Lord Sainsbury of Turville

SCIENCE POLICY IN THE GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY

A great deal of excellent work has been done in relation to our international science and technology relationships over the years, but we have never had any clear strategy and our efforts have, therefore, tended to be ad hoc, uncoordinated and underfunded. As a result we have not achieved as much as we ought to have done.

Our scientific and technological relationships with other countries are carried out primarily by four different organisations, the Office of Science and Technology, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council and the Royal Society, with, in the past, very little coordination among them.

The Royal Society spends about £6 million per annum supporting various forms of international collaboration, so that scientists in the UK can work with partners throughout the world. Leading overseas scientists are invited to give papers at the Society's scientific meetings, and many also contribute to its journals.

The Society supports collaboration with excellent scientists in any part of the world, but its international policy work is currently focused in a number of areas. One area of particular focus is Asia, most notably China and India, where it has organised bilateral workshops on hydrogen, stem cells, science for plant conservation and climate change over the last year.

Another focus is on capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa. The Royal Society and the South African National Research Foundation have been running for almost ten years a joint collaborative programme which partners UK research institutions with historically disadvantaged research institutions in South Africa. The programme helps to build research capacity and to increase the number and quality of black researchers and lecturers in South African universities. The Society is also focusing on ways to help improve science advice to governments in Africa. It is planning to partner with national science academies in Africa to strengthen their role in providing science advice to their governments. Collaborations with scientists in the developed world is seen by many as an important way of developing S&T capacity in the developing world and the Royal Society is developing suitable schemes which will encourage networks between UK and African scientists.

The British Council, with its presence in 110 countries, currently has science programmes in 62 countries, with a global budget of £8 million. Science activity tends to be greatest in Europe, East Asia, the technologically advanced Commonwealth countries and Latin America, prioritised on the basis of research capacity, demand, potential impact and stakeholder interests.

The work delivers programmes that support the British Council’s purpose: ‘To build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and increase appreciation of the creative ideas and achievements of the UK.’

The activity is organised under two interdependent areas: “excellence in international science” and “understanding science in society”. The first programme area sustains communications for innovation, stressing engagement and wealth creation, and is targeted at scientific communities, engineers and research managers around the world. The key outputs are scientific collaboration through exchange of ideas and knowledge, and sustained relationships and networks between young scientists. The main mechanism is a scheme to fund bilateral workshops, called ‘International Networking for Young Scientists’.

The second area sustains communications about innovation, stressing cultural relevance and social well-being, and is targeted at the public, media, policymakers and other communities of interest. The key outputs are international awareness of the UK’s role in scientific creativity, and collective debate about the impacts of science on people’s lives. It includes major campaigns such as ZeroCarbonCity and mechanisms such as café scientifique and a web magazine.

The Office of Science and Technology's International Directorate has two main objectives: to plan, develop and manage UK involvement in the European Union's science and technology activities; and to develop and strengthen such links with major scientific partners across the world, on a bilateral and multilateral basis, as hold the most promise of a scientific, commercial or political return to the UK.

Finally, the Foreign and Commonwealth’s Office’s role is to co-ordinate and pursue UK policies abroad and the scientific aspect of this goal is delivered through its network of Science and Technology attaches. The network was set up following a review a few years ago which identified the need for a wider, more professional, better-targeted network of S&T attaches in embassies in key countries.

In the past there has not been a great deal of coordination between these bodies. And in the past this may not have mattered, but today two changes in the global economy mean that our scientific and technological relationships are of increasing importance, and that we need, therefore, to take a more strategic approach.

First, we live in a period of great economic change, where science and technology are becoming central to our economic success. At no time since the Industrial Revolution has the restructuring of global economic activity been so great, with Asia moving from the fringes of the new world economic order to the centre; and at no point has the speed of technological change been so fast and pervasive.

In 1980 less than one tenth of the manufacturing exports come from the developing world, but today it is almost 30% and in twenty years time the figure will probably be 50%. Today China alone is producing 70% of the world’s photocopiers, 50% of cameras, 40% of microwaves and 25% of textiles.

As recent events have shown there are still countries in Europe that think that protectionism in one form or another is the way to tackle global competition. But realistically the only way that developed countries are going to be able to survive and prosper in this new global economy, and compete against countries like China which have 5% of our wages, is by moving into high value added areas, and this means a greater emphasis on science and technology.

