The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is seeking to appoint a new Chair of its Science and Innovation Strategy Board (SISB), to commence from April 2012, and is inviting applications from interested parties.

Further information and an application pack are available at
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/work/boards/science/.

The closing date for applications is Monday 13th February 2012 and interviews will be held in London on 7th and 9th March 2012.

This post first appeared on the Biochemical Society’s Blog

Policy Lunchbox was privileged on Friday to host the first presentation on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills’ (BIS) new Innovation and Research Strategy for Growth since its launch last Thursday. Grant Peggie, Head of Innovation and Investment at BIS, gave a run down of the key points to the assembled members of the Policy Lunchbox community over mince pies and mulled wine. Here’s a summary of what he had to say.

Whilst the UK is host to world class researchers and punches above its weight in terms of pure research output, we are not as good at encouraging and developing strategic partnerships with the rest of the ‘innovation ecosystem’ – compared to near neighbours such as France, Germany and Sweden, and also other countries like the USA, said Grant. As well as places where research takes place, business, finance and bodies such as standards offices must all work together to support ‘innovation for growth’. Grant also emphasised that policy makers need to understand that it is important for innovation to take place in all sectors – not just in traditional areas like high-tech industry – including fields like utilities and construction.

The Strategy document sets out medium and long term mechanisms through which the government intends to support innovation for growth, having identified it as something we need to exploit. The timescale (as laid out in a section at the end of the document) for instigating all the projects goes no further than 2015, as the government has been unwilling to commit to longer term plans during this lasting period of austerity. However, Grant was reassuring when questioned about short-termism, stating that the announced Technology Strategy Board (TSB) focus areas – such as graphene development – would have lasting legacies. For example, the Graphene Global Research and Innovation Hub (possibly to be established in Manchester, although the location decision rests with the TSB and Research Councils in accordance with the Haldane principle) should be operational within four years, by which time some of the other policies laid out in the document should help support its long-term activity. The Government has committed £50m to graphene research through the spending review period and has pinned hopes on profitable applications being developed in the UK.

On the other strategic areas highlighted, we heard that the location of a new ‘Cell Therapy Catapult Centre’ (the less said about this moniker the better) in London would be decided next year, although there was pressure to land it in East London. This will also be the home of the Open Data Institute, to be founded in Shoreditch and led by Professor Nigel Shadbolt and Sir Tim Berners-Lee. People will notice that this isn’t actually a new announcement, and indeed Grant admitted that not much of the chapter from which this announcement and several others can be found (entitled ‘Knowledge and Innovation’) is actually new, but sets out what the Government has committed to since this spring/summer. How the Institute will fit in with the opening up of NHS data announced by David Cameron as part of the new Strategy for UK Life Sciences remains to be seen. The datasets to be prioritised have been named as transport, weather and health.

Concerning the Research Councils, changes are afoot. Multi-institutional bids for funding will be allowed according to a framework to be published in February, providing new opportunities for consortia such as the N8 group (the Universities of Durham, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York) to apply for funding together. Furthermore, groups such as charities not based within Universities will also be able to apply for funding. This means that there will be more funding streams, although there won’t be more money up for grabs. Particularly regarding the new rules on consortia, this could lead to very large funding awards being made, with one potential knock-on effect being the restriction of traditional award recipients even further – in what are already straitened times. Grant agreed that this was a risk, although this policy did come out of consultation with universities. Another outcome could be on the institutional and geographical spread of awards, which are already a contentious issue. On the other side, it is hoped that larger, consortia based funding could lead to more matched funding bids from pharmaceutical companies. These changes will certainly need to be follow closely next year. The Research Councils have also agreed to invest £2 million in the development of a UK ‘Gateway to Research’. Plans remain sketchy, but should allow open access to Research Council funded research data and other information by 2013. The scheme aims to be flexible and allow for non-Research Council research to be catalogued here too. This has the potential to be a really exciting and useful resource – if they get it right regarding the usability of data – especially for publicising research which could be commercialised. Smaller companies without extensive access to horizon-scanning resources could have greatly improved access and more business relationships may arise.

The bottom line, what else is new, and forthcoming work

In total, according to BIS figures, we heard that £610 million has been committed to capital in science since January. The headline announcements new to this Statement are highlighted in the BIS press release. However, as already alluded to, there is no ’10 year plan’ or similar long-term vision as the science community would like to see, representing a real long-term commitment to science as a driver of growth. We may expect reassessments to be made towards the end of the spending review period (ending in 2015).

