Research departments in the UK are likely to lose out to international competition due to a severe shortage of equipment required for critical experiments in areas of current research. Multinational companies have already started switching their research collaborations to other countries due to poor infrastructure in research departments here, according to a recent survey carried out by Programme of Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology (PREST) and the Centre for Applied Social Research (CASR).

The survey found that an astonishing 79 per cent of the country's universities are short of necessary equipment. Even the existing stock leaves a lot to be desired with only 54 per cent considered to have good technical capability