You are on page 1of 111

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2010/10/20 BBC News: 'Vital' science spared deep cuts .................................................... 194
2010/10/20 Guardian Science Blog: What will the spending review mean for the science
budget?.............................................................................................................................. 196
2010/10/20 Guardian Science Blog: Chances are, we'd all benefit from a statistics lesson 198
2010/10/20 Exquisite Life: Science safe from major cuts? ................................................. 200
2010/10/20 Guardian Science Blog Evan: Don't be spun on science funding - a checklist for
the Spending Review ......................................................................................................... 201
2010/10/20 Exquisite Life: Three reasons not to kill the messenger .................................. 203
2010/10/20 RSC: Science budget frozen in spending review ............................................. 205
2010/10/20 Exquisite Life: More power to the state ......................................................... 206
2010/10/20 Physics World: UK science spared from budget cuts ...................................... 208
2010/10/20 Exquisite Life: Today I gave David Willetts flowers. Have I gone mad? ........... 209
2010/10/20 Daily Mail: Break out the Champagne - or at least the Cava. .......................... 212
2010/10/20 Guardian Science Blog: The government agrees: Science is vital .................... 213
2010/10/20 Science Insider: Just a Flesh Wound? U.K. Science Budget Spared Deep Cuts 215
2010/10/20 Nature: UK science saved from deepest cuts ................................................. 216
2010/10/20 Telegraph: Spending Review: Science budget escapes swingeing cuts ........... 217
2010/10/20 Guardian Science: Science community relieved as it escapes spending axe ... 219
2010/10/20 The Independent: Academics celebrate as science budget frozen ................. 220
2010/10/20 BBC Q&A: Science in the Spending Review ..................................................... 222
2010/10/20 BBC: Reaction to the science cuts................................................................... 225
2010/10/20 Royal Society: Spending Review: UK's science budget frozen in cash terms ... 229
2010/10/20 CASE: CaSE Response to the CSR .................................................................... 229
2010/10/20 Nature World View: Scientists vs engineers: this time it's financial ................ 230
2010/10/21 New Scientist S word: What does the UK spending review mean for science?
........................................................................................................................................... 233
2010/10/21 The Independent: Science: Willetts wins funding battle with warning of 'brain
drain' ................................................................................................................................. 235
2010/10/21 BBC News: How science was saved from the axe ........................................... 236
2010/10/21 Times HE: Spending on pure science 'needs to be protected' ........................ 238
2010/10/21 Exquisite Life: Save the intellectuals ............................................................... 239
2010/10/22 The Great Beyond: Ruth’s Reviews: 'Life Ascending' scoops Royal Society prize
........................................................................................................................................... 241
2010/10/23 Alice Bell Blog: Engaging audiences: rethinking “difference”.......................... 242
2010/10/23 Exquisite Life: Why Cameron lacks credibility on growth ............................... 245
2010/10/23 JoBrodie: Beyond blogging - science engagement online #IASBB ................... 247
2010/10/25 FT blog: The £1.4bn cost of winding down the RDAs ...................................... 248
2010/10/25 dellabean: SCIENCE IS VITAL – MY JOURNEY .................................................. 249
2010/10/25 Exquisite Life: Cameron's Hauser problem ..................................................... 261
2010/10/25 Exquisite Life: How to read David Willetts' speech to vice chancellors at the
HEFCE conference .............................................................................................................. 262
2010/10/25 Guardian: David Cameron to unveil growth plan amid City jitters over economy
........................................................................................................................................... 272
2010/10/25 Guardian Science Blog Martin: Where are the women in the 'population
control' debate?................................................................................................................. 274
2010/10/26 The Great Beyond: Despite decent showing in R&D spend, Europe warns of
‘innovation emergency’ ..................................................................................................... 278
2010/10/26 Guardian Science Blog: Skeptics: It's time to stop preaching to the converted
........................................................................................................................................... 279

192 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/27 Guardian Science News: NHS funding for homeopathy risks misleading patients,
says chief scientist ............................................................................................................. 281
2010/10/27 Kieron Flanagan Blog: Is the UK bad at turning science into technology? ....... 282
2010/10/27 Exquisite Life: Three tech questions the regional growth white paper needs to
answer ............................................................................................................................... 284
2010/10/27 Nature World View: Spending review leaves research in the lurch ................ 284
2010/10/27 Increased student fees are not the erosion of a welfare state ....................... 286
2010/10/27 Nature: UK scientists celebrate budget reprieve ............................................ 288
2010/10/28 IASGMOH: The arguments for young people’s involvement in decisions about
science funding .................................................................................................................. 290
2010/10/28 Guardian Science Blog: Who's the geek? ........................................................ 292
2010/10/28 Times HE: The appliance of science lobbying ................................................. 293
2010/10/28 New Scientist S word: UK research spend: cuts could reach 17 per cent ........ 294
2010/10/28 Alice Bell Blog: Anti-quackery underpants ...................................................... 296
2010/10/28 CASE: Science minister issues statement on Haldane Principle… ................... 297
2010/10/29 Guardian Science Blog Martin: The Mystery of the Disappearing Planet ........ 298
2010/10/29 New Scientist S word: The renaissance of Arabic science ............................... 301

