UNITED KINGDOM

MPs fear new HE bill will dilute Scottish voice

A group of Scottish members of parliament have warned that plans to reform the way universities are funded in England could have a negative impact on Scottish institutions, writes Tom Freeman for Holyrood.

Holyrood’s Education and Skills Committee has written to the House of Lords over the United Kingdom government’s Higher Education and Research Bill, which aims to merge the governance of research funding and link teaching funding to the Teaching Excellence Framework.

Representatives from the Scottish sector told the committee the existing Scottish quality assurance mechanism was a better system of review and improvement, it said. Representatives from Universities Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh had told the committee there were fears that Scotland’s voice could also be diluted in the new research set-up.
Full report on the Holyrood site