Available online at www.sciencedirect.comStudies in History

www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc

Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

and Philosophy ofBiological andBiomedical Sciences

Making way for molecular biology: institutionalizing and managingreform of biological science in a UK university

during the 1980s and 1990s

Duncan Wilson a, Gael Lancelot b

a Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine and Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Manchester,

Manchester M13 9PL, UKb Scientific Resource Management, GBIF France, 12, rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France

Received 16 January 2007; received in revised form 3 August 2007

Abstract

Historians agree that the second half of the twentieth century saw widespread changes in the structure of biological science in uni-versities. This shift was, and continues to be, characterized by the de-differentiation of nineteenth and early twentieth century disciplines,with increasing emphasis on the methods and authority of molecular fields. Yet we currently lack appreciation of the dynamics thatunderpinned these changes, and of their tangible effects on the working practices of those involved. In this article we examine the whole-sale reform of biological science at the University of Manchester, England, that occurred in two successive steps in 1986 and 1993. Weexamine how reform was enabled by economic and political factors, as staff seized upon national pressures; in so doing, we emphasizehow this reform was shaped by a generational view of the biological sciences as a one field, unified by molecular techniques. We assesshow the success of these reforms was tied to new management policies that rewarded research activity in molecular fields, and refiguredteaching as a punishment for research inactivity. We close by showing how our analysis fits amongst, and can contribute to, ‘big picture’debates in the history and sociology of knowledge.� 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Manchester; Reorganization; Molecular biology; Research management; Mode-2

When citing this paper, please use the full journal title Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

1. Introduction

For historians of the biological sciences the recent, wide-spread, reorganization of these fields in academia seems, toborrow a useful idiom, to be something of an ‘elephant in

1369-8486/$ - see front matter � 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2007.12.011

E-mail addresses: duncan.wilson@manchester.ac.uk (D. Wilson), lancelot@

the room’: we are all aware that a seismic change in theirorganization is underway, but it is thus far neglected in his-toriography. Little of the growing work on twentieth cen-tury biology makes reference to a prevalent trend thatover the last two decades, in universities across the world,

gbif.fr (G. Lancelot).

94 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

has fashioned biological sciences less as separate disciplines,and more as aspects of a new conglomeration—at the coreof which are the methods and claims of molecular biology.1

The most relevant studies mostly deal with the origins anddevelopment of the research programmes which launchedmolecular biology in the years around World War II.2 Sometexts take a broader view, looking at the emergence ofmolecular biology across nations.3 Others look at specificprojects that flourished in this new frame, including theuse of particular experimental objects.4 Recently, andimportantly, Chadarevian has analysed the key CambridgeLaboratory for Molecular Biology, but the rest of Cam-bridge University falls outside her work. Krige, meanwhile,has explored the politics behind the European MolecularBiology Organization, EMBO, and Strasser has mapped acomparative history of European molecular biology.5 Theseinstitutional and comparative studies assess the interplaybetween micro-institutional, macro-governmental and sci-ence policy factors; but none of them primarily consideruniversities, nor the remodeling of biological disciplinesover recent decades.

In this article, we investigate reorganizations of the bio-logical sciences at the University of Manchester during the1980s and early 1990s: the first, in 1986, merged elevendepartments into a federated School consisting of fourdepartments; the second, in 1993, dissolved all departmentsto form a one-department School organized into researchgroups. Continually stressing the importance of a dynamicinterplay between institutional context and commonnational pressure, we show how a group of young staff usedthese reorganizations as a vehicle to introduce molecularmethods; how they viewed molecular biology as a unifyingapproach, rather than a specific field; and how, to achievesuccess, they introduced modes of staff management thatwere preferentially weighted toward molecular research.Our work is based on a general study of biological reorga-nizations in Britain and elsewhere, which informs our con-clusions, and on a detailed study of biological sciences inManchester.6 We have had access to large amounts of doc-umentary material and have undertaken interviews withpresent and past actors. We can also draw on a numberof previous studies of Manchester University which enableus to place our site in relation both to other civic universi-ties and to Oxbridge and London. We do not claim that theManchester reform was peculiarly important for molecularbiology in Britain; but it was an extensive restructuring in alarge institution, which led to the adoption of a federatedSchool structure increasingly common in UK universities.

1 There is thus far nothing written on reform in European universities, but weFor a first hand account, see Wilson (1996).

2 Kay (1993).3 Morange (1998); Abir-Am (1997).4 Rader (2005); Creager (2002); Gaudilliere (2000).5 Chadarevian (2002); Strasser (2002); Krige (2002).6 Lancelot (2007); Wilson (Forthcoming).7 Pickstone (2000).8 On scientific management see Morris (2002); Cooter & Sturdy (1998); Zim

To return to our three main points, we argue that,though all UK universities faced the same common Gov-ernment and policy pressure in our timeframe, one shouldnot simply attribute specific reforms to this broad influ-ence. Throughout, we emphasize the importance of thelocal context through which policy pressure is mediated—and stress how the Mancunian reform was contingent oninstitutional factors such as the appointment of a promi-nent molecular microbiologist as Vice-Chancellor, andthe accession to power of a number of young professors,who shared his and the Government’s conception of ‘good’biological science as grounded in molecular methods, withmedical relevance. We show how the subsequent reformthey initiated was both (i) a response to Governmental pres-sure to develop financially remunerative and medicallypromising areas of biological science and (ii) a local driveto introduce a disciplinary and generationally shaped viewof excellence that dovetailed with policy and politicalexpectation. Our second point relates to the reformers’conception of molecular biology as a synthetic researchprogramme that unified all the hitherto disparate strandsof biological science. Historians know that such visionswere recurrent from the nineteenth century, often basedon cells and then on genes as shared elements.7 In thisinstance, rather than be conceived as a single discipline,molecular biology acquired the mantle of synthetic project.

By most measures, the reform proved very successful.How that accomplishment was related to new modes ofmanagement is the subject of the latter section of thispaper, which examines how the reorientation of researchpriorities was tied to a new system of research manage-ment, intentionally weighted toward molecular research.We show how this policy rewarded research-active staffwith higher levels of money than inactive staff—andhow, following a second reform in 1993, it intentionallyseparated teaching from research by making a high teach-ing load the punishment for poor research performance.By refiguring teaching as punishment rather than priority,the Manchester School of Biological Sciences becamemore like a research institute than a traditional curricu-lum-oriented university department. Our presentation ofthe management of Manchester biological science proble-matizes and deepens the current picture of rising manage-rialism in the life sciences and ties in with our general,first, point.8 Rather than simply be seen as evidence ofa Governmental desire to make academia more like indus-try, we show how research management systems servespecific institutional agendas.

do have two case studies for US academia; see Vettel (2004); Trow (1984).

an (1994); Yoxen (1981).

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 95

To set the 1980s changes in context, we first survey theevolution and persistence of the nineteenth century config-uration of biological science at the University of Manches-ter. Given that our focus is on hitherto undocumentedrestructurings in the 1980s, this survey is necessarily brief.More detail can be found in the extensive historiographyof the biological and pre-clinical sciences at different institu-tions from which we draw. In extending this historiographyinto the 1980s and 1990s, we seek to offer a continuation ofthese nuanced accounts of interplay between disciplines,universities, governments and industry that adds depth torecent models in the sociology of knowledge, which wereturn to in our conclusion.

