Mapping UK universities against the US Carnegie Classifications

In 1970 the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education developed a framework for analysing university and colleges, to facilitate research and policy development on higher education. The framework has continued to be developed by higher education researchers in the US. As England’s HE policy framework begins to approximate the US – with an increasing emphasis on diversity of institution, market entry and exit, and the student as consumer – in this blog I’m looking at the US classifications, what they tell us, and how the UK’s HEI’s would map onto the Carnegie classification.

The current Carnegie Classifications – using a methodology last significantly updated in 2005 – divide universities and colleges into seven broad classes. In some classes there is further differentiation by scale of activity. These are:

Doctoral University (with subclasses R1, R2, R3 defined by scale)	Institutions that award at least 20 PhD/DPhil degrees per year
Master’s University (with subclasses M1, M2, M3 defined by scale)	Institutions that award at last 50 Master’s degrees per year
Baccalaureate Colleges	Institutions where bachelor’s degrees made up more than 50% of degrees awarded
Baccalaureate/Associates Colleges	Institutions with at last one Bachelor’s programme and with more than 50% of awards at the Associate degree level
Associate's Colleges	Institutions whose highest qualification awarded was an Associate degree
Special Focus Institutions	Institutions where more than 75% of degree awards relates to a single field or set of related fields
Tribal Colleges	Institutions which are members of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium

The first four categories are applied hierarchically: if you’re doctoral, you’re not counted in Masters; if you’re Master’s, you’re not counted in Baccalaureate, even though numerically you’d meet both sets of criteria.

An associate degree is a two-year undergraduate qualification. Typically it would equate to the first two years of the four-year baccalaureate degree. 

Using HESA data from 2015-16, it’s possible to match UK institutions to these categories. I haven’t done the detailed analysis required to categorise Doctoral universities as RE1, R2 or R3; or Master’s universities similarly. 

All UK HEI’s – or at least those which reported to HESA in 2015-16 – fall within one of the Doctoral, Master’s, Baccalaureate or Specialist classes. Here’s the classification. 

Doctoral Universities

• Aberystwyth University
• Anglia Ruskin University
• Aston University
• Bangor University
• Birkbeck College
• Birmingham City University
• Bournemouth University
• Brunel University London
• Canterbury Christ Church University
• Cardiff Metropolitan University
• Cardiff University
• City, University of London
• Coventry University
• Cranfield University
• De Montfort University
• Edinburgh Napier University
• Glasgow Caledonian University
• Goldsmiths College
• Heriot-Watt University
• Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine
• Keele University
• King's College London
• Kingston University
• Leeds Beckett University
• Liverpool John Moores University
• London Metropolitan University
• London School of Economics and Political Science
• London South Bank University
• Loughborough University
• Middlesex University
• Newcastle University
• Oxford Brookes University
• Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh
• Queen Mary University of London
• Roehampton University
• Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
• Sheffield Hallam University
• St George's, University of London
• Staffordshire University
• Swansea University
• Teesside University
• The Institute of Cancer Research
• The Manchester Metropolitan University
• The Nottingham Trent University
• The Open University
• The Queen's University of Belfast
• The Robert Gordon University
• The School of Oriental and African Studies
• The University of Aberdeen
• The University of Bath
• The University of Birmingham
• The University of Bradford
• The University of Brighton
• The University of Bristol
• The University of Buckingham
• The University of Cambridge
• The University of Central Lancashire
• The University of Dundee
• The University of East Anglia
• The University of East London
• The University of Edinburgh
• The University of Essex
• The University of Exeter
• The University of Glasgow
• The University of Greenwich
• The University of Huddersfield
• The University of Hull
• The University of Kent
• The University of Lancaster
• The University of Leeds
• The University of Leicester
• The University of Lincoln
• The University of Liverpool†
• The University of Manchester
• The University of Northampton
• The University of Oxford
• The University of Portsmouth
• The University of Reading
• The University of Salford
• The University of Sheffield
• The University of Southampton
• The University of St Andrews
• The University of Stirling
• The University of Strathclyde
• The University of Sunderland
• The University of Surrey
• The University of Sussex
• The University of Warwick
• The University of Westminster
• The University of Wolverhampton
• The University of York
• University College London
• University of Abertay Dundee
• University of Bedfordshire
• University of Chester
• University of Durham
• University of Gloucestershire
• University of Hertfordshire
• University of Northumbria at Newcastle
• University of Nottingham
• University of Plymouth
• University of South Wales
• University of the Arts, London
• University of the Highlands and Islands
• University of the West of England, Bristol
• University of Ulster
• University of Wales Trinity Saint David