At the same time I think we should be careful not to overestimate the current strength of Chinese Science and Technology. Today the extraordinary growth of China is largely driven by low wages, Foreign Direct Investment and imported technology. But this will change. As China and India start moving up the value-added chain, as they will certainly do, we can stay ahead but we should not fool ourselves that it will be easy and we will have to move fast.

Today, there are also a number of Grand Challenges which the World faces which can only be tackled by science and technology on an international basis.

The most important of these is climate change. Changing people’s behaviour can probably play a part, but we should be clear that neither the USA at one end of the spectrum, nor China and India at the other are going to cut back their growth in order to reduce the level of CO2 emissions. We are going, therefore, to have to look to science, technology and innovation for solutions.

A second Grand Challenge for science and technology is the identification and spread of infectious diseases. Disease is again something that knows no boundaries. We were lucky with SARS which turned out not to be as “spreadable” as originally feared. But next time we may not be so lucky, and everyone must now be aware of the danger of Avian Flu mutating into a human pandemic, its spread fuelled by the ease of intercontinental travel. Here again we must look to science and technology to provide solutions.

A third Grand Challenge for science is finding solutions to the most urgent needs of the world’s poorest people, whether it is vaccines for Malaria, HIV and TB, new varieties of sorghum, cassava, maize and other suitable foods for sub-Saharan Africa or low cost fuel cells and photovoltaics for decentralised electricity supply.

The second reason why our international science and technology relationships are becoming of increasing importance is that science and technology are themselves becoming ever more international. Science has always been a global enterprise. As Anton Chekhov, the Russian author wrote, “ there is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table.” The common laws of nature cross political boundaries, and the international movement of people and knowledge made science global long before “globalisation” became a label for the increasing linkages among the world’s economies. And in the last two decades we have seen a surge in collaboration within and across national boundaries.

More than half of all scientific articles were co-authored in 1999 compared with 33% in 1986. During the same period the share of international co-authored articles rose from 7% to 17% of all publications. In other words more than one third of co-authored articles were internationally co-authored.

It is not difficult to explain this huge increase in scientific collaboration. The scale, cost and complexity of solving many problems have increased and cutting-edge science in many fields increasingly involves a broad range of knowledge and techniques that extend beyond a given discipline or institution.

The U.K. needs to be part of this global activity if we are to get maximum value out of our outstanding science and technology base, and in recent years we have made a number of key improvements to our scientific and technological relationships with other countries.

For example, the FCO’s S&T Network now has nearly 40 posts in over 20 countries, with dedicated science officers, plus other posts, using science in support of bilateral relations. Before 2001 there were only 11 posts in 10 countries with science officers.

In order to encourage our companies to collaborate internationally we have also set up in recent years a Global Watch Service in the Department of Trade and Industry to enable UK companies to access and learn from leading science and technology specialists in countries around the world. It offers UK firms the chance to see leading edge technology through technical missions and industrial secondments, which enables them to understand new developments in technology and develop overseas links.

We also have a team of International Technology Promoters dedicated to identifying technology partnering opportunities between UK companies and overseas technology based organisations, in areas such as the life sciences, ICT, performance engineering, and environmental technology sectors. Set up in 1996, this pioneering service provides firms with individual support in the form of consultations, match making and technology brokerage. These people spend around 25% of their time in the target market identifying opportunities for technology collaboration and feeding this knowledge into their business networks. In recent years we have vastly increased the number of International Technology Promoters in the DTI from 4 to 22.

I also believe that it is extremely important to link our world-class research universities with other world-class universities around the world, and I was pleased to be able to announce last week that we are providing £6m to four collaborative projects which will link world-class British Universities with world-class American ones to increase scientific excellence and innovation. These will include the University of Manchester working with the University of Washington, and a wide range of businesses on the development of composite materials for use in aircraft design; Imperial College, London working with the University of Texas, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Georgia Institute of Technology on the treatment of cancer and energy research; the University of Cambridge continuing its productive partnership with MIT and a consortium of the Universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey working with the University of California, in the areas of wireless technology, life sciences, the environment and advanced materials.

I hope that this exciting initiative will in due course lead to other British universities linking up with other world-class universities in other parts of the world.

Finally, I should mention the European dimension to our scientific and technological relationships with other countries. This has recently involved detailed negotiations about the 7th Framework. This is proving to be a very creative process, and as part of our EU Presidency we are pushing hard for the setting up of an independent European Research Council, modelled on the National Science Foundation in the USA, which will give out grants for excellence on the basis of peer review. This, we believe, will not only be a better way of supporting basic research, but will enable the rest of the programme to be more user-driven and focused on creating competitive advantage for companies.