2. Biological science at Owens College and the University,

1851 to 1981

The nineteenth century conception of the biological sci-ences was not uniform across British universities. Recentscholarship has shown that the oft-covered configurationfound at Cambridge from the 1870s, with experimentalphysiology prominent alongside a strong physics, was moretestament to the reforming power of Michael Foster than anational acceptance of basic laboratory research.9 Theemergent civic institutions, of which Manchester’s OwensCollege was proto-typical, played to the needs of their mer-cantile and medical audiences and instead developedstrengths in chemistry, physics and clinical medicine.10 InManchester, research was orientated to the needs of localengineering and dyestuff firms; the local medical elite,meanwhile, stymied laboratory experiment by dictatingthat medicine’s emphasis lay in training future clinicians.11

Like the departments of Physiology and Anatomy,established in 1873 and 1874, the departments of Botanyand Zoology that emerged from a division of the extantNatural History department in 1879 served primarily toeducate student clinicians—thanks to national reformswhich stated student doctors needed training in biology,chemistry and physics. The division of Natural History fol-lowed, at some distance, the specialization of German uni-versities that chemist Henry Roscoe, who drove Owens’semphasis on research, emulated.12 On acquiring theirown buildings at the turn of the century, Botany and Zool-ogy, like Chemistry and Physics before them, began toforge a distinct research culture, focusing on paleobotanyand embryology. Here, Thomas Henry Huxley’s view of

9 Pickstone (2005); Geison (1978).10 Pickstone (2005).11 Butler (1988).12 Kraft & Alberti (2003).13 Ibid.14 Charlton (1951), p. 124.15 Kidd (2002); Barnes (1996).16 Kraft (2004); Katz (1978).17 Chadarevian (2002).18 Valier (2002).19 Bernal (1963).

a unified ‘Biology’ based on experimentation penetratedthanks to the appointment of a number of his Kensingtonprotegees, not least Arthur Milnes Marshall, the first chairof Zoology.13 After Marshall’s death his successor, SidneyHickson, fostered an emphasis on invertebrate physiologythat lasted, like Botany’s focus on paleobotany, well intothe twentieth century.

But as a centenary celebration of Owens College notedin 1951, these biological and preclinical departmentsremained little more than ‘useful secondaries’ to physicalscience and clinical medicine (Owens College became theUniversity of Manchester in 1903).14 They lacked high-pro-file academics such as Alexander Todd in Chemistry andLawrence Bragg in Physics, both of whom became patronsof the interdisciplinary biology after moving to Cambridge.Furthermore, biological science suffered from the industrialdecline of Manchester after the Great War, with the con-comitant centralization of capital and industry in the SouthEast.15 Archibald Hill, recruited in 1920 to invigorate pre-clinical research, left for University College London afteronly three years; this was part of a southward migrationthat saw Todd and Bragg leave for Cambridge, and alsosaw Botany and Zoology lose funding for their economi-cally relevant posts concerning potato blight and agricul-tural entomology.16

In Oxford and Cambridge, Chemistry proved vital tothe development of molecular approaches to biology. Butby the 1930s in Cambridge, unlike Manchester, there wasa strong Biochemistry department, grown out of Physiol-ogy, in which young biologists vied for emergent and pow-erful patronage from the Rockefeller Foundation.17 InManchester, both Chemistry and Physiology containedstaff who did biochemical work, but they were treated withsuspicion by their peers, and it was not until the 1960s thatthe marginal factions in each department formed theirown, separate, departments of Biological Chemistry andMedical Biochemistry.18 Neither did the increasing empha-sis on cross-disciplinary collaboration have the sameimpact here as it did in Cambridge and London—or,indeed, in Leeds where Astbury’s growing Department ofBiomolecular Structure attracted Rockefeller funds andwas a molecular biology department in all but name.19

As Strasser notes, the postwar conception of a trans-disci-plinary biology that gained currency after World War IIdirectly challenged the ‘traditional social order of lifescience based on the nature of the object being studied

96 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

(animals, plants humans)’.20 Implementing this approachnecessitated dismantling the organizational hierarchyfound since the late nineteenth century and was, generally,resisted by incumbent staff whenever a challenge arose.Even in Cambridge, where the Laboratory for MolecularBiology is held as a model of interdisciplinarity, the hostil-ity of biochemists was such that the Laboratory wasgeographically, and ideologically, distanced from theuniversity campus on its foundation in 1962.21

In Manchester, Zoology was headed by the neo-Lamarckian Graham Cannon between 1931 and 1963.Cannon prioritized teaching over research and was activelyhostile to genes and proteins as objects of study.22 His wellknown irascibility led to clashes with the similarly volatilehead of Botany in the 1950s, the cotton geneticist SydneyCross Harland.23 Indeed, the compartmentalization ofManchester biological science seemed to be characterizedby the lack of communication—or mutual enmity—between its constituent departments. These divisions con-trasted sharply with governmental plans during the1960s. In 1962 the Advisory Council on Science Policypraised research and configurations that straddled ‘the bor-derline between biology, chemistry and physics’, but notedthat universities were yet to reorganize biology in this fash-ion.24 Though the Medical Research Council favouredreform, and funded ventures such as the Cambridge Lab,it was not yet a major source of funding for many univer-sities, who relied on recurrent money from the UniversityGrants Committee (henceforth UGC). This body, the pri-mary source of money until the 1980s, was composed ofrelatively conservative academics in the 1960s who didnot press for reform.25

The first departments to embrace this cross-disciplinarystructure were in the ‘plate-glass’ institutions such as Sus-sex and Lancaster that emerged throughout the 1960s.Because they lacked medical schools, they were relativelyweak in the preclinical subjects, and they often located bio-chemistry within chemistry. ‘Biology’ in these institutionswas primarily an amalgam of botany and zoology, withgenetics and cell biology central to teaching; and theseemergent departments exemplified the ‘new biology’ aswas publicized in television documentaries and a series ofbooklets from the Penguin press.26 Once the school sylla-bus dropped separate botany and zoology in favour of

20 Strasser (2002), p. 527.21 Chadarevian (2002), pp. 221, 233; Chadarevian (1996); Perutz (1987), p. 422 Kraft (2000).23 Prof. John Lee, interview with DW (7 March 2006). On Harland and Can24 Todd (1962), p. 21.25 Yoxen (1981), p. 97.26 Dr Keith Elliot, interview with DW (4 August 2006). For public promotion

Chadarevian (2002).27 John Lee, interview with DW (7 March 2006); Pullan & Abendstern (200028 Kraft (2000), p. 399.29 Prof. E. R. Trueman, ‘School of Biological Sciences’ (1973), University of M

UMSCA): DBO1/3/1; Botany departmental board meeting (28 March 1973):30 Prof. Maynard Case, interview with GL (20 March 2004).

combined biology A-levels later in the 1960s, these newuniversities began to take potential students from the civicuniversities, and also acquired a number of Manchesterstaff who were frustrated at the poor prospects for internalpromotion.27

This is not to say that Manchester staff made no effort toengage with changing conceptions of the biological sci-ences. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, young lecturerswere assigned to Botany and Zoology to develop cytologyand genetics, inserting new modules into existing degreesand fashioning an Honours School in Genetics and CellBiology. These newer staff also began to push for newdegrees and structural reforms.28 As a result, Botany andZoology discussed a merger to form a School of BiologicalScience in 1973.29 Despite backing from Edwin Trueman,the chair of Zoology, both departmental boards ultimatelyrejected the proposal. The majority of staff felt that a mer-ger would create an unwieldy academic structure andreduce their financial and academic autonomy. Staffdecided that collaboration was best encouraged withinthe nineteenth-century configuration, through sharing ofpractical facilities such as Electron Microscopes and moreengagement in joint courses. Interestingly, collaborationwas only encouraged between Botany and Zoology: inthe proposal and subsequent discussion there had beenno consideration of merging with Biological Chemistry inthe Faculty of Science, nor with the preclinical departmentsin the Faculty of Medicine.

