SUMMARY OF COUNCIL MEETING ON 23 SEPTEMBER 1999
Purpose
1. The Council met on 23 September 1999, primarily to deal with the work of its three existing sub-groups, dealing respectively with:
- the S&T activities of Government Departments following the Comprehensive Spending Review;
- exploitation of the UK's Science, Engineering and Technology Base; and
- the education of young people in science, engineering and technology.
2. As agreed at the last meeting on 7 June 1999, the Council also considered a paper dealing with possible topics on which to form its next programme of work for year 2000.
Attendees
3. In the unavoidable absence of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Stephen Byers, the meeting was chaired by the Minister for Science, Lord Sainsbury of Turville. The Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Robert May also attended as Deputy Chair of the Council. Dr John Taylor, Director General of the Research Councils was also present. The independent members present were:
Professor S Kumar Bhattacharyya, Professor Sir Alec Broers, Dr Chris Evans, Professor Julia Higgins, Sir Robin Nicholson, Ms Emma Rothschild, Professor Sir Aaron Klug, Mr Martin Taylor and Professor Sir Stewart Sutherland.
Discussion and Outcome
(i) Departmental S&T Activity
4. The Chairman of the sub-group, Sir Robin Nicholson, reported that the sub-group had completed and presented its report, as agreed at the previous Council meeting on 7 June 1999.
5. Lord Sainsbury announced the publication of the report and the Government's response in his speech on 13 September 1999 at the festival of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Sheffield.
6. The Government had responded positively and would be publishing in due course an implementation plan for taking the report's recommendations forward.
7. The Council noted and welcomed Sir Robin's progress report and agreed to disband this particular sub-group.
(ii) Exploitation
8. On behalf of the sub-group, Professor Sir Alec Broers presented an early draft of the report, which had been prepared following a series of consultative meetings over the previous four months. He explained that the draft had been prepared following the sub-group's most recent meeting on 3 September 1999, in order to gain the views and comments of the other members of the Council at this meeting before further work was undertaken. The group was already intending to give further consideration to the role and activities of Government Departments in sponsoring and supporting the growth of technology based businesses in existing and emerging sectors. It was also intending to consider more fully the important differences between science on the one hand and technology on the other, for instance regarding metrics by which the UK's strengths could be judged and monitored.
9. During the discussion, members emphasised the importance of objective risk management in the public sector; the role and contribution of FORESIGHT in informing the forward planning of companies and the Government's policies; the multi-disciplinary aspects of advanced technology in business sectors; the justification for public investment in the creation of technology; the need for S&T policies to reflect the globalistion of S&T which was occurring; the key role of large technology based businesses in driving the creation of wealth from science and technology; and the need for fiscal arrangements to be internationally competitive, for instance concerning stock options and capital gains tax.
10. Members also highlighted the importance of having a sufficiently strong cadre of technologically sophisticated people for leading and running technology based companies, as well as the need for a strong, two-way and continuous flow/interaction of such people between business and the science base.
11. It was agreed that the sub-group should complete is report as quickly as possible on the basis of the draft, taking account of this discussion.
(iii) Education
12. Professor Julia Higgins presented the preliminary findings of the survey of science teachers which had been conducted in July 1999 by a team from the School of Education at King's College London.
13. Questionnaires had been sent to the head teacher, a senior teacher and a junior teacher in each of 750 secondary schools and 2000 primary schools during June and July. Additionally the King's College team held a series of 20 focus groups around the country to provide the Council with some more descriptive information. The response rate of some 47% from these schools had been very good, particularly in view of the survey occurring just at the end of a long summer term. This in itself indicated the importance which teachers attached to the sub-group's work. Overall, the picture emerging was a patchy one when viewed in terms of the teachers' levels of confidence, their subject qualifications when mapped against the science subjects they taught, their in-service education and training, their views and use of support from third parties and their responses concerning IT based study and learning.
14. The group would be holding two consultative meetings about the results before preparing a draft report for the next Council meeting on 6 December 1999. It was also intending to publish the survey report from the KCL team along with its own report once completed.
(iv) Future work
15. Finally, after a brief discussion, the Council agreed to defer further consideration of its next programme of work until the next but one meeting on 6 March 2000.
Last revised: September 2001
