Why the loss of a little-known grant is a 'disaster' for UK research

Andrea Rayat, 28, from the Philippines, works amid test tubes, flasks, microscopes and computers in a basement laboratory at University College London (UCL). Her research, part of a PhD, centres on trying to design a new filtration device that could speed up the process of developing new drugs in the world of medicines.

At Cambridge University, Sourav Ghosh, 31, from India, is designing a micro-sensor that could play an important part in the early diagnosis of diseases, such as hepatitis B.

But Rayat and Ghosh, and thousands like them engaged in cutting- edge research projects, are only here in the UK thanks to a grant from the British Government. this money is channelled through the little-known Overseas Research Student Award Scheme (Orsas), which was set up in 1980 at the time of a sharp increase in overseas student fees. At the time he Government was anxious to maintain the supply of high-quality researchers in British universities.

"After finishing my Masters in Holland, I was looking for a project on bio-processing, and UCL was the only one of its kind I found," explains Rayat. "But, to be able to take it up, I was dependent on the scholarship from the scheme."

Ghosh agrees that the money was indispensable. "I couldn't do my PhD without it. The Orsas grants are important to get the people with the right experience."

Every year, around £15m is allocated in Orsas grants, each student receiving the difference between the fees that would apply to a UK student and the fees for a foreigner – a gap that can be up to £10,000.

However, the chances of the brightest brains from abroad continuing to follow in Rayat and Ghosh's footsteps will be sharply diminishedby the decision to phase out the scheme in England.

In July, the Government's university-funding arm, the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce), decided to axe Orsas grants after autumn 2010. This follows an evaluation report into the efficacy of the scheme, which, Hefce says, showed it was only partly fulfilling its objective of attracting the best students – as more than a half of the awards were received by students who had already chosen to study in the UK. But reaction in academia has been one of dismay.

"It's a disaster," says Rayat's supervisor at UCL, Professor Gary Lye, from the department of biochemical engineering. "Losing the Orsas scheme will start to reduce the recruitment of really bright doctorate students from abroad, which will have a negative impact on the breadth and quality of research work here."

The Orsas decision is the second blow for British universities hoping to attract the best researchers from abroad. Earlier this year the Foreign Office announced that it was cutting £10m of funding for overseas research students in a number of categories. Among programmes hit is Chevening, which will now offer grants to fewer foreign students

The fear among academics is that students who would have been helped by Orsas, and other grants, will now simply end up in foreign universities.

"At the very time that the phasing out of Orsas will further diminish what we have to offer, the US, a number of other EU member states, and Australia and New Zealand are all developing more attractive funding packages," says Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, the higher education umbrella body.

Perhaps an even more powerful defence of the scheme comes from former beneficiaries of Orsas grants who are now supervising the current crop of talented recipients.

In the mid-1980s, Zhongmin Jin from Xian in China did his PhD at Leeds University thanks to Orsas. Now, as a professor at the same university, he's one of those supervising the work of three Orsas students undertaking research into human joint replacement, at the university's world-renowned Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.

"I'm disappointed," he says. "The candidates we get are the brightest: they have to have a first-class honours degree, a distinction at Masters level and to have already had work published. Without the scheme it will be difficult to replace them."

An identical story comes from Professor Asipu Sivaprasadarao, research admissions tutor for international postgraduates at Leeds's faculty of biological sciences.

A former Commonwealth Scholarship recipient, Sivaprasadarao, originally from southern India, works alongside five Orsas recipients, engaged, among other things, in research into drugs that may improve the treatment of conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis.

"It's an absolutely fantastic scheme," he says. "These students are high quality. They fit into the lab very quickly without any training and start producing results. This is a big blow for us."