So, despite the arrival of joint appointees and the imple-mentation of joint degrees, the layout of life sciences inManchester remained compartmentalized. By the mid1980s the Science Faculty included Zoology, Botany andBiological Chemistry. The Medical Faculty included Anat-omy, Physiology, Pathology, Pharmacology, Medical Bio-chemistry, and newer departments of Bacteriology andVirology, Medical Genetics, Immunology, and Basic Den-tal Sciences. Regardless of thawing relations between Bot-any and Zoology, there was little collaboration across theFaculties of Science and Medicine.30 During the 1980s,however, as competitive pressures intensified across BritishUniversity systems, Manchester became conscious of itsweaknesses in biological sciences. Thanks to mechanismswe now explore in detail it embarked on a wholesale reformof these hitherto disparate departments. (see Fig. 1).

1; Yoxen (1981), p. 105.

non’s volatile relationship, see Charlton & Cutter (1996), p. 9.

of this ‘‘new” biology, see Medawar (1977); on televisual representation see

).

anchester Special Collections Archive, John Rylands Library (henceforthDBO1/3/1.

Fig. 1. University Campus ca. 1983, showing dispersal of biological science departments prior to reform (reproduced courtesy of the University Librarianand Director, the John Rylands University Library, the University of Manchester). 1: Turner Dental School: Basic Dental Sciences (Faculty of Medicine).2: Williamson Building: Botany; Zoology; Pollution Research (Faculty of Science). 3: Stopford Building: Anatomy and Histology; Bacteriology andVirology; Biochemistry; Immunology; Pharmacology; Physiology (Faculty of Medicine).

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 97

3. Planning reform

Universities were not too adversely affected by the eco-nomic downturn of the late 1970s. Where Britain wasplunged into industrial and political strife, the majorconsequence for higher education seemed to simply be aninability to plan ahead. In Manchester, for instance, a pro-fessorship in Genetics and Cell Biology had to be shelved in1977; but no department was compelled to make staffredundancies, or budget for a severe reduction in recurrentUGC funds. This seeming isolation from Britain’seconomic problems ultimately proved to be universities’undoing. Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the shadowConservative cabinet, believed that recession could bepartly combated through reform of the public sector, whichshe considered wasteful, overgrown, and self-serving. Cru-cially, she saw in academia the embodiment of these ills. Toher, it was rife with leftist collectivism and dissent, haddeliberately isolated itself from economic hardship of the1970s, and was ignorant of the streamlined corporate ethosshe wished to impose on public services.31

Once Thatcher attained power in May 1979, universitieswere told to budget for a serious reduction in the moneythey received from the UGC. Secretary for Education

31 Kavanagh (1989), pp. 85–87.32 Pullan & Abendstern (2004).

and Science, Mark Carlisle, stated that one aim of cost-cut-ting was the creation of a ‘leaner university system. . .betteroriented to national needs and operating within the contextof what the nation can afford’.32 In May 1981, the UGCdistributed a letter urging all Vice-Chancellors to plan foran 8.5% reduction in their Home Students Block Grantand the total dissolution of grants for overseas students.Importantly, the letter also announced that the cuts wereto be imposed selectively between institutions and theirfields of study. Given Thatcher and Carlisle’s emphasison national utility, academics rightly predicted that thismeant universities and disciplines that were seen to contrib-ute to economic growth would be spared excessive cuts,whilst those seen as superfluous would suffer.

In July 1981, all Vice-Chancellors received lettersinforming them of the cuts that were being imposed ontheir own universities, with general information on howthe UGC felt these should be spread across particular dis-ciplines. Universities now learnt that the Government haddecided to cut the sum the UGC distributed by 17%. Man-chester was told to budget for a 16% reduction in its recur-rent grant between 1981 and 1984. Though certainly notsevere as the 30–44% cuts meted out to the neighbouringUniversity of Salford and UMIST, the former University

Fig. 2. Student paper Mancunion relays news of the UGC’s 1981 budgetcuts—a contributory factor to the later reform of biological science(reproduced courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, the JohnRylands University Library, the University of Manchester).

98 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

Faculty of Technology, this still brought substantial prob-lems. The University had expanded considerably during the1960s and 1970s, appointing large numbers of new staff.Since much of the UGC grant went on salaries, redundan-cies appeared the only logical way of making savings—andit followed that the University would have to dismiss morestaff than most if it were to meet its target savings of £3–4million in 1981–1982.

Certain staff argued that the UGC cuts offered a chanceto reform an institution that had become too unwieldy anddistanced from the needs of its city.33 Others considered thecuts nothing more than an attempt to erode the ethos ofliberal education, by imposing through budget cuts themanagerial ethos that the New Right so cherished.34 Thissplit in opinion led, as Pro-Vice-Chancellor Dennis Austinnoted, to a state of ‘paralysis’ in Manchester.35 A lack ofdefined leadership hardly helped: the summer of 1981 sawthe University without a Vice-Chancellor. The new incum-bent, installed in August, quickly sought to meet budgetcuts by implementing an early retirement policy. Thisman, medical microbiologist Mark Richmond, had provedan attractive candidate thanks to the influence he wieldedin Whitehall, as Government advisor on genetic manipula-tion. Scientists and clinicians warmly greeted the newappointment; but Richmond’s appointment was less popu-lar with staff in the arts who felt that as a microbiologist,recently elected to the Royal Society, he would favourthe sciences and medicine when spreading the UGC cuts.36

Yet Richmond had already identified that particularweakness lay in his own field. As he later recounted, ‘I wentinto the University knowing, from previous experience,that biology was not good, frankly’.37 He believed that bio-logical science could only prosper by using new techniquesand by underpinning medicine, and identified the absenceof molecular biology as a particular weakness in Manches-ter.38 Unsurprisingly, Richmond’s dim view of Manchesterlife science was shared by the UGC, whose advice onspreading the budget cuts had been to: ‘protect medicine,look after engineering, maintain economics and area stud-ies, reduce the life sciences, downgrade the arts’.39 Botanyand Zoology were subsequently hit with a 15% budgetcut—greater than other departments in the Faculty of Sci-ence—which left staff in no doubt as to their poor reputa-tion (pre-clinical departments were spared thanks to theirassociation with Medicine) (see Fig. 2).

Simon Guthrie, head of Zoology, noted in 1982 that theUGC and the Vice-Chancellor saw Botany and Zoology as

33 Ibid.34 Scott (1984), pp. 94–95.35 Austin (1982).36 Pullan & Abendstern (2004), p. 129.37 Prof. Sir Mark Richmond, interview with Michelle Abendstern (12 April 138 Richmond himself had been a Reader at the UK’s first academic departme

where he analysed the molecular mechanisms that underlay bacterial antibioti39 Austin (1982), p. 485; my emphasis.40 Minutes of the Zoology departmental board (10 March 1982), UMSCA: D41 Ibid.

