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The share of postgraduate research roles filled by domestic students in England is shrinking, as university leaders warn of “catastrophic” funding cuts to the sector.
UK students accounted for just 43 per cent of the 24,865 enrolments for full-time postgraduate research degrees at universities this academic year, according to Office for Students data.
The figure fell from 47 per cent of entrants in 2023-24, and 51 per cent in 2017-18, the first available data from the regulator’s survey of grant-funded higher education providers.
University leaders said cuts to research funding had caused the domestic student intake to fall, threatening the UK’s ability to produce the skilled workforce required for the government’s industrial strategy.
“To achieve the kind of innovation-led growth the government is looking for, we will need graduates with high-level qualifications to form the bedrock of a resilient workforce,” said Stephanie Smith, deputy director of policy at the Russell Group of leading universities.
Domestic research degrees are typically paid for by grants or funding from research councils, governments and charities, whereas students from overseas pay a higher share of their course costs.
“The fees nowhere near cover the cost of delivering these courses,” said Simon Green, pro vice-chancellor for research at Salford University and formerly of Aston University, adding that external funding had allowed universities to provide PhDs “on the cheap”.
He said that mounting financial pressures facing partners such as charities had forced them to cut funding for research roles.
Official estimates show only 44 per cent of the cost of delivering research courses is covered by tuition fees and external sponsorship.
Green said the sector was “increasingly dependent” on growing the number of international students on profit-making courses, such as business masters, but this stream has come under pressure following visa restrictions introduced by the previous Conservative government.
While the intake for lucrative master’s courses has fallen sharply since this policy change, the number of international students starting research courses has continued to grow.
However, this has not offset the fall in other fee income, as research courses represent just 3 per cent of the overseas intake.
The OfS has warned that “over-optimism” about growth in international enrolments has catalysed a financial crisis in the HE sector, with the risk a large provider could go bankrupt becoming increasingly likely.
Deborah Prentice, vice-chancellor of Cambridge university, said there had been a “catastrophic fall” in state funding distributed by some research councils.
“We have ways of trying to compensate,” she said, but losing a fifth of the postgraduate research intake since 2017-18 is “brutal”.
“The Cambridge secret sauce is that we have a unique ability to attract talent. A lot of it comes in at that level at the postgrad and postdoc level,” she added.
The government has committed £8.8bn in funding this year for UKRI, the research body that supports a fifth of research students. While this is in line with last year, universities are concerned the rising cost of supporting students will reduce placements.
The number of new UKRI-sponsored postdoc students has already declined more than a fifth in the past eight years, according to a freedom of information request by the Financial Times.
UKRI said it would not cut the planned number of placements for 2025 and would increase the minimum student stipend by 8 per cent from October, adding that postgraduates are part of the “bedrock” of its portfolio.
Additional reporting by Michael Peel
