Written by Mike Collis

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.86.22

What’s your view?

What are your views on accreditation? Please send them to pneditor@physoc.org so that they can be included in a future issue of Physiology News.

Many of you will know that the Society of Biology is running a pilot scheme to accredit bioscience courses in the UK. The Physiological Society has been working with the Society of Biology specifically on the accreditation of degrees that have a significant in vivo training component. The aim of any accreditation system must be to set high standards, so that those undertaking the course in question receive a training that equips them for their future careers and makes them attractive recruits for both industrial and academic employers.

A key feature of the Society of Biology accreditation scheme is that the student has a significant (minimum of 6 months) ‘hands on’ exposure to laboratory research, either as part of a 4 year Master of Biology (MBiol) course or through an extramural year in industry. The emphasis of accreditation on practical laboratory experience is in response to the concerns expressed by many employers that today’s graduates are not ready to work in a research lab and in fact require training in even the most basic of techniques. The current lack of practical laboratory experience in the new graduate is probably also one reason why the standard PhD is now taking 4 rather than 3 years.

But where are the MBiol courses that can offer this type of practical in vivo training and how many industrial sponsors can guarantee an in vivo placement for students? The answer is very few. I know of only two MBiol courses: both of these are primarily in pharmacology and involve an industrial placement – which is not guaranteed to be in vivo. There are a few excellent academic institutions that still offer a small number of students the opportunity to experience some in vivo education, but they cannot offer the level of exposure required for accreditation. So unless something changes, there will be no courses that can guarantee to provide the in vivo skills required for accreditation within the Society of Biology framework. I don’t think this is a desirable situation and an additional concern is that this scenario will not help the few courses that do provide some limited in vivo exposure to muster support from their institutions, particularly in a time of increased budgetary rigour.

So what needs to change to allow the UK to have courses that provide the in vivo experience that would meet the criteria for accreditation? As with most things, it all comes down to money. Courses that involve a significant time in the laboratory are expensive to run; this is particularly the case when the laboratory work is in vivo. The added costs of personal Home Office licences for the students, the costs of having experienced staff providing close supervision and the costs of animals and animal facilities all make courses involving in vivo work more expensive. In fact, they cost more than most academic institutions are willing to pay, without additional financial support that has come in recent years from industry or from a learned society. If accreditable in vivo courses are to become a reality, then there clearly needs to be extra funding available to run them. HEFCE has a budget for Strategically Important and Vulnerable Studies (SIVS) that could be used in this way. To their credit, HEFCE are supporting an MSci in ‘Integrated Pharmacology and Physiology for Research’ at King’s College London, which has a significant in vivo component. But this funding is only for the first year and there needs to be more sustained funding of this targeted nature if we are to see a paradigm shift in graduate training and reap the benefits of an accreditation system.

Currently, the majority of students will only get the practical training envisaged by the accreditation system if they take a further degree such as an MSc or MRes. The Society of Biology has not included higher degrees in its accreditation framework, probably because of concerns that the quality of the first degree cannot be guaranteed. It will be interesting to see if this position changes and accreditation is extended to post-graduate courses. On the one hand, it would recognise the value of some of the excellent post-graduate courses that are available and would help students select them and consequently enhance their career prospects. On the other, such an extension of the boundaries of accreditation would not necessarily facilitate extra funding for MBiol courses and could be seen as an endorsement of the status quo rather than a lever to improve standards and stimulate new courses. Paradoxically, the MBiol is not regarded as equivalent to a Masters degree in the Bologna Accord, as the extra academic year of the MBiol does not provide an equivalent number of credits. In fact, there is anecdotal evidence that a number of universities on the continent refuse entry to PhDs to students with the MBiol. This requires students who wish to attend these courses to take an additional Masters, which is at odds with one of the key aims of accreditation i.e. to produce ‘research-ready’ graduates.

What is clear is that accreditation has to be linked to enhanced funding if it is to achieve its aim of improving the standards of bioscience degrees, particularly those involving in vivo education. Shouldn’t the Society of Biology and its member organisations be lobbying for a link between accreditation and enhanced funding if accreditation is going to make a difference?