| I am delighted to be here today to welcome you all to the Annual Connect Reception. We all benefit from investments in training and research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and this is a good opportunity to hear about current developments.
As Government increasingly lays stress on the important role of evidence in forming policy, there is a real increasing need for the social sciences to make an input into Government decision-making. Similarly, businesses need information about social and economic trends.
During the last year the ESRC has made many valuable contributions to Government thinking. The Future of Work programme has produced important information relating to employment relations and work-life balance. The work of the ESRC has also helped the metropolitan police to identify which calls about incidents of domestic violence require the speediest response, based on an analysis of crime reports. And an analysis of the economic implications of demographic change and explanation of the resultant pressures that may affect pensions has also been very useful.
The ESRC Management Initiative is also very important to us in the DTI. The mission of the DTI is to drive up the productivity of UK industry and close the gap with our major European competitors. Critical to overcoming this gap are novel innovators – the 9% of the businesses that account for 31% pf UK turnover – and following innovators, the 41% of businesses that account for 36% of turnover. Research issues of relevance to both these groups of businesses will be explicitly addressed by the themes of ESRC's new management initiative, and I am delighted that Professor Huff, Director of the initiative, is with us this evening.
Research Councils
Increasingly the Research Council are finding that some of the most exciting research involved multidisciplinary work, and this was an issue which was looked at by the quinquennial review of the Research Councils last year. This made a number of recommendations, designed to improve joint working for the benefit of UK science across the Councils themselves, OST, our stakeholders and customers.
The review emphasised that a stronger strategic framework, shared vision, and improved links between sciences' key players offer the prospect of even better value from the Government's investment in science, engineering, and technology.
As a result of that review we have recently set up a forum, composed of the Research Council Chief Executives, and chaired by John Taylor, known as 'Research Councils UK' to develop a collective strategy for their future development. A joint venture between the Research Councils and OST - working together wherever needed - scientifically, strategically and operationally. This will benefit UK science and aims to achieve seamless inter-working between the Research Councils wherever science and research need it.
ESRC is already working with other Council on various research priorities : such as the establishment of a new Research Centre for the Social and Economic Context of Genomics (as part of the cross-Council Genomics initiative), supporting an integrated programme of fundamental and applied social science research for the post-genomics period.
Earlier this year ESRC announced a Sustainable Technologies Programme as part of the Sustainable Technologies Initiative (STI), launched in November 2000 by the DTI and EPSRC. The ESRC Programme focuses on the development and adoption of novel technologies (in processes, products and services) that will enable more rapid and radical transitions to sustainability. Assessing what makes technologies sustainable, and seeking to reveal the social and economic forces that foster or inhibit more sustainable technologies.
ESRC is also working with DTI and EPSRC on the People at the Centre of Communication and Information Technologies Programme which is exploring the interactions between people, computers and organisations and how information and communications technologies can be designed to support these more effectively.
Science in Society
One of the challenges to all of us - both in the Research Councils, in Government and more broadly - is to understand better the rapidly changing relationship between science and society. The ESRC's new Science in Society Programme will, I hope, help us to do just that. We cannot communicate effectively with the public about science without this understanding.
Science in Policymaking
ESRC supports an extensive and varied range of excellent research and analysis – which is true to their mission for quality, relevance and independence. This is clearly contributing to decision making both in Government and in the private sector. We look forward to their continuing activities to provide the best possible evidence and research to help us all in developing policies and making decisions.
Finally I should like to add my appreciation to Gordon Marshall for all the work he has done during his tenure as Chief Executive to bring a new rigour to research training and to strengthen the importance of quantitative as well as qualitative methods in social science. And to add my congratulations on his appointment to become Vice Chancellor of Reading University.
Thank you.
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