Graduate gifts

Investing your well-earned cash in furthering human knowledge may sound a waste of money compared with paying off your mortgage. But in the US, philanthropy and private-sector funding is expected to outstrip state funding for research this year.

Not so in Europe, according to a recent report published by the European commission. Not only are we a bit more stingy over here, but, to make matters worse, our laws are rife with obstructions and disincentives against individuals and corporations supporting universities.

The problem, of course, is partly cultural. It's not de rigueur here to put a little back of what you earn into your alma mater. But even if this were to change overnight, it would take institutions aeons to grow endowments as large as those in the US, accumulated over tens, even hundreds, of years.

Not that that has stopped the Labour government wishing for loads of private funding to miraculously appear in universities' coffers. Gordon Brown, in particular, has been known to spur universities to follow the US example.

"That's a pipe dream," says Malcolm Grant, provost of University College London (UCL) and the new chairman of the Russell Group of top research universities. His institution is working on a fundraising campaign, and has realised that a different tack is needed here to the one used overseas. "People tend to want to give money to support brilliant academics rather than put it away in the bank so that we can live off the interest," he says.

On the up side, he says, UK universities have large charities that contribute over £500m a year on their doorsteps. "British science would be in a mess if it wasn't for the Wolfsons and the Wellcome Foundation. Between them, they've made a fantastic difference."

So imagine if the rest of Europe oiled the wheels of their charity sectors and we all started working together. The large-scale drug trials a pan-European cancer research charity could fund, for example, is stuff today's national counterparts could only dream of doing.

In that vein, there's now talk of creating a European Forum of Research Foundations by 2007. Not surprisingly, it has gone down well with decision- makers. To them, it must smell like free money. But it mustn't be seen thus. The UK has a strong charity sector because it has a good university sector supported (increasingly so) from the bottom up by the government. Take away that, and you take away the quality basis on which the charitable cash is levied. And nobody wants to fund mediocrity.

· Linda Nordling is news editor of Research Fortnight. ln@researchresearch.com