Master's Universities

• Bath Spa University
• Buckinghamshire New University
• Edge Hill University
• Falmouth University
• Glyndŵr University
• Liverpool Hope University
• Newman University
• Royal Agricultural University
• Southampton Solent University
• St Mary's University, Twickenham
• The University of Bolton
• The University of Chichester
• The University of the West of Scotland
• The University of West London
• The University of Winchester
• University College Birmingham
• University of Cumbria
• University of Derby
• University of Suffolk
• University of Worcester
• York St John University

Baccalaureate Universities

• Bishop Grosseteste University
• Leeds Trinity University
• SRUC
• St Mary's University College
• University of St Mark and St John

Specialist Focus Institutions

• Conservatoire for Dance and Drama
• Courtauld Institute of Art
• Glasgow School of Art
• Guildhall School of Music and Drama
• Harper Adams University
• Heythrop College
• Leeds College of Art
• Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine
• London Business School
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• Norwich University of the Arts
• Plymouth College of Art
• Ravensbourne
• Rose Bruford College
• Royal Academy of Music
• Royal College of Art
• Royal College of Music
• Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
• Royal Northern College of Music
• Stranmillis University College
• The Arts University Bournemouth
• The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
• The National Film and Television School
• The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
• The Royal Veterinary College
• The University of Wales (central functions)
• Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
• University for the Creative Arts
• University of London (Institutes and activities)
• Writtle University College

Research and Development

So the review of the Research Councils by Sir Paul Nurse has been published, and what a report it is. A much better read than many government reports – it felt like the innocent scientific positivity in some of John Wyndham’s novels, or even better, in The Black Cloud by Sir Fred Hoyle.

I studied philosophy at the LSE, and the focus was very much – unsurprisingly for a department built upon Karl Popper’s work on epistemology and scientific method – around the philosophy of science. So it isn’t every day that the reading lists given to us crop up in government policy documents. But here we are: Popper’s Conjectures and Refutations, and TS Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I was hoping for a bit of Imre Lakatos or Paul Feyerabend too, but perhaps that was asking too much.

It’s also got a lovely opening section into the whys and wherefores of research. And a historical gem: the funding of the Medical Research Council from National Insurance contributions at a rate of “a penny per working person per year” in the 1911 National Insurance Act. By my calculations – and using the historical data set available from the Bank of England – that would equate now to 3 shillings and 11 pence  per working person, or just under 18 pence per head in post-decimal coinage. By comparison, the total science budget of £2.6bn in 2014-15 equates to £68.82 per working person per year. So it’s fair to say that government investment in research has grown over time.

So, from my reading, what are the key points of the review?

• Research in all disciplines is really important to a nation, and can be focused on discovery, on applying knowledge to a problem, or translating basic research to applied problems (translational). And a great line: “To rush into translation may result in becoming lost in translation.”
• Research Councils waste a lot of time engaging with bureaucracy, and bringing back control of support in house rather than through the UK Shared Business Services is necessary.
• RCUK should be given more strength as a co-ordinator of the efforts of the seven research councils, acting as the interlocutor with government and enabling the research councils to focus on research funding. It should become a new body – Research UK – with a single Accounting Officer replacing those in the individual research councils.
• Management of the funding process needs to improve, with better arrangements for international peer review, panel discussions, diversity, transparency and speed.
• There needs to be better collaboration with other research funders, and especially business, charities, devolved administrations, and Europe.
• Relationships with government need to be clarified, and a new structure to work with Research UK is identified.