‘old-fashioned departments with a compartmentalizedapproach’.40 Guthrie argued that if they were to survivethe 1980s both departments would have to undertake ‘rad-ical alterations’, which involved closer integration with bio-chemistry.41 Biochemistry possessed the medical utility thatRichmond and the UGC favoured and was also, crucially,acting as a model for pro-active responses to the financialcrisis. During 1982, the separate departments in Manches-ter merged, led by Michael Grant and Chris Pogson, the

999).nt of Molecular Biology at Edinburgh University between 1965 and 1968,c resistance. See Birse (1994).

B0/1/3/10.

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 99

new young professors of Medical Biochemistry and Biolog-ical Chemistry (Pogson had been appointed in 1979, whilstGrant replaced the retiring incumbent in 1981). Encour-aged by Richmond, Grant and Pogson created a singleBiochemistry department, jointly allied to the Facultiesof Medicine and Science, and located in the medical Stop-ford Building.42 This reform not only encouraged collabo-ration, but it also presented a chance to counter financialpressures by losing extraneous technical and administrativeresources.

Buoyed by this merger, Richmond suggested the creationof a research unit in some ‘central field’ of biology.43 Pog-son responded by proposing the formation of an interdisci-plinary hub that would focus on the molecular approachesthe Vice-Chancellor wished to introduce—specifically inrecombinant DNA and genetic engineering.44 This so-called‘Pogson initiative’ bemoaned the barriers presented by theexisting departmental structures and urged that reformmust cut across these lines. Pogson’s proposal called for afree-standing ‘Centre for Bioscience’, modelled explicitlyon research institutes such as the European Molecular Biol-ogy Laboratory, rather than any traditional department. Itwas to have control over its own academic direction, andwould ultimately serve as a laboratory resource to be calledupon by academics and industry.45 Though Pogson receivedthe backing of departments in Science and Medicine, hisplan ran aground in 1983. Richmond wanted a projectand research driven Centre, rather than one primarily witha technical and service remit.46

With his plans vetoed, in 1983 Pogson resigned foran industrial position, whereupon Richmond and the JointCommittee for University Development (henceforthJCUD) set up a Working Group to review Manchesterbiology.47 Headed by John Willmott, chair of Physics,the Working Group drew upon a number of outside asses-sors and called upon staff in the biological and pre-clinicaldepartments to submit appraisals of their work. It had beencharged with the task of drawing up reform proposals byRichmond—who intentionally kept it free of biological sci-entists to prevent the encroachment of disciplinary loyalty.At this point, a self-styled ‘gang’ of four young professors,who had supported Pogson and urged Richmond to enactfurther reform, entered proceedings. To this informalyoung group, trained in or after the 1960s, departmentalhierarchies were an obstacle, rather than something to be

42 Prof Sir Mark Richmond, interview with DW (3 March 2006), Grant (19943 Minutes of the Botany departmental board (17 February 1982), UMSCA:44 Pogson, ‘Developments in Biology in Manchester’ (8 October 1982), UMS45 Pogson, ‘Developments in Biology in Manchester’ (1982).46 Minutes of the Botany board (2 March 1983), UMSCA: DB0/1/3/11.47 Since the early 1970s, the JCUD functioned as the major planning body o

composed of the Vice-Chancellor, all Pro-Vice-Chancellors, and a number of48 For a full discussion of generational cohorts as an influence on the instituti

21–29.49 Grant (1991).50 Prof. Maynard Case to Prof John Willmott (18 May 1984), personal pape51 Prof. Sebastian Halliday to Maynard Case (17 October 1984), Case paper

defended.48 Two of this young gang had been appointedinternally: these were Maynard Case, chair of Physiologysince 1980, and Michael Grant, now the sole chair of Bio-chemistry. Two had been appointed from elsewhere:Anthony Trinci had been appointed chair in CryptogamicBotany in 1981, and Mark Ferguson had been recruited tolead the new department of Basic Dental Sciences in 1984.At an early stage, this ‘gang’ had numbered five; but BillFord, the driving force behind the new Immunologydepartment, was killed in a car accident during 1984.

None of the gang was specifically a ‘molecular biologist’,but all had expertise in newer laboratory techniques thatredefined molecules and proteins as objects of interest,and invigorated the medical potential of certain fields. Fol-lowing postdoctoral training in Cambridge during the1960s Grant, for one, acquired skill in radiolabelling meth-ods that allowed identification of different proteins in theextracellular matrix that, in turn, were identified as centralto embryo development, cancer and heart disease—findingswhich greatly increased the medical relevance of matrixbiochemistry.49 Moreover, like their Vice-Chancellor, thegang had some policy influence by virtue of MaynardCase’s position on the UGC Biological Sciences Sub-Com-mittee between 1985 and 1989.

This gang of four became the principal designers of thereform. They exerted considerable influence on both staffof the biological and pre-clinical departments, and on Will-mott’s Working Group. Perturbed by the lack of young orpre-clinical individuals in Willmott’s choice of externalassessors, Case successfully argued for the inclusion of anumber of younger laboratory researchers the ‘gang’ sug-gested. The generational bent to this lobbying was madeevident in his plea to Willmott that ‘while I have due regardand respect for age, are not the views of the young asimportant as those of senior scientists?’50 By July 1984,the four had met Willmott and convinced him of theirplans. Case, the official correspondent of the gang, wasthen charged with formulating a proposal to be submittedto Willmott and all the departments, which was dispatchedin November 1984.

Testament to the way in which the whole reform wascarried out with one eye on the national scene, a memberof the Willmott Group praised Case’s plan by stating thatit would ‘go down well in Park Crescent with the UGC’.51

The interplay between national pressure and local

1).DBO/1/3/10.CA: DB0/1/3/10.

f the University. It combined the University Senate and Council and waselected representatives. See Pullan & Abendstern (2004).onal landscape of biology, and as a historical tool, see, Nyhart (1995), pp.

rs of Maynard Case, henceforth ‘Case papers’.s.

100 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

developments was further evident in the way the professorspointed to wide issues to further their local cause. In 1985Ferguson sent Case a damaging article from Nature, inwhich Thatcher urged research councils to exercise cautionin awarding grants and then proceeded to label Manchesteras ‘a place where we have these huge problems’.52 In ahandwritten accompaniment, he urged Case to presenttheir plans to Willmott and Richmond as the solution toThatcher’s ‘problems’. ‘Then’, he claimed, ‘we can havesome money to reorganize!’53

In Case’s proposal, all biological and pre-clinical depart-ments were to be dissolved and replaced by new researchdivisions in a ‘Faculty of Biosciences’ that would be locatedin the Stopford Building. To prevent the dominance ofphysical science and clinical concerns, the new Facultywas to be financially independent from Science and fromMedicine.54 Case made no attempt to hide the generationalnature of his plans, arguing that: ‘In the last three years,the Biosciences have lost nine professors; many of thosethat remain are relatively young. There is a sense that weface a new beginning’.55 As before, he drew on nationalfactors to support a radical reform, arguing that ‘to effectdramatic improvement, during a time of recession,demands radical changes’.56 The fractured state of Man-chester ‘bioscience’ wasted income and curtailed the uptakeof the ‘new approaches’ needed to improve the UGC’s per-ception. These approaches were, of course, those that reliedon molecular biology—identified by Case as ‘the area inwhich major redevelopments are crucial and urgent’. Hisproposal dwelt on the ‘irrelevance’ of the nineteenth cen-tury boundaries that molecular approaches now tra-versed—and in stressing this, the reform came to beexplicitly seen as a way of introducing and maximisingthe relevance of molecular techniques to Manchester,rather than as a cost-effective measure.

