The RSE has responded to the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) independent call for evidence on research pooling. The response noted that since the creation of the pools in 2003 there has been improvements in the Research Excellence Framework ranking of Scottish universities, bibliometric data, the success of securing external funding, and the development of graduate schools in Scotland. Though these cannot be directly attributed to the pools they have certainly had an influence. We indicate that the research environment has changed but research pooling still has a role, recommending that the SFC continue to fund the existing pools and are aware of the potential for new pools.
The full response can be found here.