions. This ensures that the teaching is at the leading edge of the subject and helps inspire students. It keeps the quality of university education high. Quality is really important.

I see the funding link between research and teaching as indirect but critical. Research funding can be used to attract high quality staff, and fund infrastructure and equipment which benefits students’ education.

At an institution like Imperial undergraduate teaching is already a drain on research resources. It is uneconomic for the institution to teach undergraduates at all. It is right and necessary to link research grants to teaching, otherwise an institution like Imperial, left to its own devices, may well decide to become a postgraduate only institution. I don’t think that would be in the national interest.

“Undergraduate teaching ought be closely linked to research. Research funding can, indirectly, subsidise teaching”

Is this really the most sensible way forward? Research and teaching are very different beasts, and I do not think it would be sensible for research council funding streams for research to end up funding all of the teaching load. For instance, how do you see this working in Cambridge where small group teaching is college-funded whereas research grants are often held by the departments?