Letter: University pools

ANTHONY Cohen raises some interesting issues in his comment on higher education (21 October). As the director of one "pool" I must correct a factual error. Contrary to his comment Chemistry Pooling did submit jointly to the RAE.

The Edinburgh and St Andrews Chemistry Research Pool submitted together and as a consequence came fourth in the UK and first on the "power" rating, beating Oxbridge and Imperial College. We delivered more than 11 per cent of the UK's top quality research outputs in chemistry (and about 75 per cent of those from Scotland).

The latter parts of the article were interesting and reflect a perspective which is endemic in modern UK life, centralisation, sharing of resource and skills which will, in my personal view, continue to drag us further along the route of loss of diversity of approach and content which is hampering research and teaching in universities. The Scottish Government is at a crossroads.

My view is the cost-saving solution is to return authority and control to universities. Couple this with a sensible financial model and let competition thrive. Scottish universities have to be set free if they are to deliver against the best international institutions.

(Prof) J Derek Woolins

University of St Andrews

St Andrews