193 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 BBC NEWS: 'VITAL' SCIENCE
SPARED DEEP CUTS
By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News

The news has received a cautious welcome, but observers


say the cuts will still impact the economy

The Chancellor George Osborne has announced that the UK's science budget will be frozen in cash terms -
a cut of less than 10% over four years.

The news has been welcomed by those speaking for the research community who had feared deeper cuts.

Mr Osborne said that the effective cut could be managed through efficiency savings.

But there is still concern that the cuts will damage the country's economic competitiveness.

Mr Osborne outlined the settlement in his Spending Review on Wednesday.

"The Secretary of State (for business) and I have decided to protect the science budget. Britain is a world
leader in scientific research and that is vital to our future economic success," said Mr Osborne.

"That is why I am proposing that we do not cut the cash going to the science budget. It will be protected at
£4.6bn per year."

The news has generally been welcomed by the research community, who had feared deeper cuts.

But there is concern over the community's budget for new buildings, equipment and involvement in
international programmes, which was not announced today.

This so-called "capital budget" accounts for 20% of the research budget and may be cut in cash terms.

And some fear that that even these limited cuts will damage the country's economic competitiveness.

Areas of concern

194 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Lord Rees, President of the UK's Royal Society, welcomed the settlement but added: "There remain areas
of concern, especially with regard to capital spending, and the funding of universities."

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case), said the cuts would still hurt the
UK's competitiveness.

"A 10% cut is a significant real-terms cut for UK science when nations like the US and Germany are having
real-terms increases," he said.

"The comparison (of how good the science settlement is) should not be with what is happening across
Whitehall - but how UK science is going to fare internationally because we are in a really competitive global
market."

An initial assessment by Case reveals that there will be limited scope for any capital expenditure by
research funding organisations.

It also suggests there are going to be significant decreases in new research staff entering science and
engineering. Mr Khan speculated that PhD places could fall by up to a tenth next year.

The government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, said that he was "delighted by the
government's decision to protect the science and research budget.

Driving growth

"This is a genuine signal that the government recognises that science and research are vital in driving
growth and securing a strong economic recovery."

There had been indications of much deeper cuts to the science budget. But the Business Secretary Vince
Cable, the science minister David Willetts, the director-general of science and research, Professor Adrian
Smith, along with Professor Beddington argued strongly within government that a stable science base was
key to the UK's economic future.

UK scientists are involved with international astronomy programmes such as Gemini

The next step will be to distribute the new budget among the UK's seven research councils.

This will be determined over the next few weeks in a series of meetings between each research council
head and Professor Smith.

Professor Smith will follow a strategic guide issued by the Treasury which sets out in broad terms the
government's priority areas for research spending.

These are likely to include wealth creation and the delivery of a low carbon economy. The Treasury has
already said in its spending review that the Medical Research Council's (MRC) funding will be maintained in
real terms.

195 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
One research council that is particularly vulnerable, however, is the Science and Technology Facilities
Council (STFC), which has the largest proportion of capital expenditure of all of them.

Until the level of capital spending is agreed many of its international programmes - such as its participation
in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project or the European Southern Observatory (Eso) remain uncertain.

Funding for the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) will fall by an average 5% a year.

But the Chancellor has set aside up to £1bn in carbon, capture and storage, up to £1bn in a green
investment bank and some 200m for offshore wind projects.

He said that the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) would deliver resource
savings of an average 8% a year.

But he added: "We will fund a major improvement in our flood defences and coastal erosion management
that will provide better protection for 145,000 homes."

SPENDING REVIEW - SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

UK science budget frozen in cash terms - cut of less than 10% over four years

From this budget of £4.6bn, efficiency savings of £324m will be found

The energy and climate change department (Decc) will receive a cut of 5% per year

Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to make savings of an average 8%
per year

Up to £1bn to be set aside for a green investment bank

Up to £1bn to be invested in carbon capture and storage technology

Up to £200m set aside for offshore wind technology and manufacturing at port sites

2010/10/20 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG: WHAT


WILL THE SPENDING REVIEW MEAN FOR THE
SCIENCE BUDGET?

