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Research Base Funders' Forum plenary conference

Malcolm Wicks MP,  Minister of State for Energy
The Royal Society,  27 November 2006

Thank you for that introduction Keith. I’ve been Minister of State for Science and Innovation for two weeks, so it’s good to be here with you today.

I’d really like to start by paying tribute to my predecessor David Sainsbury, who I think it is generally agreed achieved a great deal in his eight years as the most passionate advocate and champion for UK science. He helped to put in place a range of enlightened policies, but not least oversaw the more than doubling of the Science Budget double under his stewardship from some £1.3 billion in 1997 to £3.4 billion in 2007/08). The good news is that David Sainsbury has not totally left the scene, indeed he is undertaking an important review for the Chancellor of the Exchequer and for the Secretaries of State for Trade and Industry and Education and Skills on science and innovation across the whole of Government. That is very welcome, and I look forward to working very closely with him on that.

May I say at the outset that I very much share David Sainsbury’s commitment to science. My own background and career is in the social sciences, I was Director for a while of a research centre looking at family change in Britain and Europe. I have been fortunate, in the past, to have had research funded by such bodies as the Department of Health, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Nuffield and the ESRC. Never enough funding of course from ESRC, so I’ll be discussing that with them at our introductory meeting! When I was a Minister at the Department of Work and Pensions I had ministerial responsibility for research. I’m very committed to science and research. Science simply is knowledge and we all know that the UK must become a knowledge economy if we are to add value to goods and services and to compete effectively in a global economy, that’s about pure research but it’s also about applied and it’s certainly about knowledge transfer the subject of this conference.

I think as well as being a knowledge economy we need to do one or two other things, we need to become a knowledge society and that has strong implications for the education and skills of our people, young and not so young. It’s also about bringing science to bear on some of the significant societal needs and risks that we inevitably face and I think that there’s something else that I am particularly interested in and look forward to discussing with some of you and that is how the UK might become, and should become, a knowledge democracy. In other words a scientifically literate society.

What do I mean? I mean a democracy, a public that is better equipped than it is now to understand the complex array of issues that confront a modern society and the major questions that face us in a troubled and insecure world. There are numerous examples, in my own field I was formerly Minister of Energy Security, climate change is a very significant one. How can we enable the public to debate the pros and cons of nuclear science for example and civil nuclear energy. A more immediate issue coming up is avian flu, you can almost see the headlines now. In fact we are beginning to see some in terms of the tabloid take on that. How do we enable the public to understand the risks but also the appropriateness of any action that needs need to be taken. Public literacy is also important about pharmaceuticals and drug availability and the challenges facing the NHS. An obvious, controversial example is the science and ethics of animal experimentation. What does the scientific community have to offer an ageing population, and how do we engage the public in some of the issues around ageing. Stem cell research of course is yet another important example and there are many more.

I pick up very much where David Sainsbury left off at a most important time for research here in the UK. Since we began to invest the UK has not only maintained but continued to improve its world ranking for research, second only to the USA with 12% of world citations and 13% of the most highly cited papers. The government has been able to work with other funders represented here today to achieve this, it is only by working together that we can make the most of the very many talented people we have working in the UK, but although we are rightly proud of the strength of the research base we collectively fund in the UK, we also know that that is not sufficient by itself. The days are gone where the UK was criticised for not making the most of our research breakthroughs, leaving others instead to exploit and make the most out of them. The past decade has also seen a new spirit of entrepreneurialism across our campuses. In the past two years alone, 20 spin-outs from UK universities have floated on the stock market with a combined value of £1.5bn.

The Government has been steadily building universities capability to do this at the same time as investing in basic research from the beginnings of seedcorn funding through the university challenge scheme to today’s £100 million a year dedicated funding for the Higher Education Innovation Fund. Last month Research Councils published their action plans to implement the recommendations of Peter Warry’s review to increase their overall economic impact. The report recognised that Research Councils have pivotal roles, not only as funding bodies but also as leaders of the research base. It noted that Councils are already increasing their emphasis on knowledge transfer and the economic impact of their work, but must increase this emphasis further without sacrificing the research excellence for which the UK is rightly admired.

The route to better exploitation is complex and ever uncertain, of course. One critic recently wrote that Ministers have an almost naïve belief in a magic, linear pipeline from research breakthrough to instant wonder product. I’m bound to say I don’t share that naivety, indeed having taken part to some extent to understand the literature, for example on social disadvantage, I know that it doesn’t necessarily point to solutions that can be taken up by the different parts of our welfares state. We all know that magic isn’t the case and that many research breakthroughs can take twenty, thirty years, if at all before we see their practical application. I noted with keen interest the recent announcement on new developments on nuclear fusion for example or we see research undertaken in one area taken up, modified and applied in another. For example, Ken Binmore of UCL’s adaptation of game theory and its use by Government in the recent mobile phone license auctions.

Can I now talk about starting a conversation and keeping the conversation going with Government, business and universities all engaged, whether through Knowledge Transfer Networks, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, the Technology Strategy Board. I think R&D Tax credits have worked well but clearly we need to do more. How do we get to the next level, and reach small often quite small and medium sized enterprises who have not, to date, engaged with the university sector? How, for example, within the NHS do we ensure we get away from the tradition of a health service slow to innovate? There’s much work going on, not least the Cooksey Review, to tackle that question.

SMEs and the NHS are just two examples, to close can I just say that today gives you all the chance to discuss what are we doing well, and what we are not doing so well. It’s no secret that this will be a tough spending round for Government. The question is where can we as Government, and together with you, best make our interventions?

It’s not about basic versus applied research, or more money for one as opposed to the other. I think our singular best achievement over the past decade is that we have been able to both strengthen our basic research performance whilst at the same time see a step change in knowledge transfer activity. I feel privileged to have been asked by the Prime Minister to take over from David Sainsbury as Science Minister, and I also feel daunted following in such fine footsteps. I certainly have much to learn, and I need your help to do so, and I look forward very much to working with you in the future.

Can I suggest that, instead of the customary five minutes questions and answers, where there’s an assumption that experts ask questions and the layperson tries to answer them, would you forgive me if for at least for another week or so if perhaps we have five minutes allowing colleagues in the audience to put any points they would like to me, as still a very new Science Minister, the things I should have on my agenda, things I should be reflecting on. Questions to which I can discuss with colleagues to find the answers to in the coming months. I would find that a useful way of spending five minutes or so, early on in my tenure. Thank you.