SUMMARY OF CST MEETING ON 18/19 DECEMBER 2006
Attendees
1. The meeting was chaired in part by Sir Keith Peters and in part by Sir David King. The other members present were:
Professor Sir John Beringer, Professor Geoffrey Boulton, Professor Janet Finch, Andrew Gould, Professor Wendy Hall, Dr Dieter Helm, Professor Alan Hughes (via conference call), Dr Sue Ion, Sir Rob Margetts, Sir Paul Nurse, Dr Raj Rajagopal, Professor Michael Sterling, Professor Kathy Sykes, Dr Mark Walport.
Apologies were received from Dr Hermann Hauser
2. Also in attendance for parts of the meeting were: Sandy Thomas - Director
of Foresight OSI, Ian Diamond - RCUK Executive Group Chair, Atti Emecz -
Director of Operations EPSRC, Graham Spittle - Chair TSB, David Golding
- Secretary TSB, Sir Peter Williams - former Chair of Engineering Technology
Board, Anne Glover - Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland.
Conclusions
Dinner with Alistair Darling and Malcolm Wicks
As CST is currently developing its future work programme, it was indicated that a steer from Government on what would be found useful would ensure the Council's work remains relevant. Two specific areas were flagged up:
- Strategic Focus: How can the Government focus the UK's wealth creation efforts into areas we are good at?
- Valuing other University Outputs: How to encourage and reward other activities such as engagement with business, the economy and society rather than just cutting edge research? Making the most of the UK's universities and convertingt he UK's excellent research base into wealth creation.
CST secretariat has written to Secretary of State's office suggesting topics that Government may welcome CST providing advice on, based upon Alistair Darling's and Malcolm Wicks's dinner discussion with CST.
CST agreed to write to the following:
- Sir Keith O'Nions on how the UK might value the contribution of non-research intensive universities, and better reward their contributions, to feed into the Government's Comprehensive Spending Review. CST endorsed the importance of valuing and rewarding a wide range of activities related to University research, development and support for innovation.
- RCUK, with CST's contribution to the consultation on Peer Review. Along with the contribution, CST informed RCUK that it is keen to be included in the ongoing development of changes to the peer review process. A meeting between CST and RCUK was proposed after the responses to the consultation have been compiled.
Ongoing work includes:
- Nanotechnology: CST is reviewing progress on actions set out in the Government's response to the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering report. A draft report will be submitted to the CST meeting in March for consideration.
- Innovation: Two particular areas are currently being looked at: absorptive capacity and corporate venturing. On absorptive capacity, consultants are developing five case studies of emergent SMEs in the UK fuel cell sector.CST meeting in March 2007 will discuss their findings. On Corporate Venturing a joint approach is being explored with the CBI to explore the role it could play in providing access to finance and other resources for technology basedsmall firms and what the role of Government could be in enhancing this.
- The Research Endeavour: CST is considering how the UK should position its research base so that it is fit for purpose in 20 years time. CST is sponsoring an FST dinner on 7 February focussing on career development for young researchers. A draft report will be submitted to the CST meeting in March for consideration.
Other items discussed included:
- CST's future agenda - Subject to further discussions with Alistair Darling, a project on valuing other university outputs in and a project on Strategic Focus will begin in March.
- CST Discussion with TSB - TSB Chair, Graham Spittle gave CST a brief update on recent TSB developments. Items discussed included TSB reform, TSB funding of R&D projects, establishing Knowledge Transfer Networks and the procurement agenda. There was agreement that it would not make sense for CST and TSB to merge (as proposed in ETB's SET and the City report). There are areas in which CST and TSB overlap and in such areas they should cooperate.
- CST discussion with Scotland's CSA - Professor Anne Glover was recently appointed as Scottish CSA for a four-year term. Areas discussed included: the decision to relocate the Scottish Science Advisory Committee to within the Scotish Executive; research pooling within Scottish Universities; CST's engagement with Scotland's First Minister. It was agreed that the secretariat would maintain links with Professor Glover's office, and consider where coordination of work could be beneficial.
The next CST meeting will be on 5/6 March 2007.