Some of the other plans we received a run-down of are:

-The Economics Paper published alongside the main strategy document focuses on innovation (and is the first to do so since the mid ‘90s) and Grant revealed that a separate analysis of science would be published next year.
- As well as Cell Therapy, the other Catapult Centres will be High Value Manufacturing and Offshore Renewable Energy, with three more to be confirmed.
- The previously announced Biomedical Catalyst Fund will total £180 million, half each from the TSB and the Medical Research Council (MRC). This fund will be focussed on commercial medicine and proof of concept research. The TSB investment was newly announced in the Strategy for UK Life Sciences released earlier in the week.
-There will be an extra £75 million for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) through the resurrected Smart scheme – to come from the TSB – as first announced in the Autumn Statement. The TSB will also implement a new innovation voucher programme to support collaboration between SMEs and external knowledge providers. The first vouchers will be awarded next year.
- The Launchpad initiative will be extended – providing intensive support for specific sectoral clusters in chosen locations, with the aim of attracting follow-up ‘angel investment’. Grant hinted that a life science Launchpad was being considered for the Scottish central belt.
-The Red Tape Challenge will be extended, investigating the bureaucratic barriers that inhibit innovation – including those set by government. Further challenges identified are the barriers posed by procurement methods.
-Tax credits to incentivise research and development in the UK will be introduced in Budget 2013.
- The TSB will gain more staff to make sure we can leverage as much EU funding as possible in the future.
- We are going to embark on a joint research agreement with China, funding bi-lateral projects. Joint research calls with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology are expected during 2012.

The delivery plan makes it clear that all the policies must be followed through, although the mechanisms have not yet been decided.

Naturally, Grant wanted to highlight all the positives of the Strategy, but as he said, having RCUK and the CBI saying good things is a good sign that they seem to have hit several right notes. And, whilst the Strategy certainly emphasises innovation rather than research, Grant explained that the rationale for this was two-fold: firstly that there was no desire to “throw research up in the air again”; and secondly that whilst research is a vital strength of the UK, innovation is in greater need of attention, particularly concerning commercial exploitation.

Last word – still no commitment on postgraduates

Grant was candid when asked about the lack of focus on post-graduates in recent government publications, acknowledging this point but regrettably not revealing any firm intention for anything to be done. However, he reported strong awareness that this is a live issue, citing the influence of Twitter as a significant pressure for a concerted effort from BIS in this area.

Related reading

Innovation and Research Strategy, and Economics Paper: http://www.bis.gov.uk/innovatingforgrowth
Strategy for UK Life Sciences: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/innovation/docs/s/11-1429-strategy-for-uk-life-sciences
Autumn Statement: http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/autumn_statement.pdf

Policy Lunchbox is a network of policy professionals from the charitable and third sectors maintained by the Biochemical and British Ecological Societies.

How can you predict whether a policy you develop will actually work? This was the question addressed by a public lecture at the London School of Economics yesterday evening, delivered by Nancy Cartwright, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE and at the University of California, San Diego.

Prof. Cartwright questioned how you can know whether a policy that is successful in one location will work in another. She suggested that in fact, based on success in one place you cannot assume that it will: “getting policy right is hard, but it is harder if you only rely on one tool”.

Prof. Cartwright criticised the enthusiasm of some economists to champion the significance of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) to assess the efficacy of policies. As in RCTs for a medical intervention, policy treatments are assigned to some of a sample group and not to others, with the randomisation minimising any significant background or location differences between the controls. This allows a policy-maker to conclude that a significant improvement in the ‘treated’ group is due to the success of the policy intervention.

The mistake that enthusiastic policy developers then make is, Professor Cartwright suggested, to infer from the success of the policy in one location that the policy must then produce the desired outcome more widely. Several assumptions underlie this: that in the inital ‘treated’ policy population the policy had the causal effect due to ‘causal principle X’; ;that in the target population the policy will also have the desired effect due to this causal principle, and; that the support factors needed for successful policy implementation are in place in both populations.

Professor Cartwright demonstrated that causal principles have a number of problems, making it less than clear that a policy successful in one location will be successful in another. The first problem was described as ‘fragility’: the idea that a causal problem can easily be broken by pushing this too hard. One example of this is the relationship between employment and inflation. Inflation and rising prices will lead to reduced unemployment as businesses expand production. If a government tries to reduce unemployment by manipulating inflation however, businesses will not create jobs because they are aware that inflation is caused by government measures, not market forces. The second problem is one of ‘locality’, with causes dependent on local situations and particular conditions.

