Last Word: The Research Cost of Britain’s Foreign Aid Cuts
| DOI | 10.1177/20419058211045149 |
| Author | Alison Phipps |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
40 POLITICAL INSIGHT • SEPTEMBER 2021
Last Word
The British government’s decision
to slash Overseas Development
Assistance (ODA) will have a huge
impact internationally. Projects that
support everything from water sanitation
in some of the world’s poorest countries, to
housing Syrian refugees, to tackling corruption
in Nigeria, have all been slashed.
But the £4 billion cut to the UK’s aid budget
will also have a devastating eect closer to
home; on academics across Britain. Every year,
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) receives
hundreds of millions of pounds from the ODA
budget to fund research in Britain and around
the world.
Now, as a result of foreign aid cuts,
academics are being informed that what they
had been told previously was fully-funded,
fully-contracted work, is being cut.
Since the cuts, I have lost count of the
number of surveys I have been sent by UKRI
as the Principal Investigator (PI) on a Global
Challenge Research Fund (GCRF) project
working across low to middle income countries
(LMICs) and drawing, until March this year, on
ODA funds. (It’s acronym heaven this work!)
One recent UKRI survey asked me: ‘Please
explain how the reputation of the UK as a
go-to partner in ODA research been damaged’
[sic]. Grammatical errors aside, the cuts are
already having a huge impact on academic
work.
In the summer of 2020, Dominic Raab
announced the closure of the jewel in the
crown of British foreign policy, the Department
for International Development (DD). In
November 2020, the newly created Foreign,
Commonwealth and Development Oce
announced a reduction of ODA from 0.7 per
cent to 0.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.
Naively, those of us already in receipt of
funds for fully contracted projects, with full
sta complements, fully engaged in research
in the eld and with partnerships in receipt of
funds for their development work, breathed
a sigh of relief. At least we had iron clad
contracts and whilst this would aect the
future of research funding, we could at least
continue working steadily for the next ve
years.
Or so we thought
After details of the scale of cuts to the Global
Challenge Fund were leaked to the press
in early 2021, I and other PIs wrote to our
research ocers in UKRI to ask if already
contracted work would be safe. We were
given carefully worded assurances with
caveats; advisory boards had met within UKRI
to discuss funding shortfalls. But at no point
was it suggested that the money would be
cut, and the projects terminated or rendered
inoperable, mid term.
That is until UKRI, in March, posted a notice
on their website announcing the immediate
cessation of funds to all GCRF projects.
Simultaneously, Vice Chancellors across the
country were receiving letters from UKRI
asking them to meet a 70-80 per cent shortfall
in this suite of ODA funded projects from
their own institutional coers for 2021-2022.
No letters were sent to any of the partners
overseas. They found out the same way the
PIs did – via the public website. Not a single
safeguarding check was undertaken to our
knowledge.
It is unprecedented that research awards
should be withdrawn mid-way through with
no notice, unless there are serious issues with
the project. There were no issues with these
projects other than a change of UK politics
‘This is violent information from the British,’
said my colleague in West Africa.
A campaign swung into action. More
than 10,000 colleagues signed letters
protesting the cuts and the manner of their
announcement. A rebellion broke out in
Parliament and those wishing to reverse the
Huge cuts to Overseas Development Assistance are having a
devastating effect on academic research, argues Alison Phipps.
The Research Cost of
Britain’s Foreign Aid Cuts
ODA cuts had the votes. The Prime Minister
refused to allow a vote until enough of the
rebels were placated. The battle was lost. Now
it all hinges on survey questions gauging the
damage - not to the peoples of the world’s
most poverty-stricken countries, but the UK’s
global reputation.
These cuts have forced colleagues with
whom many of us had worked for over a
decade in UKRI into impossible situations, no
longer able to communicate directly with us as
a research community, and instead resorting
to all manner of contortions of prose and
speech. Information ceased to be shared in
writing except to demand money back or cuts.
Universities already hard hit by COVID
have been hit again. Medical trials have
been aected, against medical ethics, with
additional applications to be lled out by
researchers to ensure they could continue –
again, unprecedented. Arts projects in LMICs,
in a sector on its knees after the pandemic,
were simply cast aside. There was no respect
at all for the partnerships overseas or the
careful way in which researchers had built
up participatory models and equitable
partnerships.
The worst of it is, of course, hitting those
in low to middle income countries with
no safety nets. Research leaders in these
countries are seeing their international
careers shredded. Academics in the UK have
gone from being celebrated for their global
research innovation and leadership, to being
toxic for their institutions overnight.
It takes decades to build up research and
researchers, especially around the world. There
is no short cut. If the pandemic has taught us
anything it is how much we rely on academic
research and how long this takes. The foreign
aid cuts will make this vital work even harder,
while damaging Britain’s international
standing at a time when it says it wants to be
a ‘world leader’.
Alison Phipps is UNESCO RILA Chair at the
University of Glasgow.
Political Insight September 2021.indd 40Political Insight September 2021.indd 40 16/08/2021 15:2316/08/2021 15:23
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