Two events attended by the BES Science Policy Team this week saw David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, heartily congratulated by the science community for achieveing a favourable science settlement in the CSR. As announced on 20 October, the science budget will be ring-fenced at a cash value of £4.6 billion for each of the next four years, to 2014.

Science Question Time at the Royal Institution (Tuesday 26 October) saw the Minister joined by Professor Dame Janet Finch, Chair of the Council of Science and Technology; Professor Colin Blakemore, University of Oxford and Philip Greenish, CEO of the Royal Academy of Engineering. The event was chaired by Mark Henderson, science reporter for the Times. All around the table thanked the Minister for achieving the settlement he had for science, which will mean a decrease in real terms of 10% on the current science budget over the next four years, due to inflation. Willetts made it clear that this would mean tough choices for science, outlining four main challlenges which lie ahead:

- How the science budget can move to a stable resource in ‘real’, not cash, terms. This will need to be achieved through efficiency savings, as identified in the Wakeham report, and every pound saved will be a pound that stays within the science budget to re-invest in research.

- The balance between fixed international subscriptions and the capital budget. Willetts said that ‘when you juggle this, the variable tends to be people’, and identified a major challenge around science career planning. It won’t be possible for all those who’ve piled into science research in the past few years to progress to professorships, Willetts said. These scientifically qualified people need to understand the other avenues open for them outside science.

- Excellence across the research base: to what extent should funding be concentrated, on subjects and in institutions? To what extent should clusters be formed, with others doing excellent research?

- Collaboration alongside competition: how can this be fostered and barriers overcome?

During a wide ranging discussion following speeches from each of the panellists, a key point to emerge was the expectations which Government would place on the scientific community as a result of the favourable settlement. Treasury expected to see economic returns through its investment in science, and science researchers would need to consider carefully how money was spent. Willetts was urged to recognise the value of blue-skies research as a fundamental underpinning to applied studies.

Willetts gave the address to the annual lunch of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee yesterday, again receiving thanks from those present for his negotiating efforts. He stated much the same as on the previous evening but also commented on how important it was that the Houses of Commons and Lords had proper access to science advice. 65 MPs had sat in Parliament before this year’s election, and, Willetts said, 65 were present now, stating that this should dispel any pessimistic comments about a decline in interest in science amongst parliamentarians. Responding to the Minister’s speech, Andrew Miller MP, Chair of the Committee, called on Learned Societies and others to do more to engage with parliament, and with the public, particularly in relation to early years science education.

Overall, the science community seems pleased and pragmatic about the settlement for science, although there is no doubt that tough times do lie ahead. The Minister commented at the RI on Tuesday that at least, with the settlement he has secured, the Government and scientists can tackle them together ‘in an atmosphere of mutual trust and co-operation’.

The Royal Institution is running an evening event on Thursday 23rd September, exploring neutrality in scientific reporting by the media.

Guest curator Mark Henderson (Science Editor of The Times) leads an expert panel who will debate the key issue of journalistic neutrality in science. What should journalists do when one side of an argument has more scientific credibility and support than another? And to what extent do they have a responsibility to weigh up competing opinions, to decide whether some are more equal than others?

Find out more and book tickets (£8/£6 or £4 for RI members)

David Willetts, Minister for Science and Universities, today delivered his first major speech on the Government’s vision for science in the UK, the Royal Institution. The BES listened as the Minister outlined his priorities for science, and announced a one year delay to the Research Excellence Framework to allow HEFCE to better assess the results of the ‘impact’ pilot exercise.

The Minister began by highlighting that 2010 had so far seen a ‘great summer for science’, with the Royal Society’s hiigh profile ‘See Further’ festival, Lord Rees’ delivery of the Reith Lectures and BBC programming such as Prof. Brian Cox’s ‘Wonders of the Solar System’. He then went on to reiterate his commitment to the dual support system for universities and the Haldane Principle – that decisions about where to allocate research spend are made at arms-length from governments. He recognised the argument that many in the scientific community, including CaSE, have made; that other countries have responded to the recession by increasing their spend on science, as a pathway to growth, but stated that these countries’ deficits were less than that of the UK. He stressed however that Vince Cable, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, and Chancellor George Osborne both understood the value of science to re-balancing the economy.

The Minister said that the coalition government had so far ‘been good’ for science; with Professor Sir John Beddington, Government Chief Scientific Advisor, updating guidelines on the use of evidence in policy-making, and the new principles on the treatment of independent scientific advice now referred to in the Ministerial Code. However, not unexpectedly, he could not give a commitment to levels of funding which science and HE will receive into the future: this is an announcment which must wait until the Comprehensive Spending Review later this year.

The second part of the Minister’s speech focused on the economic case for investing in science, before moving on to outline his priorities for science in the coming months and years. Public spend on science has to stand up to public scrutiny, the Minister said, and although sceptical of the ‘impact agenda’ as currently framed, the Minister sees a need to demonstrate and measure the impact of research – on the economy, policy or society. A researcher cannot see publishing a certain number of papers in a particular peer-reviewed journal as their only measure of success, or impact, he stressed later during Q and A. Hence the delay of the REF for a year, to allow assessment of the impact pilot but also to learn from schemes being developed in the USA. The Society of Biology welcomed the delay during the Q and A session.

The Minister outlined his support for ‘clusters’, which he described as ‘low risk environments for high risk’ endeavours, singling out Dundee and the computer games development industry ‘clustering’ around Abertay University. He criticised the commonly voiced notion that the ‘British invent but fail to capitalise on’ discoveries. Instead, he said, the UK has demonstrated its capacity to capitalise on the research which happens elsewhere. Science investment matters, he said, partly because it increases the absorptive capacity of the UK: our ability to apply science here and as such reap rewards for our economy.

Transparency on the part of scientists, with greater sharing of data, was also highlighted as vital, and the Minister also commented that he had raised the importance of libel law reform with the Ministry of Justice: an importance which had been recognised.

Finally, the Minister outlined three priorities for his portfolio, which will form the focus of policy:
1) Investing in shared research facilities (research platforms)
2) Government playing a greater role in procurement (for example, to support small and medium sized enterprises – SMEs)
3) Public competitions for new technologies.

On this last point, the Minister singled out the X Prize Foundation for supporting the development of sub-orbital space flight. The Government might not set the prize – this could be driven by the marketplace.

Overall, the Minister seemed genuinely committed to the importance of science and technology. He recognises the worth of science and the importance of evidence-based policy. Yet, it seemed clear too that the case for investment in science still needs to be made to the Treasury. The Minister was pragmatic, stating throughout that cuts will be necessary and at one point that the challenge is to demonstrate ‘hard headed economic returns’ to enable maintenance of basic science.