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Inauguration of Burlington House Cultural Campus

Lord Sainsbury of Turville,  Former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Science and Innovation
Piccadilly, London,  18 September 2006

I am delighted to be here today to inaugurate the Burlington House 'cultural campus'. The creation of a new 'cultural campus' in Piccadilly has, I know, been a longstanding ambition of the Learned Societies located here, and it opens up I believe a lot of exciting opportunities.

Can I also say how delighted I am to be doing so alongside David Attenborough. Not only do his interests span the arts and the sciences, but he is also undoubtedly our best science communicator, and he is the only person I know who could be a member of all the arts, heritage and scientific organisations on this site.

There are three reasons why this is such an important initiative. Firstly, you have here a fine array of renovated, historic buildings in the centre of London. This means that like the Royal Institution you have an opportunity to communicate easily with the thought leaders and young people of this country.

Secondly, on this site you have a number of our most pre-eminent societies, who have in many cases led the world in pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge. And, thirdly, you have here also, almost uniquely, a range of arts, heritage and scientific organisations.

The combination of these assets puts you in a strong position not only to generate new knowledge but also to transfer and communicate it to a wider audience. I am delighted that you have plans for a major exhibition exploring milestones in the discovery, recording, interpretation and communication of Britain's past, which will be jointly organised by the Royal Academy and the Society of Antiquaries.

I am also extremely pleased that one of a series of public lectures organised as part of the Geological Society's Bicentenary celebrations will be a collaborative event with the Royal Society of Chemistry considering the role of chemical reactions in causing volcanic eruptions.

These are exactly the kind of activities that I think a "cultural campus" should be undertaking. And I am pleased that you plan to engage the widest possible spectrum of learners, from schoolchildren and students in higher education to those with a general interest in the arts and sciences.

What you are planning to do here on this "cultural campus" mirrors in a number of ways what the Government is seeking to achieve. Bringing together both different scientific disciplines, and the arts and the science, has been an important theme of the Government's work. For instance, in the area of research, the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the U.K. was established in April last year. The AHRC has the same status as the research councils for the physical, natural and social sciences, and reports to the Director General of the Research Councils, alongside the other Research Councils. The AHRC is now working closely with other research councils, both bilaterally and through Research Councils UK.

A second major theme of the Government's work has been knowledge transfer and innovation. We have had for a long time in this country an extraordinary record of scientific creativity and discovery, but our record of innovation has not been as good. I was extremely pleased after I had been Minister of Science for a number of years to be made Minister of Science and Innovation. This in itself was an innovation as far as I know any other Ministers of Science and Innovation in the world, and it highlights the importance of science and innovation in the new Knowledge Economy.

It does not mean my job is to switch funds from basic research into applied research, though there is a case for increasing our support for applied research, and managing it better, as we are doing with the Technology Strategy Board. On the contrary, my job is to see that we have a dynamic, properly funded, and world-class science base, and that we provide our researchers with incentives to transfer knowledge into our economy and society.

This the Government has done with, I believe, a great deal of success. We have introduced a number of incentives for universities, the most important being the Higher Education Innovation Fund, and our universities have responded swiftly and enthusiastically to the incentives provided by these schemes. As a result we have seen a significant rise in all the measures of knowledge transfer, licensing, patents, spin-off companies and contract work for industry.

The third theme of Government policy where this "cultural campus" can hopefully help is the public engagement with science. If in a democracy the benefits of science are to be realised, it is essential that people are confident that the ethical, health, safety and environmental issues raised by new technologies will be properly assessed by government and, where necessary, regulated.

When I became a Minister the prevailing approach to these issues, taken by both scientists and the government, was called 'the public understanding of science.' This was based on the idea that people had lost confidence in new developments in science because they did not understand them, and that if scientists explained the science to them their confidence would be restored. This proved, however, not to be the case, and it became clear that if we were going to maximise the benefits from our plans for science we would have to do some new thinking about how to restore the public's confidence. We, therefore, have adopted a new approach which we call 'the public engagement with science'.

This is based on the idea that people in Britain generally support science and innovation, but are concerned about the speed of advances in science and technology, and that the best way to respond to these concerns is for scientists to engage in debate with people about the ethical, health, safety and environmental issues produced by the new technologies before new products and services reach the market. Here again I think this new "cultural campus" can help, as long as you realise that scientific communication needs to be a dialogue and not a lecture.

So for all these reasons, I am delighted to be here today to inaugurate this new "cultural campus". Can I end by congratulating and thanking all those who made this important initiative happen, and can I say how much I look forward to it delivering on the exciting opportunities it opens up.