HC Deb 31 January 1997 vol 289 cc416-7W
Mr. Ingram

To ask the President of the Board of Trade what were the success rates of(a) applications for funding and (b) alpha-graded applications for funding to each research council in each year since 1979. [12053]

Mr. Ian Taylor

[holding answer 21 January 1997]: There has been some increase in the number of grant applications, fuelled by the increase in numbers of researchers in the system, both as a result of the change of status of the "new" universities and increasing numbers of contract researchers drawn into the "old" universities by the growth in research funding in the university system.

This information is not available for some of the earlier years. The success rates by number of grant applications for later years are as follows:

1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council 1, 8
Success rate percentage of all applications 50 60
Success rate percentage of total alphas 65 72
1 Figures for AFRC, BBSRC, NERC and PPARC are for financial years, rather than calendar years.
2 In 1994 the BBSRC took over the former responsibilities of the Agriculture and Food Research Council. AFRC figures from 1986–87 to 1993–94 cannot be directly compared with BBSRC figures from 1994–95 as BBSRC responsibilities, principally for biological sciences, run wider than did AFRC's.
3 From 1 January 1995 BBSRC replaced the former alpha/beta system with a numerical grading system. The last two percentages given are BBSRC's best estimate of figures on a basis comparable with the previous system.
4 The responsibilities of the Science and Engineering Research Council transferred to other research councils—principally EPSRC and PPARC—in 1994.
5 EPSRC does not grade proposals on the basis of alpha, beta etc.
6 ESRC's research grants scheme only started in 1987. Alpha grades were not used until 1988.
7 NERC figures are for non-thematic grants, equivalent to responsive grants for other councils.
8 The figures for 1995–96 are not comparable with previous years as the staff element for experimental grant applications made under the particle physics programme was not considered in that year. PPARC supports the particle physics community through four-year rolling grants which are reviewed every two years. In 1995–96 PPARC decided to defer the review by one year because of the uncertainty over the likely future level of the UK subscription to CERN. This meant that particle physics awards were limited to two years support for non-staff costs only. These figures reflect this position.