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Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleA Science and Innovation policy for the 21st century |
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Good morning. I am delighted to be here today. Creating Sparks aims to celebrate creativity, and there can be few more appropriate places to celebrate it than South Kensington. There can also be few more appropriate places to host the Science Festival than the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. The Festival has not been held in London since 1931 and it is a reflection of the strength of research at the College that, since then, 14 scientists at the college have been awarded the Nobel prize. The reputation of the Science Festival is now equally well established. It is not only valued greatly by those of us in the science community, but by many outside the Community. This is vital. To retain public support, scientists must continually reach out to new audiences. Generate more interest in science. Show the relevance of science to people's lives. And listen to the public's views. We must also communicate the raw excitement and wonder of scientific endeavour. We must, through all the modern media at our disposal, show the next generation that there are few things more rewarding than scientific discovery. At the same time, if we are to build and retain people's confidence in, and support of, science we must properly engage them in dialogue about science and its applications. It is through the excellent work of the British Association, and other organisations and individuals active in the science communication field, that I hope that this dialogue can be nurtured and form an integral part of the scientific process.
White Paper themes This morning I want to talk about the Science and Innovation White Paper, Excellence and Opportunity, which sets out this Government's agenda for science. Today we are doing more research more productively than previous generations. The dramatic changes that took place at the beginning of the 20th century, such as radio aviation and mass production are matched by those of the 21st. Existing industries and public services, education, transport and health care, will be transformed by these advances. The UK is well placed to benefit from this period of discontinuous change. Our record for scientific discovery is second only to the US and ahead of France, Germany and Japan. And we are seeing rapid progress in terms of generating businesses from the science base. In 1998, the UK's high-tech exports per capita were the highest of the G7 countries, and had grown by 9 per cent per annum since 1992. Britain is home to strong science-based industries in aerospace, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, as well as being a leading centre in opto-electronics, computer games and mobile telephone software and services. The Government is determined to seize the opportunities which the advances in science present, to create a safer and healthier society, a cleaner environment and a dynamic, knowledge-driven economy.
This Government also recognises that it has a central role to play in the health and well being of the science and engineering base. In the July White Paper, we identified three roles which fall to us. First, the Government has a key role in funding basic and strategic research. This is a public good which cannot be provided by the private sector. Funding basic and strategic research not only makes cultural sense, it also make financial sense. Today, commercial success, particularly in the biological sciences, often flows directly from basic research. But deciding the level of funding itself is not the only issue. We need to make sure that public funding encourages excellence and efficiency in the conduct of scientific research. This is an area where the UK can be justifiably proud of its record. For example, while the UK has about 1 per cent of the world's population, we fund 4.5 per cent of all science, produce 8 per cent of all science papers and 9 per cent of all science paper citations. Last month's figures from HEFC showed that British university researchers remain the most prolific in the world, producing 16 research papers per $1 million compared to 9.2 in the US and 3.6 in Japan. The citation of British academics'papers also remains the highest in the world per dollar spend. Secondly, the Government has a crucial role to play in encouraging the exploitation of knowledge and new technologies. While in this country we have a successful record of innovation in industries which depend on elite science such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, it is clear that many more industries could benefit from science and technology. As innovation and technology become ever more important in the knowledge driven economy, the Government is determined to provide the mechanisms and resources to exploit successful breakthroughs.
Thirdly, science does not take place in a vacuum. It is part of the fabric of modern society. And it is the nature of science constantly to raise questions which challenge society's values and produce innovations which affect people's lives. So Government's third key role must be to help the consumer. Our task is to ensure that people can be confident about the new products which science can deliver. Confident about the way that risks are assessed and managed. Confident that scientific progress always takes account of their views and values. Let me turn now to how the Government is tackling its responsibilities in these areas.