Professor Cartwright illustrated the problems of ‘fragility’ and ‘locality’ by an example; that of a child nutrition policy in Tamil Nadu, India, that provided mothers with nutritional advice and with supplementary baby food. An RCT proved that this could improve child nutrition. The conclusion was therefore that “mothers given better nutritional knowledge improve their child’s nutrition (when also given supplementary baby food)”.

However, when implemented in Bangladesh this policy did not work. Men in Bangladesh procure food for the household and in many extended families Mothers-in-law control food distribution between family members. Therefore in this case mothers were not able to influence their children’s nutrition. The causal principle underpinning the policy should in fact have been: “Better nutritional knowledge improves child nutrition when given to those who a) control what food is procured; b) control what food gets dispersed and c) hold the child’s interests as central to performing A and B”.

This example demonstrates that causal principles often have to be expressed in an abstract way if they are to be applied to any situation which differs from the original situation under test. The causal principle can be characterised as a rule which (very probably) holds true. It is vital to understand how the supporting factors in the new situation differ from that under test in order to make sure that the causal principle applies in a range of cases.

With thanks for this information to Evelyn Underwood, Policy Analyst at the Institute for European Environmental Policy</a.

The Third Gareth Roberts Science Policy Lecture will be given by David Willetts, MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science. Mr Willetts will speak on the subject of ‘UK science skills for the future – what are the priorities’ tomorrow night, 19th October.

This event has sold out but you will be able to follow discussion on Twitter, via hashtag # ROBERTS2011.

The Gareth Roberts lectures are hosted by the Science Council to honour Sir Gareth Roberts, the founding president of the organisation, who died in 2007. This event is taking place as part of the 2011 London Science Festival.

Today is the first day of a plenary meeting to discuss and decide upon the formation of the Integovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), convened by the UN Environment Programme. Representatives from the United Nations, and observers from NGOs and other bodies, have assembled in Nairobi, Kenya, to consider how IPBES will operate and, amongst other decisions, determine where the IPBES secretariat will be located.

On the eve of the meeting, Prof. Bob Watson, Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser, gave an interview to the Independent newspaper, in which he outlined his hopes for IPBES. Prof. Watson suggested that the only way in which IPBES can function effectively will be if developing nations have ownership over any in-country ecosystem assessments which are conducted, and if these are conducted by scientists from that nation – similar to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. “If they think that this is just the white world, the developed world, telling them what to do, that’ll be the end of it.”

The BES, together with the UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (UK BRAG) organised a session at the BES Annual Meeting in Sheffield last month which introduced the IPBES to the assembled ecologists. Dr Andrew Stott, Defra’s representative to IPBES from the civil service, outlined the role of IPBES, as agreed at a meeting in Busan, South Korea, in 2010. A copy of Dr Stott’s presentation is available from the BES website.

As outlined by Dr Stott, IPBES will:

- Generate new knowledge: identifying information needed for policy; catalysing research and surveying
- Conduct regular and timely assessments: at global, regional and sub-regional scales; and on thematic and ‘new topics identified by science’.
- Provide support for policy formulation, through promoting access to policy-relevant tools and methods;
- Have a capacity building function: identifying needs; supporting the highest priority needs; catalysing funding.

IPBES is intended as an ‘IPCC for biodiversity’; a credible, scientifically independent body which is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive (similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

At the plenary meeting over the next few days decisions will be made about how the IPBES is structured; whether, for example, a scientific advisory group is formed which can advise the Plenary – the IPBES decision-making body- on scientific and technical aspects of the work programme and which can approve specific scientific procedures related to how ecosystem assessments are conducted. A further meeting in Nairobi, in March/ April 2012, will see delegates decide on further aspects of how the IPBES will work, including its work programme.

As IPBES develops, there are likely to be opportunities for ecologists and others to get involved with the conduct of assessments and with capacity building, although questions remain about how to incentivise scientists to take part in these activities (for example, through university reward structures such as the Research Excellence Framework). Ecologists and others in the UK who would like to find out more about IPBES and who would like to remain fully engaged with the development of the Platform, can join the UK Stakeholder Group, maintained by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

Applications are invited for two new, twelve month, full time (part time working will be considered), policy placement secondment opportunities, to work with the Environment Agency based in Bristol.

These secondments are offered as part of NERC’s policy placement fellowship scheme which allows researchers and other staff involved in environmental science research to work closely with policy-makers within government and other public and third sector organisations in the UK.