When the professors’ proposal was circulated, it metopposition in a number of quarters. Some zoologists wor-ried that their work would be seen as irrelevant, but onthe whole the department supported the proposal. Amongthe botanists, the cryptogamists, mycologists and plantphysiologists felt close to the work done by bacteriologists

52 Maddox (1985), p. 178.53 Mark Ferguson to Maynard Case (undated), Case papers.54 Prof. Maynard Case, draft letter to Profs. Grant, Trinci and Ferguson (555 Maynard Case (lead author), ‘A discussion document for developments i

papers. The proposal was officially co-written by all heads of relevant departmfrom the ‘gang’. As the shape of reform became contentious, the chairs of Bacnoted as only supporting the proposal ‘with reservation’; whilst the chairscompletely.56 Ibid.57 Dr Laurence Cook, interview with DW (17 January 2006).58 Prof. Phillip F. Harris and Prof. John A. Gosling to Prof. Maynard Case59 Prof. John C. Willmott (chair), ‘Report of the working party on biologic

University of Manchester, henceforth ‘Faculty papers’.60 Ibid.61 Prof. Maynard Case to Prof. Mark Richmond (11 February 1986), Case p

Warwick and King’s College, London, were undertaking reform at roughly th62 Prof. Mark Richmond to Edwin Smith (8 May 1985), UMSCA: DBO/1/3

and certain biochemists, and favoured a merger—thoughthey too worried about being seen as irrelevant.57 This,however, was not the case with a number of pre-clinicaldepartments, who preferred to maintain close ties with clin-ical medicine. Anatomy’s departmental board unanimouslyelected to remain allied to the Faculty of Medicine. Fearfulof subordination to molecular and cell biology, the anato-mists did not want to be part of reform.58

When the Willmott Group made its report available inJuly 1985, it strongly resembled the professorial plan. LikeCase, they recommended that all biological and pre-clinicaldepartments be merged under one roof, sharing a centralpool of resources. Moving to one location and filling achair of Molecular Biology were explicitly prioritized, asthey had been in Case’s draft.59 Yet there were some differ-ences. Case wanted a single department School, but theCommittee opted for four departments, comprising Molec-ular Biology, Cell Biology and Plant Physiology, Animaland Human Physiology, and Environmental Biology.60

The Committee also recommended that, in order toincrease medical relevance, the new departments be admin-istered as a School within the Medical Faculty. Notably,whilst the report noted Anatomy’s reluctance, it firmly sug-gested that the discipline only had a future in Manchesteras part of the new departmental structure.

Following the Report, Richmond met with the Deans ofScience and Medicine to discuss how to implement reform.Keen to push on, Case impatiently alleged that his positionon the UGC alerted him to the fact that the ‘in the outsideworld (UGC, research councils, etc.) we are beginning tolook foolish as others, basing their reorganization on ours,move ahead and query how we are proceeding’.61 Case’scall for a quick resolution was lent weight by the prospectof a second round of national funding cuts. Because of pro-tests after the first round, the 1984–1986 cuts were to bemore transparent and selective. As Richmond told theDean of Science in 1985, ‘the amount of externally-fundedexpenditure on research is to be used much more selectivelyand aggressively in determining levels of UGC fundingthan hitherto’.62 The UGC asked all departments to submitan appraisal of their research performance, in order to

September 1984), Case papers.n Bioscience in the University of Manchester’ (5 September 1984), Caseents; but all conceded that the plan and tone of the document originatedteriology and Virology, Botany, Pharmacology, and Zoology asked to be

of Anatomy asked that their names to be removed from the document

(2 November 1984), Case papers.al sciences’ (July 1984). Papers of the Faculty of Life Sciences secretary,

apers. There is no direct reference to these supposed imitators, althoughe same time./14.

Table 1Destinations of academic staff in the School of Biological Sciences (1986)

Department Origins

Biochemistry and

Molecular Biology

Biochemistry* 24Bacteriology & Virology 1Molecular Biology (tbf) 1* Includes one post jointly funded withMedicine

Cell and Structural

Biology

Anatomy and Histology (2 chairs) 14*Botany (2 chairs) 10Immunology (tbf) 3Basic Dental Sciences (1 chair) 1**Joint Botany and Zoology 4Bacteriology & Virology 4* Excludes 9 short-term demonstratorsin Anatomy.** Includes one post jointly funded withthe Dental School

Physiological Sciences Physiology (2 chairs) 23*Pharmacology (1 chair) 13**Zoology (one chair) 4* Includes one post jointly funded withMedicine** Includes one post jointly funded withMedicine

Environmental Biology Botany 5Zoology 12Pollution Research 2Joint Botany and Zoology 2

*tbf indicates position vacant.

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 101

determine by review the proportion of money that was tobe awarded. Fully aware that research had often been sec-ondary to teaching, a number of departments approachedthe review with trepidation. The chairs of Botany notedthat the department’s record of securing research fundswas ‘not as good as it should be’, but argued that the pros-pect of this review had increased research applications andexternal grants.63

Ultimately, the UGC assessment did not reflect atall well on any of the biological sciences in Manchester.Physiology and Anatomy fared best, rated as ‘Average’;Biochemistry, Botany, and Zoology were all, ‘Below Aver-age’, the lowest rank attributable.64 Biological science inManchester ranked below Cambridge, Oxford and theLondon Colleges, below its civic competitors such asLiverpool and Leeds and, more damningly, below manynewer universities such as Reading, Southampton, Swanseaand Leicester.65 Widely distributed and digested, the reviewresults confirmed Manchester’s poor standing in thesefields and became the ultimate justification for the impend-ing reform.

During the summer, plans were finalized for the newSchool. The University Council was requested to createfour new departments: Biochemistry and Molecular Biol-ogy, Cell and Structural Biology, Physiological Sciences,and Environmental Biology. All staff had been given thechoice of which of the four departments they wished toenter, and all seemed to choose on the basis of researchinterest, rather than disciplinary affiliation. This ensuredthat the comparative physiologists in Zoology joined Phys-iological Sciences, whilst the mycologists and cryptagomicbotanists joined Physiological Sciences. With biochemistscolonizing Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, withphysiologists colonizing Physiological Sciences, and withthe anatomists electing to join Cell and Structural Biologyen masse, to retain disciplinary identity, the only depart-ments that seemed to have actually reorganized were Bot-any and Zoology, with staff spread amongst three of thefour new departments (see Table 1). Each of the ‘gang’ended up in a position of power: Grant as head of Bio-chemistry and Molecular Biology; Ferguson as head of Celland Structural Biology; Case as head of Physiological Sci-ences; and Trinci as chairman of the Board of Studies inBiological Science, which administered teaching. Environ-mental Biology was the only department without a chair.Though Guthrie had nominally been selected to lead it,he joined Physiological Sciences. Headed in the end by bot-anist John Lee, Environmental Biology remained in theWilliamson Building, whilst the zoologists and botanistsentering Cell and Structural Biology or Physiological Sci-ences gradually moved to the Stopford Building.66 As we

63 Prof. A. P. J. Trinci and E. G. Cutter to Prof. Donnachie, Dean of Facul64 Immunology, Bacteriology and Virology were all assessed within Clinical

assessed within Clinical Dentistry, and was also rated ‘Above Average’.65 Crequer (1986).66 Prof. John Lee, interview with DW (7 March 2006).

shall see, this segregation and lack of professorial leader-ship manifested a more theoretical isolation.