Britain's scientists and engineers will hear today how they have fared in the comprehensive spending
review. We ask them for their reaction to the likely freezing of the science budget

Please post your own reactions below

196 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Danny Alexander, chief secretary to
the Treasury, reads a draft of the spending review. How will it affect the science budget? Photograph: Oli
Scarff/Getty Images

The day of reckoning has arrived. This afternoon, George Osborne will lay out where the axe will fall across
government departments, and the picture is likely to be a grim one for many in the public sector.

Sources in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills tell me that the £4.6bn spent each year on
scientific research will be maintained and ringfenced for the next four years, a cut in real terms of around
10% in the science budget taking account of inflation. The capital expenditure budget - a further £1.4bn - is
not protected, and could be halved. The full impact of this may not be clear for some time.

In recent months and weeks, the science budget has been fiercely defended by researchers and supporters
of science. Those in DBIS I spoke with said that science got its act together and put a strong case. I'm told
that both the business secretary, Vince Cable, and the science minister, David Willetts, negotiated hard
with the Treasury to limit the depth of cuts to science.

The chancellor's speech is due to begin at 12.30pm, but my colleagueAndrew Sparrow has already begun
live blogging the spending review and will push on through until the end of the day.

Evan Harris, a former MP and Liberal Democrat science spokesman, has written a blog on how to judge the
spending review here. He advises we avoid jumping for joy until the fat lady has sung.

I will be gathering reactions to the announcement from researchers and campaign groups and posting
them in the comments below, but do please join in with your own thoughts on what the cuts mean.

We can only expect an overall figure for the science budget today. It could take months for Cable's team to
work out how the money is allocated between the research councils, the national academies, the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (which funds university research) and other bodies. Adrian Smith,
the Business, Innovation and Skills director general for research, will be advising Cable on this. This is a
crucial process, as it will shed light on the fields of research that the government wants to prioritise. The
bottom line is that it could be some time before researchers in a particular field know how well - or not -
their area has fared.

197 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG:
CHANCES ARE, WE'D ALL BENEFIT FROM A
STATISTICS LESSON

With large numbers of scientists about to become unemployed, the public is going to need some serious
protection from statisticians who go bad, says Frank Swain

Vincent and Fast Eddie aka Tom


Cruise and Paul Newman in The Color Of Money Photograph: Allstar/Touchstone/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Today, in case you didn't know, is World Statistics Day, a UN-sponsored event celebrating the "many
contributions and achievements of official statistics". I'm not sure why the UN felt the need to emphasise
that only official statistics would be honoured, as if implying that unofficial statistics like your annual take-
home salary or the number of women you've bedded are somehow less credible as contributions and
achievements. Starting at the aesthetically pleasing time of 20:10 (on 20/10/2010), the Royal Statistical
Society Centre for Statistical Education kicks off a 10-year statistical literacy campaign, getstats, aimed at
helping Britons understand numbers about numbers, so that we can make better-informed choices and
live better lives as a result.

This is somewhat ironic, as the statistic weighing on the minds of most mathematicians (and of all British
scientists) is the proposed 25% cuts to the UK science budget. If that happens, we shouldn't be surprised if
itinerant scientists start popping up on street corners selling copper stripped from solenoids and offering
to read your fortune with multi-dimensional Myers-Briggs matrices. The most dangerous among these
Royal Society rascals will be the statisticians, precisely because they understand odds better than we can.

198 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
One such tool of their trade might be a set of non-transitive dice. A curious little toy not well-known
beyond geek circles, a typical set has three different dice, all with an unusual number of spots on each
face. The game is to choose a die and roll against your opponent. Whoever rolls highest wins, and best of
10 takes the pot. But no matter which die you choose, the shady nerd will almost always win. If you decide
to try a double-or-nothing round, using the trickster's preferred die, the geek will still win. How?

Non-transitive dice are the mathematician's version of rock-paper-scissors. Each die is strong against one
of the dice, and weak against the other. Trying to pick the "best" die is pointless – so long as the huckster
chooses their die second, he or she will always win on average. It's like trying to win at rock-paper-scissors
where your opponent only ever casts after you.

Pondering this, I wondered aloud whether the nation's favourite fact-based card game, Top Trumps, was
just an example of a glorified set of non-transitive dice. Armed with a pack of limited edition 007 Best of
Bond Top Trumps, I began to pick apart the secrets of the deck, with help from James Grime, a
mathematical wunderkind whose many wonderful videos on YouTube explore the world of numbers.

First question: was the highest-scoring card in the pack also the most likely to win a round? Answer: Not
necessarily. Despite having twice as many points as Sean Connery in total, the sharply dressed henchman
Oddjob ismarginally less likely to come out best in any particular draw. (The highest-scoring card, in case
you're wondering, is the aptly-named Xenia Onatopp, played by Famke Janssen's thighs in Goldeneye).
Here I'd used the total number of points for comparing cards, which is a bit of a lazy fudge, and Grime told
me as much. Much better would be to ask what the average outcome for every single one of the 870
possible combinations of cards would be. And here it is, in a slightly awkward Excel chart:

By tracing a horizontal line against the character's name, you can see how well they fare against the others.
Xenia Onatopp's path is mostly green, indicating that she wins on average. Poor old CIA agent Felix Leiter
almost never wins.