Funding for the Science Base Research New Labour came to power offering to rebuild the science base after a decade of cuts. We stuck to our word. The 1998 Comprehensive Spending Review increased the science budget by 15% over three years - the largest percentage compared with all Departmental budgets. In July this year, the Government continued its programme of investment. The 2000 Spending Review provided a real increase of 7% p.a. for science spending. If we continued at this rate of increase we would double the Science budget in real terms in 10 years. There are those who argue that the pressure group Save British Science should be wound up. I don't agree. We've done a lot, but we still have a long way to go. The Spending Review also focused resources on three main research areas, all of which, I am glad to say, are being covered by talks and discussions during the Science Festival, genomics ' e' science and basic technology. Resources will be allocated to help capture for the UK the benefits of the exciting developments taking place in genomics, in which we are already a leading player. Exploiting the genome is a unique opportunity and the UK has the right mix of strong companies, scientific expertise and available risk capital to capitalise on the advances being made. The second key area is informatics and e-science. For genomics and other scientific areas such as environmental sciences, particle physics and astronomy, there is a need for radically new hardware and software solutions to process, communicate, store, analyse and visualise the huge expansions of data now being produced by global teams of scientists. This new generation of e-science infrastructure is likely to underpin the next generation of ' e' business technology world-wide later this decade. Thirdly, we will be investing more in basic technology, in areas such as nanotechnology, quantum computing and bioengineering. People But scientific research cannot succeed without people. Highly skilled and knowledgeable people are one of science's key exports to the rest of the economy. For this reason, we have announced a substantial increase over the next three years in the basic support provided to post graduate research students. PhD student basic stipends will rise from £6,800 this year to £9,000 by 2003-04. We also need to be able to attract the best established scientists from around the world to work in this country. For too long we have lost out on home grown talent to high-paying foreign universities and businesses. Science is, of course, an international activity and partnerships abroad or postings in other countries are to be encouraged. But Britain is now in a global battle for talent. This Government is determined not simply to avoid a brain drain but to have a brain gain. To attract what the Government?s Chief Scientist, Sir Robert May, has termed, "the David Beckhams of science", we need to pay top salaries. That is why, in partnership with the Wolfson Foundation, we have established a fund of £4 million per year to assist in the recruitment of up to 50 top researchers. We must also work hard to dispel the myth that science and engineering careers are just for men. I hope we will not have to wait much longer before a woman scientist or engineer going, for example, into a school to talk about her career finds that none of the children finds her career choice in any way unusual. We are working with the Funding Councils and CVCP to sponsor the ATHENA project to highlight good practice. It will aim to identify cultural practices that might inhibit the progress of women. And it will tackle these issues and thereby seek to make research inclusive to women. We need to work together, the public and private sectors, to give our young scientists and engineers time to talk to people about their careers. We need to mobilise men and women to go into schools to talk about the relevance of their work. We know that this in fact is a particularly vital element of science lessons in engaging the attention of girls. To help this, the White Paper announced the creation of a Science Ambassadors programme in which the top science students will be encouraged to form links with their old schools and colleges to help sell the message to the next generation of students. Infrastructure We cannot, however, expect to attract or retain the very best research scientists if we ask them to work with outmoded equipment in crumbling buildings. A major priority for this Government has therefore been to halt and reverse years of neglect. We have already provided £750 million over three years with the Wellcome Trust, through the Joint Infrastructure Fund - a ground-breaking public-private partnership - in support of much needed research infrastructure in UK universities. That was a good start. But it is only a start and we have recognised that more needs to be done. In partnership with the Wellcome Trust we are setting aside £1 billion for investment in science infrastructure for the two years 2002-03 and 2003-04 comprising £775m from Government and £225m from the Wellcome Trust. DTI and the Funding Councils will be allocating £675m for capital expenditure to individual universities and other Higher Education Institutions, so that for the first time in many years, they will be able to plan strategically to meet their future needs for building and equipment. Consultation with universities had shown us that this was one of their most pressing concerns. We hope to be able to announce around the end of the year the sums that will be available to each Higher Education Institution. Alongside this, the Wellcome Trust will invest £150 million in the biomedical sciences in top-rated, but unfunded, bids submitted to the Joint Infrastructure Fund. And there will be a further £75 million for equipment & building refurbishment. We will expect universities to provide funds, from their own or third party resources, for 25 per cent of any capital investment they undertake. I believe that this will encourage universities to think hard about their priorities. I believe also that it will encourage them to deepen their relationships with business, through sponsorship, joint developments and the generation of research income. It should also lead to a growth in local and regional partnerships Research Council Institutes and large national science facilities too will benefit from this fund, ensuring that they are able to provide the very best equipment and buildings to researchers. We intend to invest £100 million in them over two years.
