David Willetts may not be familiar with the film Jerry Maguire, in which Tom Cruise yells: “Show me the money!” But the UK science minister has been on the receiving end of a number of similar quips this week.

By most measures, the United Kingdom has always achieved greater research output than might be expected from the amount of government funding its science base receives. Last week, in a speech to the London-based think-tank Policy Exchange, Willetts said that he wants to stretch this relationship even further.

For starters, he wants the number of British universities rated among the world's top 100 to grow from the current figure of between 10 and 19, depending on the rankings used. To help make that happen, he announced that his coalition government was “inviting proposals” for “a new type of university” that would focus on science and postgraduates. But there was a catch. “There will,” Willetts stated, “be no additional government funding.” This triggered a storm of protest from experts and several (poor) impressions of Cruise.

Private higher education is clearly on the rise, albeit probably more in teaching than the research arena.

During his speech, Willetts was keen to reference plans for a huge university campus in New York being pushed forward by Cornell University (see Nature http://doi.org/hj9; 2011). And private higher education is clearly on the rise, albeit probably more in teaching than the research arena. But, as critics quickly pointed out, the Cornell project is receiving at least US$100 million in public funding.

Experts contacted by Nature said that the idea that private finance and business sponsorship alone can create a new institution — as Willetts suggested — seems fanciful. “I don't think this is likely to fly without very, very substantial amounts of new money,” says Paul Nightingale, a science and technology policy expert at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. And Roger Geiger, who studies research universities at Pennsylvania State University in University Park, says: “Industry has its own research labs and if they're going to invest their own money, that's where they're going to put it.”

Neither Willetts nor his Department for Business, Innovation and Skills was willing to elaborate on the plans this week, saying only that much depends on the proposals that the department receives. The government insists that there has been “a lot of interest”, but without government incentive, will that interest go any further?

In his speech, given just a stone's throw from the Houses of Parliament, Willetts also highlighted the good that his government has done. As the United Kingdom stumbles through one of the worst economic climates in living memory, the fact that the country's research budget has been largely protected from the severe cuts inflicted on other public sectors (including university teaching) is something to be thankful for.

And it is a shame that Willetts' high-profile but extremely brief mention of the universities idea distracted from other points in the speech, such as an admission that the government is involved in “picking winners” — investing in technologies underpinned by science and research that could bring economic benefit — something that politicians have been reluctant to acknowledge previously.

“The noises are positive. Every time he speaks about science and innovation the thinking seems to get a little more sophisticated,” says Kieron Flanagan, a lecturer in science and technology policy at the University of Manchester, UK. This is a welcome shift from previous Conservative policies, which tended towards generic initiatives. However, the rhetoric has yet to be matched with much action, Flanagan says, although increased efforts to link businesses and research in key areas are a good start.

Many will be happy to be proved wrong if a number of world-leading finance-free universities do arise in the United Kingdom, as Willetts hopes. Meanwhile, discussion of the idea certainly has one thing in its favour: it's not costing anything.