Lord Sainsbury of Turville

FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SCIENCE COUNCIL

A great deal has happened in the five years since I first spoke here at the launch of the Science Council, and I want briefly this morning both to highlight the huge progress we have made over this period as well as say something about our plans for the future.

The Government’s commitment to make the UK the best place in the world to do science has been first of all backed by putting major large extra resources into basic research, increasing the science budget from £1.3 billion in 1997/8 to £3.4 billion by 2007/8.

The Government has also set itself ambitious goals for the future in our 10 year Science and Innovation Investment framework. The Government’s long-term objective for the economy is to increase the level of knowledge intensity in the UK as measured by the ratio of R&D to national gross domestic product, from its current level of around 1.9% to 2.5% of GDP by around 2014, and we have firmly committed to increasing science spending at least in line with the trend growth rate in the economy.

If we are to achieve these ambitious plans, it is important that we have an expanding flow of creative young scientists and engineers into our workforce. Here too in spite of the general perception we have been making steady progress. Today there are 120,000 more young people studying for science and technology degrees than in 1997/98 and the percentage of the total number of students taking science and technology degrees has gone up from 38% to 41%. These include large increases in those studying the biological sciences but also a 78% increase in those studying computer sciences and a welcome 38% increase in those studying mathematics.

The physical sciences have remained fairly constant at 50,000 and the only area where we have not made progress is engineering and technology, which has seen a fall in the number of students studying from 87,000 in 1997/98 to 80,000 in 1999/2000, though this figure seems to have stabilised at this level.

It is clear from these figures that we have a specific problem in engineering and technology, and I believe that the main problem here is that young people do not see engineering as exciting and as part of the new knowledge intensive economy.

This is clearly wrong and we need to work hard to change this perception. We need both to revitalise engineering education and communicate to young people the exciting developments in industries such as aerospace, telecommunications, new materials, nanotechnology and bio-engineering which critically depend on engineering skills. We also need to communicate the challenges that engineering faces in areas such as energy and sustainability.

At this point I would like to congratulate the Science Council on the major contribution you have made in raising the profile of science and innovation, and the joint initiative with the UK Resource Centre for Women looking at best practice in diversity in science careers.

If women and black and ethnic minority people are to be encouraged to participate and progress in scientific careers to meet the strengthening demand for graduates in science, engineering and technology it is vital that the Professional Institutes are proactively supporting the changing demographics of their current and potential members by developing policies and practices that reflect their needs.

I am delighted that the Science Council has joined forces with the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET to commission research into what good practice is currently out there in the member institutions. And I am looking forward to seeing the outcomes of the shared learning deliver help to Science Council Member organisations to develop and evolve their own diversity programmes.

While the overall number of young people studying for science and technology remains very high, the quality of vocational training for young people and adults remains a weakness, and increasing the supply of people with technician and intermediate skills will be an important objective for us in the future.

I would now like to say a brief word about our plans for the future, and highlight a couple of important initiatives. Firstly, to stay at the leading edge of world science and innovation we need to collaborate internationally and the Government will construct more science bridges between world-class universities and high-tech clusters in the UK and the USA, allocating initially £6m over 2 years to support such collaboration.

We have already taken a number of important initiatives in this area, which we will seek to build on. For example, we have provided funding for the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) alliance. After a slow start, this initiative is producing interesting and extremely valuable results, which will help us to improve the U.K.’s innovation performance, which in time will be seen as a visionary initiative.

And we will also seek to build on the successful £1.5 million collaboration between the UK and Texas bioscience clusters. This initiative was first proposed following a visit to Texas in 2002 by Sir Richard Sykes, Sir George Radda and others, where they saw an exciting opportunity to bring people together to plan collaborative projects, and to find opportunities for joint exploitation of their research.

The success of the UK/Texas collaboration is evident, not only in the 31 projects funded so far, but also by the increasing enthusiasm with which researchers from both sides of the Atlantic have taken on the challenge of meeting and working together.

Secondly, we have set out our goal of creating diversity of excellence in our universities by providing additional incentives through the Higher Education Innovation Fund to those universities that choose to focus on user-driven research and translating world-class research into new products and services for businesses in their region.

What I believe is required in our universities is a diversity of excellence, with some universities focusing on world-class research, teaching and knowledge transfer, and others concentrating on the equally important economic mission of professional teaching, applied research and problem solving with local and regional companies. The dividing line between the two should not be rigid, and in order to create a dynamic system, there is a strong case for many universities having a mixed strategy, but we would, I believe, get better value from our universities if there were a greater diversity of excellence.

In Europe, we also have an important agenda which we will seek to take forward during our Presidency. This is the 7th Framework Programme and the setting up of the European Research Council. I think there is a great deal to be gained by setting up a European Research Council which is focussed on basic research and which is managed on the basis of excellence and international peer review. This will enable the rest of the 7th Framework Programme to be focused more clearly on improving industrial competitiveness, which I also think will also be very beneficial.

As you can see, the Government has set itself a challenging programme of work. We believe that science and innovation are critical not only to the success of British industry but also to the quality of our lives, and I look forward to working with the Science Council in the future to deliver our ambitious vision for U.K. science.