As staff were relocated into their new units, the fourdepartmental heads, with Trinci as chairman, formed anExecutive Committee that set School policy. One of theExecutive Committee’s first steps was the formulation ofstaff management policies—designed to maximise researchoutput and to reward the molecular approaches that thereform was intended to make way for. We now examinethis management strategy, offering, we believe, one of thefirst empirical examples of what Yoxen and Ziman identifyas a crucial shift in the making of contemporary research,whereby institutional drives to secure major funding areaccompanied with intensifying oversight and control of sci-entists’ activities.

4. Consolidating reform

Shortly after the School was officially formed, inNovember 1986, the Executive Committee dispatched along proposal to Richmond and the JCUD, identifyingpriority areas for investment. The most important, the

ty of Science (4 November 1985), UMSCA: DBO/1/3/13.Medicine, which was rated ‘Above Average’; Basic Dental Science was

102 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

proposal ran, was the establishment of a critical mass inmolecular biology, led by a chair and two lectureships inthe department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.Without this, the Committee argued, the reorganizationwould amount to ‘little more than the shuffling of deck-chairs on the Titanic’.67 But, Richmond bluntly stated thatrecruitments would only be made after each departmenthad met their annual savings targets of 2%—and thisinvolved the loss of existing staff.

Given that there would be no immediate influx of theyoung researchers working with the desired molecular tech-niques, School researchers were told in no uncertain termsthat their research output would have to increase signifi-cantly. Case, for one, told members of Physiological Sci-ences that the research record of Manchester life sciencehad been ‘amongst the lowest in the country’ and wouldbe better increased by some form of oversight.68 The distri-bution of recurrent UGC funds to research groups in Phys-iological Sciences would now be selective, determined byhow each group fared when judged alongside a given setof performance indicators. Groups were assessed on apoints scale, with points awarded for: the value of researchgrants held, the number of graduates supervised, and thenumber of papers published in the last three years. Thehigher the tally, the more money a group received. Bio-chemistry and Molecular Biology, Cell and Structural Biol-ogy, and Environmental Biology employed similar criteria,differing from Physiological Sciences only in that theydivided money selectively between individuals rather thanresearch groups. The adoption of performance indicatorswas an intentionally double-edged tactic: it financiallyrewarded research-active staff, whilst at the same time itensured that research-inactive staff would have to seek theirfunds from elsewhere. This, of course, meant they had toapply to the research councils, hopefully increasing theiroutput. This new Research Performance Index scheme(RPI) had a sizeable influence on the amount of moneystaff received. In the School’s first academic year, applyingthe RPI resulted in a twenty-fold difference in the amountof recurrent grant allocated to staff at the top and bottomof the performance range.69

The turn to performance indicators was not solely a localphenomenon. A recent report by the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (henceforth CVCP) identifiedperformance appraisal as a tool that would foster greatermanagerial efficiency in higher education that, in turn,would enable universities to liaise easily with the corporatesector and respond better to future financial crises.70 In

67 A. P. J. Trinci (chairman) ‘New departments, new developments, new degre‘Trinci papers’.68 Department of Physiological Sciences—Bulletin 3 (1 July 1986), Case pape69 School of Biological Sciences annual report (1986–87), Faculty papers.70 Jarrat (1985).71 Buchbinder & Newson (1988).72 Dr Eric Bell, interview with DW (12 December, 2005).73 Prof. John Lee, interview with DW (7 March 2006).74 School of Biological Science submission for a 1987 visit from the UGC Bi

the wake of these reports academics began to debate themerits or drawbacks of such schemes, in staff meetings, inconferences, and in the pages of the Times Higher Education

supplement.71 Our research shows that staff managementwas not as stoutly resisted as one might expect. Many staffin the School actively welcomed the adoption of the RPIscheme, and the fact that ‘you were no longer scratchingaround to find money’.72 This sense of reward was only feltby research-active staff, of course; those who received littlemoney resented the establishment of a new meritocracy,and argued that the RPI simply furthered their disenchant-ment, rather than increase their productivity.73 Neithershould we presume that the RPI scheme was a consequenceof the CVCP and Governmental recommendations. CertainManchester departments had begun to survey research pro-ductivity before national bodies endorsed staff profiling. InBotany, for instance, Trinci tested a proto-RPI scheme onthe cryptagomists during the early 1980s, awarding pointsfor papers published, grants held, students supervised andconferences attended. Though this scheme had no directimpact on resource allocation, Trinci circulated results toall staff, hoping to use academic one-upmanship as motiva-tion for increased performance. Though we cannot citeTrinci’s proto-RPI as a later influence on national argu-ments—he did not sit on any policy bodies like Case orRichmond—it is clear that the idea behind performancereviews in Manchester biological sciences predated theirwidespread national adoption (see Fig. 3).

The RPI was not the only tactic the School managementused in their efforts to transform biological science. TheExecutive Committee converted positions made availablefrom what it termed the ‘natural loss of staff throughretirement and resignation’ into posts for molecularresearchers.74 Cell and Structural Biology was the firstdepartment where this tactic was evident. Here, in 1987,Ferguson recruited Ian Hutchinson from Oxford, to fillthe chair of Immunology that had been vacant since BillFord’s death. Hutchinson brought expertise in the molecu-lar biology that underlay transplant rejection: exactly thetype of medically relevant, molecularly oriented appoint-ment prioritized in the professorial and Willmott propos-als. Ferguson had also inherited three temporary lecturerposts in Anatomy, as well as seven other temporary postsheld by anatomical demonstrators. Within no time he dis-established these and persuaded JCUD to convert theresultant savings into three permanent lectureships.Though two of the new posts were advertised as lec-tureships in Anatomy, they were filled by molecular

es’ (November 1987). Personal papers of Prof. Anthony Trinci, henceforth

rs.

ological Science Sub-Committee (December 1987), p. 4.

Fig. 3. RPI form for Cell and Structural Biology, 1987.

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 103

researchers: Paul Sharpe, a molecular embryologist, tookup one of the Anatomy lectureships; Graham Ireland,who looked at gene expression and cell behaviour, filledthe other; while John Glover, a molecular biologist, filledthe third post, a lectureship in the Molecular Genetics ofDevelopment. Angered by the subordination of classicalanatomy to molecular biology, both chairs of Anatomyresigned in 1988.

In each of the above appointments, molecular biologywas not defined as a separate field, or discipline, but morea set of theoretical and practical approaches that broughtnew expertise to bear on traditional problems. This stand-point ensured that researchers skilled in molecular tech-niques infiltrated as many of the new departments aspossible. When Simon Guthrie and pharmacologist GeorgeMawer retired from Physiological Sciences in 1989, theywere replaced by John Hickman and Frank Owen, whooccupied new chairs of Molecular Pharmacology andMolecular Neuroscience, funded by ICI and Glaxo respec-tively.75 That same year, after a protracted search, Bio-chemistry and Molecular Biology recruited cell biologistKeith Gull to the chair of Molecular Biology.

