AHRC head says humanities scholars must embrace pandemic research
Executive chair says scholarship from non-medical subjects will be vital for post-pandemic society
With the public and governments focused on the extraordinary efforts of medical researchers that have led to vaccines and treatments for Covid-19, some scholars have worried that the pandemic will put research by philosophers, historians, literary scholars, artists and other humanities experts at a disadvantage as funders focus on disciplines with more immediate relevance to the health crisis.
Some have criticised the “academic opportunism” of humanities scholars who scrambled to pivot their research towards the pandemic, claiming that some links to the unfolding crisis were tenuous.
But Christopher Smith, executive chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), said scholars should not be afraid to embrace the pandemic agenda in their research.
“This pandemic chimes with many things that we were already grappling with in the contemporary world, so it would be strange if we turned away from it,” he told Times Higher Education in his first interview since starting his four-year term of office in September.
Research from all types of scholars will be needed to analyse the responses of different countries and societies to the pandemic, the unfolding consequences of the crisis and how we might now act, said Professor Smith, who was previously professor of ancient history at the University of St Andrews and led the British School at Rome from 2009 to 2017.
“It’s worth asking what the book on Covid will look like when it is written,” said Professor Smith, who said the story of vaccine creation “might not cover many pages”.
“We might actually see a lot on issues of global consumption and interconnectedness, why we were travelling so much and coverage of the history of infection and hospitals – all of these will depend a huge amount on research that has not yet been done,” he said.
That research is already under way thanks to the rapid approval of more than 400 pandemic-related projects by UK Research and Innovation – which oversees the UK’s nine research councils, including the AHRC – with studies funded to assess how poetry, comics, community arts projects and the creative industries have been affected by the public health emergency.
With an estimated 170,000 jobs already lost in the live music sector alone, other creative industries badly hit and the social, political and economic fallout from the crisis still far from settled, these studies and others related to the pandemic will be vitally important, said Professor Smith, who admitted that balancing this work at the council with its commitment to basic research “will be a challenge, as it will for all research councils”.
“When I think about what the AHRC stands for, at its basis, it is fundamental research combined with a commitment to intellectual rigour; it is the study of everything humans have done, or expressed through painting, literature, dance and other mediums, and how we imagine ourselves in the future,” he said.
With the pandemic still looming large, there was no contradiction with basic research for arts and humanities scholars who chose to look at its roots or effects, Professor Smith said. “We shouldn’t be entirely driven by it, but there are occasions when one should look sharply at a problem.”
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Cuts for London and arts ‘will damage universities and students’
Sector leaders say government proposal amounts to ‘a sudden multimillion-pound hit’ for some institutions and criticise decision not to phase changes
In a letter to the Office for Students (OfS) on the allocation of teaching grant funding for the 2021-22 financial year, education secretary Gavin Williamson said that performing arts, creative arts, media studies and archaeology should see their previous high-cost subject funding cut by 50 per cent and potentially removed entirely, while London weighting funding for institutions and students should be scrapped.
Bashir Makhoul, vice-chancellor of the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), which has campuses in Kent and Surrey, said that the “strategically short-sighted announcement will likely lead to a shrinkage in creative provision, at a time when the sector is already reeling from the government’s shambolic handling of the Covid crisis”.
“Cutting funding for creative subjects as we enter a recession is a ludicrous act of economic self-harm,” he told Times Higher Education. “Access to industry-standard facilities is crucial for universities like UCA, who pride themselves on preparing students for employment. Our film studios, metal workshops, glass-blowing facilities and pattern-cutting suites are not cheap, but they are the bedrock of our students’ future success.”
Greg Walker, chief executive of MillionPlus, the association for modern universities, said that the “additional costs borne by universities for creative arts programmes and the additional cost of provision in the capital…are real” and the funding proposals will “lead to a diminished experience on their programme of study for future students in London or those in the creative arts”.
“That such changes are not being properly phased is also both surprising and deeply concerning,” he said.
Mr Williamson justified the cuts by saying that high-cost subject funding should be directed at priority subjects such as medicine and sciences, and argued that London weighting was “inconsistent” with the government’s agenda to “level up” the English regions.
But a report published by KPMG in 2019 found that the cost of undergraduate teaching was 14 per cent higher in London than outside the capital.
And David Phoenix, vice-chancellor of London South Bank University, said that the proposed scrapping of London weighting funding amounted to “a sudden multimillion-pound hit for universities”.
“Imposing these cuts without discussion, consideration or time for phasing will damage universities and their students while they are dealing with huge challenges from Covid-19,” he said.
Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group, added that the move would have “a significant negative impact on world-class higher education” in London, where “costs are not only higher but where many areas are just as disadvantaged as those the government wants to help elsewhere with its levelling-up agenda”.
Diana Beech, chief executive officer of London Higher, which represents universities in the city, said the announcement “confirms our worst fears that levelling up for the rest of the country means levelling down for London”.
“With London being the UK’s most expensive city to live and work, the London weighting has never represented extra money for London or for students attending courses in the city, but it has simply gone some way to bridging the shortfall of funds needed to deliver a high-quality higher education experience in the capital,” she said.
“The decision to cut the London weighting will vastly reduce the ability of London institutions to conduct ground-breaking research and continue to attract international talent, essential to the economic prowess of the UK as a whole.”
The comments came as the British Academy warned in its submission to the OfS consultation on regulating quality and standards that proposals to assess institutions at a subject level and set sector-wide student outcomes benchmarks at each level of study could lead to the closure of humanities and social sciences courses.
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