Universities must think responsibly when trying to acquire more funding, sector leaders have been urged.

Delegates at the final day of the?Times Higher Education Leadership & Management Summit?were discussing how university leaders can create the conditions for world-class research.

State governments have long played a large role in research and innovation worldwide, with the UK government just?announcing?that it will increase annual funding to ?20 billion by 2024 ¨C but newer organisations have become key global players in just a few years.

¡°It is the case that there is increasing diversity in the sources of funding that are available to try for and I really do believe that diversity of funding is a good thing, not just because there is more resource available in total,¡± said Steven Hill, director of research at Research England.

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He said a diversity of funders was very important, with schemes such as Schmidt Science Fellows?and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation focusing on specific challenges, alongside what national governments do.

¡°The challenge is how you make sure that diverse mix of funding does all point in a coherent direction,¡± Mr Hill added.

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¡°It¡¯s not to say that everyone should be doing the same thing but what we don¡¯t want is a diversity that pulls the research in multiple directions.

¡°Another challenge particularly around businesses and their funding of research is that more and more research can be happening in corporate contexts that isn¡¯t necessarily fully transparent ¨C that may get in the way of progress.¡±

Also speaking at the session was Huiliang Li, professor of molecular and cellular neuroscience at UCL, who said diversity was good for researchers ¨C provided the source of the funding was transparent.

The main priority for university leaders was to secure funding, he said, particularly when it is currently so difficult to obtain.

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¡°It¡¯s an important leadership competency to make sure you¡¯re thinking about the challenges of funding in the round,¡± added Mark Sudbury, head of the World 100 reputation network, which is a THE company.

¡°I¡¯ve seen many examples ¨C particularly when dealing with philanthropy ¨C of universities perhaps not thinking hard enough about the source of that funding and actually sometimes what the funder wants before grabbing hold of the money.¡±

Leaders in higher education should be awake to the fully transformative nature of philanthropy, but also aware that certain types of funding come with risks.

¡°The sector as a whole has benefited tremendously from that, but universities can¡¯t necessarily rely on that piece of funding, just as they can¡¯t necessarily rely on government funding for evermore,¡± Mr Sudbury said.

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Earlier in the day, Nancy Ip, president of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, detailed some of the helpful funding interventions made by her ¡°very supportive¡± government.

Investment schemes, such as InnoHK, and a newly launched government-backed talent scheme were key?factors in?helping build a ¡°strong innovation technology ecosystem in Hong Kong¡±, she said.

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patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com