"I would like to spend a little time highlighting what seem to me to be some of the key themes that emerge from the work"
British Academy, London
17 September 2008
Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here at this Launch event.
When Professor Sir Alan Wilson puts his name on a report about how the higher education sector and the Government could interact better, then it would be a foolish Minister indeed who failed to take it seriously.
Alan has, of course, served with distinction on both sides of the fence. As a distinguished scholar - in two entirely distinct disciplines, I might add - and as no less eminent a university leader. As a Director-General for Higher Education in the old DfES whose energy left officials - and sometimes Ministers, too, as my colleague Bill Rammell testifies - wondering quite what had hit them. And now in a post, that of chairman of the AHRC, that bestrides both worlds.
Alan's also well worth listening to when he talks about humanities and social science research, as this report does. He's one of the few people to hold Fellowships from both the British Academy and the Royal Society. Even rarer, Alan's the only person I know who takes meeting notes in algebra rather than in words.
A good man to lead a review of this subject, then. And the result of that review, the report that we're here to launch today, is predictably full of serious content and insight.
You wouldn't expect me to speak in detail about the report's recommendations at this early stage and, indeed, I'm not going to. But I would like to spend a little time highlighting what seem to me to be some of the key themes that emerge from the work.
The first area I want to touch on is the quality of humanities and social sciences research and the first thing I want to say is to recognise the world class quality of the research being conducted in the UK and funded by the Research Councils. It is in my view of huge importance that this research not only continues but its outputs, where relevant, are communicated effectively to the policy community. Of course this research is different from much of the public sector research commissioned or conducted by Government departments. I know this area has been a passion of Alan's inside and outside Government. And rightly so. Most Departments of State, and many of their agencies, too, have quite substantial research budgets.
That can be a great temptation as well as a great plus. Too often the words 'commission some research' translate as 'kick it into the long grass'. It can be a way of deferring uncomfortable issues until the day after tomorrow, or until someone else's watch.
Research projects of that sort are not only pointless. They're a waste of money, too.
The taxpayer has a right to object to that sort of thing. But so does anyone who believes that Government policies ought to be based on proper evidence and that the nostrums around which so much public policy revolve ought to exist in some mappable relationship to empirical fact.
Because the flip side of research as an alternative to action is research as a spur to action. The basis of evidence-based policy-making. And that's where Government Departmental research expenditure should be focused. I'll go further, and say that in my view, it should also be focused on the biggest challenges that we have to face as a society.
Such as Climate and energy security. Combating global terrorism.
Poverty, especially child poverty, its causes and its cures.
Social mobility, not only opportunities or lack of them, but attitudes and aspirations.
Public health, where again attitudes and lifestyles can be as important and more insidious killers than any virus.
Over the past 11 years, the value of high-quality, independent research not just to Government but also to the whole nation has been seen in all these areas and others too frequent to mention. And our shared interest must surely lie in maximising the positive value and potential impact of that research, now and in the future.
There are those who'd say that the sort of longitudinal research that the report advocates is not possible because the governmental tide-table is ruled by things like the Comprehensive Spending Review cycle or the possibility of a change of Government every four or five years.
I don't think that's necessarily so. The sorts of issues I've been talking about are confronted by every Government of whatever colour, and indeed have to be faced whether the strings of the public purse are tight or not. Investing in the evidence base underpinning policy decisions should be an area where there is scope for some cross-Party consensus even if there are different political priorities between Parties.
The second area I want to touch on is how to facilitate the engagement of our largest and best communities of humanities and social science researchers - that is, those employed in universities and research institutes - with those who make public policy. The report makes a number of sensible points about what is termed the 'co production' model. I know for a fact that Alan and his team are by no means alone in viewing this as an issue of the utmost seriousness. It's a topic which my colleague John Denham has raised several times in speeches this year already. And some of the ideas he floated when he spoke at HEFCE earlier in the year and also in our Innovation Nation White Paper are not dissimilar from some of those in the report. Again, there's plenty here to think about, and John has asked the Council for Science and Technology to look more broadly at ways to improve the engagement between academics and policy makers. Today's report will I am sure strongly contribute to their thinking.
John and I have also both talked about the need for greater scientific literacy and improved public engagement. The humanities and social sciences are an integral part of our vision and have much to contribute to the debate on the great issues that affect us all - climate change, food, energy and the rest.
How to do this more effectively is a key element of our continuing public consultation on developing a new science and society strategy for the UK. This afternoon's discussion groups will provide further input to that process and the report floats quite a number of interesting ideas about how that could be achieved. I would also like to take this opportunity to publicise DIUS online consultation hub which allows anyone to have their say.
I am grateful to Alan and the team and would like to thank them and the British Academy once again for their work. I was reading the report on the train back from a DIUS Stakeholder event in Manchester only yesterday but I look forward to reading it again and discussing it in detail over the coming weeks.
Thank you.