The only department lacking molecular approaches by1989 was Environmental Biology. Indeed, apart from apromotional chair awarded to John Lee, it was the only

75 ICI and Glaxo sponsor new Physiology chairs (1989).76 Prof. John Lee, interview with DW (7 March 2006).77 Maynard Case, interview with GL (20 March 2004).78 Prof. John Lee, interview with DW (7 March 2006).79 Open letter to Vice-Chancellor, Deputy Registrar and all professors in bio

department not to be awarded any new appointments—despite having lost a number of staff.76 The lack of invest-ment manifested Richmond’s scepticism toward environ-mental biology as a field. Like Case, he had been wellbriefed that the UGC would privilege medical relevanceand questioned whether the University needed a depart-ment of Environmental Biology at all.77 Rumoursabounded that he would use possible poor scores in the sec-ond assessment, in 1989—now referred to as the ‘ResearchAssessment Exercise’ (RAE)—to close down the depart-ment. As Lee has since put it, ‘we were to be sacrificed atthe RAE altar’.78

It was no surprise that Environmental Biology was seenas marginal. The reforming professors and Richmond wereclear that reform had been designed to facilitate the spreadof medically relevant, molecularly oriented, methods. Inlate 1985, the chairmen and secretaries of all biologicaldepartments sent a letter to Richmond and the reformingprofessors expressing unease that Environmental Biologyseemed little more than an ‘afterthought’; and, indeed,many botanists and zoologists did avoid the departmentwhen selecting which of the four new departments tojoin.79 It has to be said, little attempt was made to appeasesuch dissent. A brochure written for a UGC visit in 1987stated that the primary goal of reform had been to ‘enhance

logical science (5 September 1985), Case papers.

104 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

teaching and research activities in biological sciences in gen-eral, and in molecular biology, cell biology and neuroscience

in particular’.80 Any mention of ‘traditional’ whole animaland plant science was notably lacking.

Environmental Biology certainly appeared to be under-performing when judged against the RPI criteria: staff pub-lished papers less regularly, and attracted less externalfunding per head than their peers in the other departments.But, as John Lee argued in his 1989 RAE submission, theRPI was skewed toward the sort of molecular, lab-basedresearch that the School was building itself around. Leeclaimed that grant expenditure was bound to be lowerfor Environmental Biology, as the research its staff per-formed did not require the high-tech equipment essentialto molecular and cell biology. He followed that assessingpublication rates was not a fair indication of productivityeither, as environmental and ecological projects were oftenmore long-term than laboratory work.81 This argumentconsistently fell on deaf ears, however—unsurprisingly,considering the reformers considered molecular biologyan approach of relevance to all aspects of the biological sci-ences. Right from the School’s establishment, it was clearthat Environmental Biology could not fall back on theargument its work cost less: in late 1986, Trinci wrote that‘it is not possible to consider the Department of Environ-mental Biology as a low cost centre’. ‘It is’, he followed,‘increasingly dependent on sophisticated equipment andfacilities in both teaching and research’.82 To the reformingprofessors, the only way Environmental Biology’s futurecould be ensured was through the introduction of molecu-lar biology. Not locating a prospective chair in PlantMolecular Biology here, Trinci argued in a proposal toJCUD, would represent ‘the final nail in the coffin of staffin the Williamson Building’.83

Yet Environmental Biology scored 2 out of 5 in the 1989RAE, the same score as Biochemistry and Molecular Biol-ogy (Physiological Sciences and Cell and Structural Biol-ogy both scored 3 out of 5). Since the UGC did not rateit as weaker than any other School department, Rich-mond’s mooted closure evaporated. Furthermore, the highecological content in the A-level syllabus, coupled withmedia coverage of acid rain, disappearing environmentsand endangered species, ensured that a new BSc in Envi-ronmental Biology attracted high numbers of undergradu-ates.84 In 1990, Environmental Biology was finally granted

80 School of Biological Science submission for a 1987 visit from the UGC Bi81 John Lee, RS5, Environmental Biology submission for 1989 RAE, Faculty82 A. P. J. Trinci, ‘Developments in Environmental Biology’, Executive Com83 Prof. A. P. J. Trinci to Profs Maynard Case, Mark Ferguson, Michael Gr84 Dr Keith Elliot, interview with DW (4 August 2006); Prof. John Lee, inte85 School of Biological Sciences annual report (1989–1990), Faculty papers.86 The research school was composed of five new research divisions: Biochemis

and Environmental Biology; Physiology, Pharmacology and Toxicology.87 Prof. Anthony Trinci, interview with Michelle Abendstern (9 March 1999)88 Keith Gull and Maynard Case, ‘Forward planning’ policy document (18 F89 Dr Eric Bell, interview with DW (12 December 2005).

two new lectureships, which resulted in the appointmentsof ecologist Malcolm Press and botanist Roland Ennos.85

Ultimately though, Environmental Biology’s burgeon-ing success was short-lived: for a second reform in 1993,combined with a refinement of the RPI scheme, disbandedthe department and refigured teaching as a punishment forresearch-inactive staff. This second reform entailed the dis-solution of all departments into a single School structure,comprised of separate Research and Graduate schools.86

It was dictated by University policy whereby all Schoolsor Faculties were rationalized into Research and GraduateSchools—a move intended to alleviate Governmental cutsof up to 40% in the money universities received for eachundergraduate, as well as the total dissolution of the recur-rent grant from what was now titled the University Fund-ing Council (UFC).87 The separation of teaching andresearch activities was designed to maximise income forstudent intake and research activity. But these financialmotivations were obscured in internal briefings, whichinstead presented the 1993 reform as the attainment ofCase’s original one-department proposal. Case and KeithGull, the prime architects of this second reform, presentedit as a logical progression from the four departmentalstructure, essential if Manchester were to become ‘the bestunified school of biology in Europe, an international centreof excellence with a 5* [RAE] rating’.88

As before, the RPI was the tool reformers believedwould achieve this; but it was now no longer used just toallocate financial resources. Instead of being awardedmoney, staff with a high RPI score were now granted alow teaching load for the forthcoming academic year. Con-versely, of course, research-inactive staff were burdenedwith the excess teaching. With teaching now a punitive out-come for not meeting research standards, it was explicitlyrefigured as secondary to research—and the School of Bio-logical Sciences took another large step closer to the inde-pendent research institutes that had been hailed as apositive model in the Pogson proposal of the early 1980s.Those older staff who saw teaching as equal to, if not moreimportant than, research often found themselves saddledwith an unmanageable teaching load and left. More oftenthan not, these were whole-animal or environmental biolo-gists, who were replaced with younger, molecular and cel-lular researchers.89 Furthermore, with teaching nowofficially less important than research, the School of Bio-

ological Science Sub-Committee (December 1987), p. 4, Faculty papers.papers.

mittee document (17 November 1986), Trinci papers.ant, and John Lee (16 October 1989), Trinci papers.rview with DW (7 March 2006).

try; Cells, Immunology and Development; Neuroscience; Plants, Microbes

.ebruary 1993), Case papers.

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 105

logical Sciences achieved greater distance from the medicalschool: though it continued to teach clinical students,senior figures in Medicine were in no doubt that the Schoolhierarchy, galvanized by improving RAE scores andgreater grant income, viewed this as marginal.90 The RPIthus buttressed two of the major changes evident through-out the Manchester reform: the gradual marginalization ofa prior generation of non-molecular researchers, and thesubordination of teaching to research. It is clear here thatthe RPI scheme was not just evidence of increasing man-agerialism in UK universities; it was a tool developed toserve institutional motives, to drive the significant re-order-ing of Manchester biological science during the 1980s and1990s.