Sir Paul’s report contains a curious mixture of realism and optimism.

On the realist front: “Given the many and varied demands made on the public purse which Government will need to balance, it is probably more likely the funding level will be set too low rather than too high.”. You're telling me.

On the optimist front: “The changes proposed through this report are not complex and could be easily adopted without disrupting on-going research activities”. Up to a point, Lord Copper.

Will it do the trick? It doesn’t actually reduce the number of BIS quangos, although it does create a single infrastructure, so costs should go down. It does reduce complexity, by having a single Accounting Officer. And it certainly makes sense about funding high quality research.

But ... Jo Johnson’s response included an ominous last paragraph:

I encourage everyone with an interest in the future of our research and innovation landscape to consider this review alongside the proposals set out in the Higher Education Green Paper we published recently.

Sounds like a watch this space to me…

A capital week

I write at the end of a long week which saw me in each of the three capital cities on the UK mainland: Cardiff on Monday and Thursday; London on Tuesday and Friday; and Edinburgh on Wednesday. Plenty of opportunity for reflection.

Cardiff, London, Edinburgh: and some other places too

One strand of this reflection was about the changes which are occurring in the UK through devolution, and the unequal parts into which the UK is divided. Universities’ behaviour is being affected by this.

Firstly, with respect to students. Each of the nations has its own policy around student support and student tuition fees, but England, as the largest in volume and wealth, is clearly setting a tone. With each student paying £9k per year, funded through the SLC; and now without any cap on student numbers, English universities can seek to recruit (they might not succeed) as many as they like, from wherever they like.

In Wales, the government subsidises students’ fees, so that they pay only about £3,600 per year, wherever in the UK they study. Welsh universities have a financial cap on how many Welsh-domiciled students they can admit (although I understand that in practice this doesn’t constrain recruitment of Welsh students) and the net effect of this is that Welsh universities do best, financially, when they recruit plenty of students from England, creating a net inwards flow of state funding for universities.

In Scotland, universities cannot charge fees for home (or non-UK EU students), but can charge for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. They are grant funded in respect of the costs of educating Scottish students. This means that for Scottish universities, students from the rest of the UK are valuable, bringing fee income. But, universities are not funded at the same fee per student basis as in England and Wales, so competing with their counterparts elsewhere in the UK is tricky.

In research things are different (for now): the principal of dual support (through the block grant and, in competition, from Research Councils) is so far safe. This means that every university will get some funds for research, dependent upon their baseline quality assessed through REF. But how long will this last? As national governments (ie Scotland, Wales, NI) gain more power, will they wish to include their ‘share’ of research council funding in their allocations? Will experiments in devolution in England, like that in Manchester, lead to regional university funding?

It is an uncertain time, and each university is also having to plot its own sustainability, with uncertainties about future state/fee funding arrangements, the prospect of further cuts in the coming years, and no real confidence that post-election things will be any clearer.

There’s no moral to this reflection. But there is an obvious truth that the future for university funding and system behaviour won’t be stable for a while yet.

Independent thinking

I posted recently on Scottish independence and what it might mean for students and universities. There’s a parallel question, of course, about research and what impact independence might have on this.  An important disclaimer – I’m not arguing for, or against, independence; just looking at what it might mean.

HESA data on research finance is one way into this question.  Funding for research comes from a number of sources – public, private, charitable, UK, EU, rest of the world, and so on.  The data lets us see how the Scottish picture compares with the rest of the UK.

Research funding makes up a higher proportion of funding for Scottish universities than it does for the rest of the UK – 21% against a UK wide proportion of 16%. Of course, that also reflects, in part, the different UK tuition fee systems – higher tuition fee income for English and Welsh universities inevitably changes the proportions of other types of funding.

HE funding; HESA 2012-13 data

Research funding is typically (although not universally) awarded by a competitive process involving peer review of specific projects.  Comparative performance at this level of detail does tell us something about the research strengths of the different UK nations.

