From Dr Martin Knight.

Sir, The views of Richard Levin, Yale university president, on how research funding in the UK could be made better if it were more “like in the US” are flawed (“Yale chief warns of US leaders’ ‘insularity’ ”, October 30). The block grant approach by the Higher Education Funding Council for England is a significant benefit to UK universities and researchers, for it allows a recipient university to make its own allocation of its grant between departments and individual researchers, a process that can be used to reward individual academic success and excellence.