While we have made a lot of progress in strengthening our scientific and technological relationships with other countries, I believe we can get a lot more value out of them by developing a clear strategy. The Global Science and Innovation Forum (GSIF) brings together all the key players including FCO, OST, DTI, the Research Councils, UKTI, Defra, DFID, DfES, and this high-level, cross government group led by Sir David King has been tasked with delivering a strategy. The strategy is not yet complete, but good progress has been made in identifying objectives across four key areas and in selecting countries where GSIF thinks the UK needs most strongly to engage.

The four key objectives of the strategy are: to maintain the excellence of our science base; to innovate more effectively; to influence strongly on the global stage; and to support sustainable development. I would like to take a moment to expand on each of these:

The UK’s science base is excellent and highly productive – but this is a fast moving world, with new countries investing heavily in science and technology. We are proud of the fact that we do 5% of the world’s science, but this means that 95% is done elsewhere, and if we want to stay at the leading edge we need to engage with centres of excellence around the world.

Second, we have to exploit our excellence in science, engineering and technology to create wealth. We want businesses in the UK and overseas to recognise and use the UK’s scientific strengths. We can use targeted international collaboration between companies, universities and venture capitalists to improve and increase UK innovation performance.

Third, the UK is a world leader in many areas of science. We can use this position to influence our global partners on issues of strategic interest to the UK, such as climate change. Science should be an important tool of diplomacy for UK interests and our expertise in science governance and communication recognised as best practice throughout the world.

As our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said in a speech last year at the Royal Society entitled ‘Global Science for our Common Future’, “Science will be crucial in addressing the human challenges of the future, such as global warming and sustainable development. It plays an ever more important part in the policy of governments, and especially in international diplomacy, as we seek solutions which affect us all. And scientific knowledge advances not just in the laboratory, but through human interactions, through collaboration and the exchange of information and ideas, which governments should facilitate and encourage.”

Fourth, we can use our collaborative efforts in science for capacity building – enabling developing countries and regions to tackle global and national problems. We have to carefully balance the requirements of the UK and those of the developing world to ensure we are truly building, not eroding scientific capacity.

The question of what our objectives are for our international science and technology relationships is not an academic one. It is on the contrary essential for the most effective allocation of our funds. Let me give two examples. If two of our most important objectives are to maintain the quality of our scientific research and improve our rate of innovation then close links between our universities and high-tech clusters in the USA would seem to be an obvious and central part of our strategy. But in the past the Government has done little to strengthen our scientific and technological relationships with the USA.

Equally, we need to decide what objective our scientific and technological relationships with China and India are designed to meet. I think it is difficult today to argue that they are part of our efforts to aid developing countries. Are they then designed to help us maintain the quality of our scientific research? I think the answer is that they are bets on the future scientific strength of these two countries. In twenty years’ time I believe that both these countries will be doing a lot of world-class science and investment in our relationship with them today will pay dividends in the future.

Turning back to the development of our strategy, this will be underpinned by a number of evidence projects. These will: examine the current level of the UK’s performance in international engagement in science and innovation; analyse the drivers, barriers and benefits of international engagement in science and innovation; evaluate the activities of our main competitors; and provide an overview of the role the service sector might have in the longer term.

The next steps will be for us to use the evidence gathered and the expert judgment and leadership of GSIF to: explore improved delivery mechanisms ensuring concerted action around the objectives I’ve already outlined; develop an overarching approach to communication and engagement with all stakeholders across this area; understand and clearly communicate how international science and innovation will develop over the next 10 years of increasing globalisation and anticipate its impact on UK prosperity; and assess the resources we need to deliver the strategy.

The Government’s vision for the UK is that we should be a key hub in the global knowledge economy. This means that the UK should be a country famed not only for its outstanding record of discovery but also for innovation, a country that invests heavily in business R&D and education and skills, and exports high-tech goods and services to the world. We also want to be a country with strong science and technological links with the best research around the world, so that we can always stay at the leading edge.

Finally, we should be a country to which talented entrepreneurs and world-class companies come from around the world to do research and set up high-tech companies, attracted by the quality of our research, by the strong links between universities, research institutes and industry, by geographic clusters of high-tech companies, by their ability to raise finance, particularly venture capital, and by our quality of life.

We want to do this not only to promote our national economic interest but also so that we can play our part in solving the Grand Challenges which the world faces today, and to which science and innovation can contribute, and because we want to participate in the global search for knowledge which is one of the highest aspirations of mankind.