5. Conclusions

Grand claims have recently been made about the preva-lence and significance of the changing structure of biologi-cal science in the last thirty years. Jonathan Harwood hasrecently described it as perhaps the major reshaping ofthe academic landscape in the last century; others go fur-ther, and cite it as evidence of the changing nature of sci-ence itself.91 In concluding, we stress how local studiessuch as this make an important contribution to thesebroader historiographical and sociological pictures.

Firstly, one needs to identify if Manchester is, indeed,one of many universities which has reorganized its biologi-cal sciences. Analysis of UK universities in the last fortyyears shows that the reforms we have detailed were one ofmany similar initiatives, with de-differentiation of disci-plines clearly a common factor. This can be seen in the steeprise in staff occupying unified departments of ‘Biology’ fromthe early 1980s onwards; and the enthusiasm for molecularbiology in these new configurations is evident in the factthat this is the only discipline to see an increase in numbersduring the same period (see Fig. 4). But we must be awarethat the number of defined ‘molecular biologists’ does notpaint a full picture. As we saw for Manchester, molecularbiology was a unifying outlook, and many molecular meth-ods permeated older disciplines such as physiology andplant science, or in unified ‘Biology’ departments.

That a great majority of UK universities have under-taken such change should not come as a surprise. All uni-versities faced the same policy pressures from theGovernment and the UGC, emphasizing research in remu-nerative fields such as molecular biology, so broad movestoward reform were to be expected. Indeed, a major motivebehind the UGC cuts had been to encourage rationaliza-

90 Prof. Sir Robert Boyd, interview with DW (17 October 2006). Robert Boydbetween 1989 and 1993.91 Harwood (Forthcoming); Gibbons et al. (1994).92 Gibbons et al. (1994).93 Pickstone (2007a).94 Shinn (1999).95 Krige (2002), p. 550.

tion and streamlining through reform. Exceptions to thetrend were some of the newer plate-glass institutionsformed in the 1960s, which simply maintained their unifiedBiology departments, and the prestigious Oxbridge institu-tions (though Cambridge closed an underperformingdepartment in 1986) (see Table 2).

This widespread dismantling of disciplinary boundaries,coupled with a marked increase in research oriented toindustry and medicine, appears to support the claims madeby sociologists of knowledge such as Gibbons et al., whopoint to a radical discontinuity in the nature and structureof post-World War II science, which they denote as ‘Mode-2’: characterized by a convergence of disciplines andorientation toward application as part of a larger ‘knowl-edge-based society’.92 But, as historians, we would urgecaution against unequivocally siting our analysis withinthe Mode-2 thesis. For one thing, biological research haslong tended toward application: evidenced at Owen’s Col-lege by early twentieth century work on fermentation forthe munitions and sewage industries.93 Similarly, likeShinn, we would argue that the prior Mode-1 structure,which saw knowledge pursued for its own sake in universi-ties, and from which Mode-2 is seen as radically different,was less an actual configuration than a construct of scien-tists keen to assert the ideological purity of their research.94

More importantly, we would caution against generalizingtoo much about how, and why, institutions reform. Webelieve that analysis of Manchester shows that they respondto national demands in specific, individual ways, dependenton local politics and personalities. As our data shows, uni-versities do not adopt the same structures when they reform:the institutional framework in which pressure is mediated isclearly crucial. We follow Krige in arguing that nationalpressure must hence be seen as enabling change rather thanexplicitly directing it.95 Staff in Manchester clearly seizedupon financial pressure to advance their own professional,personal agendas: to free their disciplines from the duopolyof clinical medicine and physical science, to endorse a gener-ational view of biological science as dependent on moleculartechniques, and to ensure that the University did not fallbehind in an increasingly competitive environment.

We must not view this as simply a uni-directional pat-tern though. Consistent with our emphasis on the interac-

tion between different levels of governance, changes atinferior levels can also become opportunities for reformsat a superior one. The 1981 funding cuts presented Rich-mond with the opportunity to oversee reform and appointa planning Committee. But, crucially, the open consulta-tion of this Committee provided the professorial ‘gang’

was a member of the Willmott Committee and Dean of the Medical School

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1952 1962 1972 1982 1992

Staf

f num

bers

Anatomy

Biochemistry

Biology

Botany + Plant

Sciences

Genetics

Molecular Biology

Physiology

Zoology

Fig. 4. Disciplinary changes in staff number for biological science in Britain, 1952–1992.

Table 2Reform patterns and institutions implicated, up to 1995 (Lancelot, 2007)

Reform Pattern Institution

1: Maintain unified departments of Biology Lancaster; Kent; Bath; Buckingham; East-Anglia; Heriot-Watt; Open; Ulster;Warwick; Sussex; York; Essex

2: Create unified department of Biology or create School ofBiological Science, with semi-autonomous departments

Keele; Bangor; Swansea; Salford; Stirling; Surrey; Bradford; Brunel; Durham; Hull;Birbeck College, London; Wye College, London; Exeter; Manchester, Southampton;Belfast; Edinburgh; Nottingham; Liverpool*; Leeds*; Glasgow; St. Andrews; Cardiff;Newcastle; Birmingham; Sheffield; King’s College, London; University College,London*; Royal Holloway & Bedford New College, London; Aberystwyth; QueenMary and Westfield College, London; Dundee; Imperial College, London

3: Maintain segregation Cambridge; Oxford

* Indicates that Biochemistry remained in Medicine.

106 D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108

with the opportunity to present their own reform plans.The plan eventually adopted by the University governancewas all but identical to—and undoubtedly modelled on—this professorial proposal. Members of this ‘gang’, likethe Vice-Chancellor, also wielded influence in policy circles,and the resultant School hence ensured that it prioritizedthe same fields and research as the UGC, employing man-agement procedures to ensure optimal output in preferen-tial areas. The School was unsurprisingly successful inconforming to new modes of assessment, attaining gradu-ally higher RAE scores and attracting increasing fundsfrom research councils. This success in turn ensured thatindividuals such as Case were sometimes asked to act asconsultants and help shape the institutional landscape atother sites.96

96 Maynard Case, interview with GL (20 March 2004).97 Pickstone (2007b).

Thus, one sees a mutual influence between local motivesand changing national configurations—the local is not sim-ply something ‘acted on’ by policy changes, nor do localchanges simply perpetuate broader reconfigurations. Localmotives and policies drive conceptions of ‘good’ biologicalscience and local personalities can play a role in shaping thechanging structure of a science. Work such as this, whichstresses the interaction between the macro-political influ-ence and micro-institutional responses forms, we believe,an important bridge between the necessary ‘big’ questionsthat need to be asked of wholesale changes in scientificstructures, and the historical need for an acute awarenessof important local conditions. The big picture and the localcase study need not—indeed, must not—be mutually exclu-sive, but should be mutually enforcing.97 It is only through

D. Wilson, G. Lancelot / Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 39 (2008) 93–108 107

a succession of local studies such as this, which highlightcomplex and locally mediated contributions to a broadtrend, that we can build a coherent and nuanced pictureof the origins of, and interplays behind, this new configura-tion. No doubt our reforming actors, with one foot inManchester and one in the policy arena, would agree.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the numerous colleagues who havecommented on drafts of this work, including ProfessorsJohn Pickstone and Jonathan Harwood, Vanessa Heggie,Robert Kirk, Neil Pemberton, and Elizabeth Toon.

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