Exploitation and innovation Innovation is the key to prosperity in the knowledge driven economy, turning ideas and knowledge into products and services. At the same time, therefore, that we enhance the excellence of our science and engineering research we must encourage science to flow throughout our society. We need to strengthen the links in the innovation cycle, bringing universities and business closer together and providing researchers with the skills and incentives to take their ideas to market. Universities must be at the heart of our effort to success in the knowledge economy. They can play a central role as drivers of growth. But they can only fulfil that mission if they are able to match excellence in research and teaching with excellence in innovation and imagination in commercialising research. To do that, they will need the skills and infrastructure to translate science into products, services and marketable commodities. A transformation is already taking place across the country. From Southampton to Warwick, from Leeds to Dundee, there is a new spirit of enterprise in British universities. Scientists, researchers and vice-chancellors are beginning to exploit their wealth of academic excellence as never before. New businesses, jobs and technologies are springing up around our established seats of learning. In 1997-98 alone 223 businesses were spun out from UK higher education institutions. The Science White Paper seeks to build on this success. It provides more resources and mechanisms to make sure the opportunity for innovation is available across our universities. It extends the highly successful University Challenge Fund and Science Enterprise Centres. The £140 million Higher Education Innovation Fund will triple existing funds for university-industry collaboration ? particularly with small business. The £50 million Regional Innovation Fund will help cement the role of universities as the drivers of regional competitiveness. Working with the Regional Development Agencies, these funds will support clusters and incubators and new clubs of scientist, entrepreneurs and financiers. Around the country successful universities are already creating new jobs and businesses. Manchester and Liverpool Universities, for example, are leading a boom in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals in the North-West whilst Oxford University's Isis Innovation is developing a cluster of high-tech business in the Midlands. Cambridge University and the surrounding ' Silicon Fen' cluster has already produced two billion dollar companies in ARM and Autonomy as well as attracting the Microsoft laboratory. We also want to see more companies using science and technology to create competitive advantage. Too many of our companies are slow to adopt new technologies and lack even the awareness of the need for change. The White Paper challenges this position with a series of measures to stimulate investment in enterprise and innovation and to encourage risk taking, against the essential background of macro-economic stability. As well as a number of important supply-side tax measures;designed to improve the risk to cost ratio for investment in research and development,we are introducing a new programme to develop new research capacity in small firms. The Small Business Research Initiative, inspired by a similar and successful programme in the US, will open up to small firms research and development procurement programmes worth up to £1 billion. The target being to procure £50 million of research under these programmes from small firms Confident consumers Finally, we need to have consumers who have a confident relationship with science. Consumers are active players in the innovation cycle. It is they who decide whether to buy new products and services. They may even create new uses for them. Consumers will take up innovations only when they are affordable, easy to use and present clear benefits. They compare not only benefits with costs but also benefits with risks. Consumers are concerned that new products may carry risks, especially to their health. Risk cannot be totally eliminated. But the Government does have a role both in assuring consumers that risks have been properly assessed and controlled and in communicating those risks clearly, simply, and at the right time. For these reasons, it is vital that we have an independent and transparent framework to deal with these issues. A framework that people can trust. The time is long gone, if it ever existed, when Government could expect people to trust them as of right. Consumers will feel confident only if risks are questioned and challenged in an open and informed way. People in Britain generally support science and innovation. The Government, together with the Wellcome Trust, recently commissioned a survey of Public Attitudes towards Science. The majority of people agreed that science and technology are making our lives healthier, easier, and more comfortable. Only 10% of those questioned disagreed with that. But there are concerns about particular technologies. Given the important role that public trust plays, Government is committed to improving the way in which science is used in policy making. The four key responsibilities for Government are:
And finally,
For that reason, we have updated the Chief Scientific Adviser's Guidelines on Scientific Advice and Policy Making. Government gets most of its advice through Scientific Advisory Committees. These committees help Government on a wide range of issues spanning everything from the food we eat, to the safety of the buildings we live and work in. The committees are the building blocks of scientific advice. And it is essential that they work to the highest standards. We intend, therefore, to introduce a Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees. This Code will encourage the spread of good practice across all the committees and ensure that certain minimum standards are followed. We are currently consulting on what should be in this code. But we have already identified several areas which we think should be covered. In particular, increasing transparency in the way that the committees work. If people are to have a confident relationship with science, it is important that there are plenty of opportunities for them to learn about recent scientific developments and to debate their value. We must develop more mechanisms through which to do this, but also make full use of those that already exist, not least, of course, the Science Festival.
Conclusion This is an exciting time for science. Science played a significant role in shaping the 20th century. It will have an even bigger impact on our lives in this century. The UK with its outstanding record of scientific discovery is well placed to benefit from this period of discontinuous change, and I believe that our scientists and engineers are already rising to the challenge of turning our incredible record of scientific discovery into new products, processes and services. In the White Paper the Government has set out the major steps it is taking as an investor, facilitator and regulator to support these efforts. We are doing so because we believe that science, engineering and technology can play a major role in building a healthier and safer society, a cleaner environment and a dynamic knowledge economy for the 21st century. |
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Other speeches by Lord Sainsbury of Turville
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