By Aisha Labi

Impending government budget cuts could have such a detrimental impact on scientific research at British universities that it could take a generation or more to repair the damage, warned the head of the science and technology committee of the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain's Parliament.

Britain may already be losing skilled academics to other countries because of the likely financial crunch, said the official, Lord Krebs, who is also a leading zoologist and principal of the University of Oxford's Jesus College. To forestall a drastic decline in higher-education spending, he outlined his concerns last week in a letter to David Willetts, Britain's universities and science minister.

"He said, 'Where is evidence that these cuts would do harm?' My letter is a response to that," Lord Krebs said in an interview Monday.

Without time to do a proper scientific study, Lord Krebs asked for input on the issue from the vice chancellors of six leading research-intensive universities: the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London, the University of Manchester, the University of Oxford, and University College London. His letter is based on their responses and provides anecdotal evidence that the country could already be experiencing an exodus of academic and scientific talent.

"It is difficult to get quantitative data," he said. "But all of these vice chancellors expressed concern that there were early warning signs that people are leaving or not coming to the U.K. because they would be better off elsewhere. We can't prove that there is a brain drain, but there are clear early warning signs."

Higher education in the United States, of course, is coping with severe budget problems in many places, and there are concerns it is falling behind in academic prowess. But Lord Krebs said American universities are better prepared to navigate the tough financial straits than their British counterparts.

The level of investment in scientific research as a percentage of gross-domestic product is much higher in the United States, France, and Germany than in Britain, where research spending is 1.8 percent of GDP, on par with Slovakia, Lord Krebs said. "Britain has not invested heavily, like its major European competitors and like the U.S. has done, even in good times," he said. Universities are increasingly having trouble attracting academics faced with competing offers, not just from leading European countries or the United States, but increasingly from places like Singapore, he said.

The response from Oxford to Lord Krebs's request outlines the situation: "Oxford recognizes that its competitor institutions who are also seeking to recruit the highest-quality staff and students are mostly overseas, in the U.S., Far East, and some European countries. The funding environment for these institutions is different, and richer, particularly when compared with the current relative weak state of the pound."

Indeed, Oxford pointed to Germany, where the "government has established a very generous program to attract the best scientists to German universities." A senior Oxford academic, it said, "has been invited to take up such a generously funded position, which is made all the more appealing by recent reductions of U.K. research funding for the area in which the individual undertakes their research, and the strong German funding for this discipline."

'A Generation Gap in Academe'

Such stories are becoming increasingly common, said Lord Krebs, and the issue is not simply about pay. "Academics don't move around for higher salaries—that's not their main motivator. Their main motivator is research facilities," he said.

The government is due to announce the full extent of its cuts next month, and they could be as much as 25 percent of university budgets. Lord Krebs's letter was a last-minute attempt to delay the worst. "It would be unrealistic to think that a single letter could change the whole outcome of the comprehensive-spending review, but in the position I occupy, I have an opportunity to make these points to the science minister," he said.

The last time British universities faced such large decreases in public support, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, it resulted in such lasting damage that the effects are still evident, Lord Krebs said. Those cuts produced a generation gap in academe, with many people now in their 50s choosing either to pursue careers abroad or not to enter higher education, he said. "To rebuild has taken a generation," he said. "We don't want to repeat that."

Lord Krebs said he has not received a response from Mr. Willets to the letter, but the two officials plan to meet October 11. Coincidentally, that is the date on which a long-awaited review of how higher education in Britain is financed is due to be published.