Nobelists urge rethink on MRC unit funding changes
诺贝尔奖得主呼吁重新考虑 MRC 单位资金变更

Source: iStock/Unaihuiziphotography
来源：iStock/Unaihuiziphotography

Two Nobel prizewinners have backed an open letter signed by more than 600 academics, researchers and support staff calling on the Medical Research Council (MRC) to revisit funding changes that could lead to the closure of several highly successful research units.
两位诺贝尔奖得主支持一封由 600 多名学者、研究人员和支持人员签署的公开信，呼吁医学研究委员会（MRC）重新考虑可能导致多个成功研究单位关闭的资金变更。

Former Royal Society president Venki Ramakrishnan, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009, and recent physics laureate Geoffrey Hinton, known for his pioneering work on artificial intelligence, have been joined by Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal, in questioning the MRC’s shift towards a funding model that removes direct sustained investment in existing research units.
前皇家学会主席文基·拉马克里希南（2009 年诺贝尔化学奖得主）和最近的物理学奖得主杰弗里·辛顿（因其在人工智能领域的开创性工作而闻名）与天文学皇家学会院士马丁·里斯一起质疑医学研究委员会（MRC）转向一种取消对现有研究单位直接持续投资的资金模式。

Replacing the previous system that awarded units up to £10 million a year, the MRC’s Centre of Excellence (CoRE) now caps unit funding at £3 million annually.
替代之前每年向单位提供高达 1000 万英镑的资金的系统，MRC 的卓越中心（CoRE）现在将单位资金上限设定为每年 300 万英镑。

As Times Higher Education reported in March 2023, senior scientists believed this model would force several world-renowned units to restructure their operations when their current funding expired, even if they won funding under the new system.
正如《泰晤士高等教育》在 2023 年 3 月报道的那样，资深科学家认为这一模式将迫使几个世界知名的单位在其当前资金到期时重组其运营，即使他们在新系统下获得资金。

According to the University and College Union (UCU), which organised the open letter highlighting the changes, all three units that have so far applied for the new CoRE funding have been unsuccessful. Among them is The Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, based at the University of Glasgow, which will close later this year, with 80 staff currently at risk of redundancy, according to the UCU.
根据大学和学院工会（UCU）的说法，组织了这封公开信以强调这些变化，目前申请新 CoRE 资金的三个单位都未能成功。其中包括位于格拉斯哥大学的社会与公共卫生科学单位，该单位将在今年晚些时候关闭，目前有 80 名员工面临裁员风险，UCU 表示。

Highlighting the changes, the open letter claims that the full impact of the new funding model has been underestimated because MRC units are unique scientific assets with international prominence and losing them will detrimentally affect the entire UK medical research sector.
公开信强调，这些变化声称新资金模型的全面影响被低估，因为 MRC 单位是具有国际声望的独特科学资产，失去它们将对整个英国医学研究部门产生不利影响。

It alleges that the process behind the decision to change the funding model was not transparent, no stakeholders were consulted before the decision was taken and there was no governmental or parliamentary scrutiny of the decision, which will place thousands of highly skilled scientists and staff at risk of redundancy.
它声称，改变资金模型的决策过程不透明，决策前没有咨询任何利益相关者，且没有政府或议会对该决策进行审查，这将使数千名高技能科学家和员工面临裁员风险。

“It would be a tragedy for medical research in the UK if the MRC units were lost simply because of a sense of inevitability, or a reluctance to revisit previous decisions”, states the letter which calls on the government to pause the funding changes until the signatories’ concerns have been addressed.
“如果 MRC 单位仅仅因为一种不可避免的感觉或不愿重新审视之前的决定而被失去，这将是对英国医学研究的悲剧，”信中指出，呼吁政府在解决签署者的担忧之前暂停资金变更。

Other signatories of the letter include Harvard University professor Steven Pinker and former president of the Royal Statistical Society, David Spiegelhalter, alongside nearly 70 other national academy fellows, 110 professors and more than 300 other academics, researchers, and support staff from the UK and abroad.
信的其他签署者包括哈佛大学教授史蒂文·平克和前皇家统计学会会长大卫·斯皮格尔霍尔特，以及近 70 名国家科学院院士、110 名教授和来自英国及海外的 300 多名其他学者、研究人员和支持人员。

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said the decision to change the funding model had been “made behind closed doors by a previous MRC leadership.”
UCU 总秘书乔·格雷迪表示，改变资金模式的决定是“由前 MRC 领导层在闭门会议上做出的。”

“As evidenced by the hundreds of signatories to our letter, the academic community vehemently opposes the changes and [science secretary] Lord Vallance and [MRC executive chair] Patrick Chinnery now need to listen to those impacted to ensure that there is a proper debate about the impact of the changes and consider an alternative that preserves these national assets.”
“正如我们信件中数百名签署者所证明的，学术界强烈反对这些变化，[科学秘书]瓦兰斯勋爵和[MRC 执行主席]帕特里克·奇纳里现在需要倾听受影响者的声音，以确保对这些变化的影响进行适当的辩论，并考虑一种保留这些国家资产的替代方案。”

In a House of Lords debate in October in which Imperial College London professor Robert Winston raised the impact of the MRC changes, however, Vallance stated that the “new MRC centres of research excellence model will improve how we bring together the best science, skills and leadership to focus on key challenges in medical research”.
在十月的上议院辩论中，帝国理工学院的教授罗伯特·温斯顿提到了 MRC 变化的影响，然而，瓦朗斯表示“新的 MRC 卓越研究中心模型将改善我们如何将最佳科学、技能和领导力结合起来，以集中应对医学研究中的关键挑战”。

In a THE editorial in December, Chinnery explained that those units which made the “transition [to the CoRE model] will enjoy the advantages of a reduced bureaucratic burden on research teams and long-term financial security” given funding periods will now last up to 14 years.
在 12 月的一篇《高等教育》社论中，奇纳里解释说，那些“过渡到 CoRE 模型的单位将享受减少研究团队的官僚负担和长期财务安全的优势”，因为资金周期现在将持续长达 14 年。

jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com