Universities to be cut back

Press, 27 May 1981, Page 7

Universities to be cut back

By

KEN COATES

in London

Britain's universities are facing a shake-up after the Government's wide-ranging financial cuts.

The University Grants Committee is reported to be planning to advise them on which departments should be run down and which should be maintained. The chairman of the committee, Dr Edward Parkes, and his colleagues have decided to take this "interventionist” line, rather than distribute the cuts equally among the universities, in order to avoid the harmful effects of what is described as "an equality of misery." Universities will be told that it is not possible to issue

them with their grant allocations this month, as is usual, because of the huge task of drawing up the “advice.” The Science and Engineering Research Council has been asked to provide a graded list of research work being done at universities. The council has warned the committee that some valuable work is being done in otherwise inauspicious departments. and it is drawing up contingency plans for "rescuing” promising scientists in departments which may face closing. Oxford. Cambridge. Manchester, the Imperial College, and University College, London, are at the top of the table. Esex, Salford, Keele, Dundee, and Coleraine are at the bottom.