The project areas for these policy placements are:

1. Ecosystem services and flood and coastal risk management.

2. Understanding the impacts of water abstraction and river flows on aquatic ecology.

Further details are available at http://www.nerc.ac.uk/using/publicsector/fellowship.asp

Please see “fellowship placement current opportunities” PDFs.

and further pdfs at http://www.nerc.ac.uk/using/publicsector/documents/ea-hydroecology-fellowship.pdf.

The closing date for applications is Friday 14th October 2011.

The BES is refreshing its policy priorities. What do you think we should be focusing on?

From food security, to multiple demands on land, to balancing the trade-offs between ecosystem services, 2020 will bring great challenges for the UK and internationally. Ecological science can inform the response to these challenges. Where should the BES be focusing our efforts to ensure that our members’ science is fed into the policy debates to shape our future?

Leave your comment here on the blog, ontribute your views through Twitter (#BES2020), or email the Policy Team.

What do ecologists have in common with those working in early childhood education? The answer isn’t immediately obvious but a recent article in Science demonstrates that both groups face the same challenges, and can learn the same useful lessons, when engaging with policy-makers.

William T. Gormley Jr. explains that in early childhood education, as in other domains, scientific research informs policy-making and that a straighforward linear model is deficient in explaining how this may happen. Gormley Jr. describes as a ‘hypodermic needle theory’ the idea that a well-crafted piece of science presented to a policy-maker leads to the generation of a well-crafted piece of policy. He cites a study of the U.S. federal policy-making process to illustrate the number of influences, besides consideration of scientific evidence, impinging on policy development: only 15% of respondents to a survey, including congressional staff members and civil servants, judged researchers, academics and consultants as “very important” in informing policy. In contrast, 33% of respondents judged interest groups to be so.

Other reasons why science doesn’t inform policy in a linear fashion include the necessity for scientific evidence to accumulate before a policy position can be developed on this basis; a single piece of scientific research is not likely to be sufficient to enable conclusions to be drawn. Scientific research is also ‘translated, condensed, repackaged and reinterpreted’, Gormley Jr. states, before it is used and information can be lost through this process. Finally, and most interestingly, the author suggests that officials are most likely to use scientific information to justify a position which they already hold, rather than that this evidence persuades them to adopt a different course of action. Gormley Jr. describes this as ’strategic use’ of scientific evidence.

Early education researchers (and ecologists) can take several steps to make sure that their research is used by policy-makers. The first is to make sure that outputs are short and easily readable (the author cites a study that suggests that the average length of documents read, and not disgarded, by policy officials, is 2.91 pages). If research is of high quality it is also more likely to be used. Gormley Jr. highlights the importance of relationship building to the effective translation of research into policy: “the influence of research on policy-makers is typically greater when, before a policy debate, researchers and public officials enjoy a relationship of trust and mutual respect… Researchers are encouraged to “conceptualize policy-work not as disseminating research to policy-makers but as developing relationships with them”".

The author calls for scientists to ‘develop or support institutions that faciliate connections between citizens and scientists and between scientists and public officials’ (a strong commendation for Learned Societies such as the BES), and highlights the role of universities in providing information to non-profit groups wishing to influence policy-making – remaining non-partisan by engaging with as wide a variety of groups as possible.

In conclusion, Gormley Jr. suggests that ’scientists who expect to see their latest research findings transformed into public policy are likely to be disappointed’ but that scientists who adjust their expectations as to what they can acheive are likely to discover ‘how powerful science can be’. He calls for scientists to produce more digestible policy briefs, to engage with policy-making colleagues regularly and to frame issues so that public officials can understand their significance. Those scientists wishing to engage with policy-makers should take heart; encouragingly, the same study that revealed that only 15% of officials felt that scientists were “very important” to policy development also found that 51% of respondents felt that they were “somewhat important”.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) is calling for the appointment of a Science Minister at the Scottish Government.

Outlining the rationale for this post, CaSE state that “Science and engineering has an impact, and is affected by a huge range of government activities – so a failure to adequately represent them could lead to Scotland falling behind in the global high-tech race.”

CaSE has written a letter to First Minister Alex Salmond MSP, asking that the SNP Government create a Science Minister role, which, importantly, is not tokenistic but has real power to influence decision-making.

An article on the CaSE blog outlines the current state of science and higher education in Scotland, the challenges the country faces in this regard, and how the absence of a Science Minister compares to the situation in other nations.

CaSE is looking for support from individuals and organisations for its call. Contact the CaSE Director for more information.

Wildlife and Countryside Link is seeking an individual to cover the maternity leave of Director Jodie Bettis. This position will involve managing Link’s relationships with funders, trustees and external organisations, alongside developing and implementing policy positions.

The post is available for 12-months from December. More information is available from the Link website.