Funding threat to future of Masters courses

15 October 2008

Alternative funding is needed for full-time UK students to undertake taught transport planning Masters courses, designed to meet requirements of the workplace, according to employers in the sector.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has not axed the funding for taught Masters courses from 2009/10, as feared, but these funds – £50M over three years – are now focused on supporting research, or ‘knowledge transfer’ activities (Surveyor, 8 May).

However, Martin Richards, chair of the University Transport Partnership employers forum, told Surveyor that the decision effectively meant an end to the funding for 30 UK full-time students each year. ‘Universities can’t run a practical course where the principal aim is to undertake world-class research or to prepare students studying for PhDs.

While I accept the job of a research council is to promote research, that funding needs to come from somewhere,’ he said. Without alternative funding, ‘there’s no guarantee that those 30 people taking the transport Masters courses will now go into transport,’ Richards warned. The Department for Communities and Local Government, he noted, offered bursaries for town and country planning courses, in order to tackle skills shortages in that area.

Professor John Polak, UTP chair, has said that without the contribution of UK full-time students to the courses, they would be less appealing for overseas students, many of whom obtained jobs in the UK. In 2007/08, 145 of the 342 full-time equivalent students on transport Masters course were from overseas.

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