Shares of UK Research Income by nation - HESA 2012-13 data

The highlighted cells show where a nation’s share of total UK funding in that category is higher than its overall national share. The right hand column shows what proportion of overall research funding come from that source.

So we can see that Scotland performs better than its average on the two largest income sources – Research Council (RCUK) funding, and UK charitable income from open competition.  These aren’t small sums of money, either: these two sources accounted for over £2.4 billion in 2012-13.

This is where the impact of independence may be felt. The Research Councils are UK-wide bodies. The large charities are UK-wide. If you redefine UK, then inevitably these funding streams cannot, without other things happening, carry on as they were.   And this is where you get into the unknowable: if Scotland votes yes, then there will be negotiations on a whole raft of things, and the continuation of the Research Councils on a pan-national basis is one of the desiderata of the SNP. Equally, how charities will react is a big question – some charities may have specific clauses that prevent them working across a border, although equally there may be a neat negotiated solution to this.

Another feature can be seen from the data. Both Wales and Northern Ireland have disproportionate shares of UK Government funding. One hypothesis here is that government funding is supporting universities in those nations as a matter of policy, and it would be open to a future Sottish government to do just that. Undoubtedly Scottish universities are one of Scotland’s very valuable assets, and probably have a longevity greater than oil.

The most that I think we can conclude here is that in the event of a yes vote there would be some hard questions about current pan-UK research funding, but it is too soon to say what the effect could be – it’s up for grabs.

Another way to look at this is the question of research culture. Research collaborations between universities are driven by many factors, but an important one is the research question being addressed. Teams working on the same area will know each other, from conferences and journals. They’ll work together if it helps the research question (bringing together expertise, or sharing equipment).

Scottish independence wouldn’t move it further away from the rest of the UK; the question would be whether there were barriers placed in the way of continued collaboration. Unintended consequences of broader negotiations or national policies would be critical here. If Scotland were to join the EU, barriers would be eased. If a good bilateral agreement were reached, then no doubt research collaboration could continue. But research funding may become a pawn in a bigger game.

A desire to learn

This month’s Scientific American has an interesting piece by Carl Wieman, Stanford University’s Nobel Prize winning physicist and educationalist. There is, apparently, compelling evidence that university science taught actively (ie experiment first and then lecture) leads to higher pass rates than the same subjects taught passively (ie lecture and then lab later).  And yet most teaching continues in the customary, passive way.

Wieman gives three reasons why this might be so (I paraphrase, but not much - I think that this is what the word trenchant was invented for!):

• Habits – teaching methods haven’t yet adapted to the invention of the printing press;
• Misunderstanding – faculty think that learning is about listening, not doing;
• Lack of incentives – advancement in universities come from research funding not teaching quality.

If you’ve won a Nobel Prize you’re allowed to say what you want, although I’d guess that Carl Wieman probably sees research-intensive university activity more than other undergraduate teaching. But, what he says does resonate.

It strikes me that in seeing students as partners in learning, which is good, universities can forget that students need to be motivated as learners. The act of enrolling for a particular degree programme probably proves that there was a moment when the student found that subject interesting, but we all know that our interest waxes and wanes. Do universities always remember to look at students’ motivation to learn?

There’s a counter-argument, of course, which is that students in higher education are independent learners; and that the transformative nature of higher education (pace Ron Barnett) makes it imperative that students manage their own motivations. And there’s something in this.

We also know as managers (and as people who are managed!) that one of the roles a manager has is to motivate and enthuse.  Great managers do this all the time, but every manager should try to do it. Great teachers also enthuse their students about the subject.  Shouldn’t motivation and enthusiasm also, therefore, be part of the everyday brief for university teaching?

Please be clear that I’m not having a go at university teachers. It’s more a point about the institutional environment that universities can create: making enthusiasm for learning an everyday concern, visible to all, rather than an assumption which underpins the delivery of teaching.