The Government Response to the Tickell Review of Research Bureaucracy

Change should not be comfortable

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Cast your mind back (please) to March 2021 - was it a simpler time? I don’t really remember, but what I do remember is that the government was going to cut red tape and to do this it was going to initiate a review of the complex system of research bureaucracy that was holding back the research sector.

The report was published in July 2022, and you can read it here.

The Tickell Review of Research Bureaucracy

The report was frustrating reading for someone like me who has spent a significant amount of time as - in essence - a bureaucrat in a research office.

Bureaucracy is a marvel - the administration of huge, complex organisations is not something to take for granted, and when it works well it’s a bit like magic.

But there’s little doubt it doesn’t always work well, and that bureaucratic procedures and forms and data collection points are all easier to add than they are to subtract.

While not the focus of the report, contracts are (unsurprisingly) mentioned as an element of research bureaucracy that is frustratingly complex and slow, and “should” be better. I completely agree!

So why is it frustrating reading?

The report then condemns universities for not all using an unmodified Brunswick template for all contracts, and legal teams for daring to challenge NIHR’s funding template when they should know that it’s just the way NIHR do things.

There’s zero recognition in the review that standard templates have been a grassroot initiative by universities themselves to solve the problem, nor is there any acknowledgement that funder requirements and contracts, and government regulations, are increasingly complex and diverse in a manner that prohibits greater contracts standardisation.

The Government Response to the Tickell Review

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The government have clearly thought long and hard about the Tickell Review - or at least we can be certain they’ve thought long, as it’s taken from July 2022 to Feb 2024 for them to publish their response, which you can read here.

The section about contracts was also based on a roundtable convened by NIHR which you can read about here.

Again, reader, I am afraid that I am slightly frustrated.

Both the response and the notes from the roundtable are less-than-bold in their willingness to truly critically evaluate the systematic reasons that research contracts are complex, instead brushing aside any hint that change might be needed by participants and placing all blame on unnamed others.

If you only read the review and the response, you’ll gain the impression that the government, funders, and everyone except for university contracts teams are squeaky clean and already doing everything they can.

I’m quite used to this view of the complexity being the result of individual contracts specialists who Just. Don’t. Get. It. and whose sole purpose for living is to make life unnecessarily difficult.

The problem is, that’s not my experience - it’s a mirage, an easy, tempting way to frame the problem because the solution to that problem is easy! But the truth is that, as a group, contracts specialists would love to make life simpler - if you think it’s frustrating dealing with contracts two or three times a year, imagine having to handle hundreds a year!

The truth is we are dealing with a far wider systemic problem that results in complexity in research contracts - put another way: complexity in research contracts is the symptom not the cause itself.

The Tickell review, the Government response - they are too polite, they are too comfortable for the sector, they aren’t sufficiently challenging and as a result - in my view - they’ll fail to make any real difference¹. Unless, that is, working groups start to grasp the nettle and truly try to understand the drivers, incentives, and constraints that contracts teams are working under.

1. Just to be clear - I am FULLY on board for better standardisation, and I hope this initiative succeeds - but I suspect it won’t achieve long term transformative change as the steps that are planned aren’t bold enough to do so.