Top Trumps is a game of two halves, and if it's your opponent's turn, they're likely to pick their character's
strongest suit. So the "best" card also has to be able to defend itself when attacked by another card's
strongest suit. Here the set up of Top Trumps is more telling. The six James Bond cards always have more
199 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
than 50% chance of surviving a challenge by any other card, no matter what suit the opponent chooses.
(The only blip in this near-flawless performance is by George Lazenby, funnily enough.) Just look at the
defensive strength of MI6's premier Scottish secret agent compared to pint-sized personal assistant Nick
Nack:

So all-in-all, Top Trumps isn't a set of non-transitive dice, because there isn't an unbroken chain of cards
that each have a >50% chance of beating the previous card. Some characters are destined to be bit players
(sorry, Miss Moneypenny). Grime, however, had other ideas. In a flourish of genius he produced values for
a perfectly balanced set of Top Trumps, where every character could beat the previous card more than
50% of the time, a Penrose Staircase fashioned from Top Trumps cards.

I spoke to Ben Meakin, the product development manager at Winning Moves (the company responsible for
Top Trumps) who has personally developed more than 70 different editions of Top Trumps. He confirmed
that each card in a pack of Top Trumps could win a hand, even if some weren't as good as others. "Every
card has a chance," he said. "But a couple will be Top Trumps – literal top cards." The trick was to make the
game exciting while still making it winnable for both players. To obscure the relative strengths and
weakness of the cards, different scales were used for each suit: "In this way we can engage kids and get
them to think about probabilities, which is an important educational part of Top Trumps." I tell Meakin
about Grime's perfectly balanced set of non-transitive cards, and ask if a "Statistician's Top Trumps" using
this formula is possible in the near future. "Well, we get a lot of requests," he says, "Everything from farm
machinery to serial killers." I sense that's a no.

Dreams of entrepreneurship dashed, there's nothing left for me and Grime now other than to begin
trawling dive bars and pool joints like a nerdy reimagining of Fast Eddie and Vincent, suckering money out
of unsuspecting punters with our curiously numbered dice and mathematically stacked decks of Top
Trumps cards. Now more than ever, the British public needs a campaign for statistical literacy, lest we fall
victim to the approaching wave of scientifically trained shysters.

2010/10/20 EXQUISITE LIFE: SCIENCE SAFE


FROM MAJOR CUTS?
The news broke yesterday evening that the UK's £4.6 billion science budget would be protected from cuts
in today's comprehensive spending review. The Times, The Guardian, the BBC and the Financial Times all
carried various versions of the story.

200 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
A flat cash settlement—that is, no changes to the science budget—for the next four years is probably
about the best outcome the science community could hope for, but it still amounts to a 10 per cent cut
over the four years once inflation is taken into account.

Given that researchers were bracing themselves for cuts of up to 25 per cent, and had taken to the
streets in protest, this will be seen as a victory. But there are still questions left unanswered.

Piecing together the various reports, it seems that the "protected" money includes the budget for the
seven research councils, the Higher Education Funding Council for England's quality-related research
funding, the Technology Strategy Board and R&D tax credits. Major capital expenditure will be cut by 50
per cent, but a few projects have already been singled out as safe, including theUK Centre for Medical
Research and Innovation and the Diamond Light Source synchrotron.

This leaves the fate of other big facilities in limbo. The Science and Technology Facilities Council has
previously said that big cuts in capital funding could mean a big facility may have to be mothballed. With
Diamond protected, is the ISIS neutron courcein danger?

And though the research councils' budget as a whole is safe from cuts, the allocations for the individual
councils are still to be decided. The government is likely to exert some pressure on the councils to align
their research programmes with the government's strategic priorities, and to maximise the return on
investment. This could leave some councils with less obvious economic benefits—such as, perhaps, the
Arts and Humanities Research Council—facing bigger cuts.

Finally, the higher education budget has not been protected. It is almost certain to face huge cuts—
the Browne review of university finance indicated cuts of around 80 per cent. What the effect of this will
be on the UK's universities remains unknown.

Posted by Brian Owens

2010/10/20 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG EVAN:


DON'T BE SPUN ON SCIENCE FUNDING - A
CHECKLIST FOR THE SPENDING REVIEW

Evan Harris, a veteran of spending announcements, warns the science community to be cautious before
claiming salvation

201 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
A freeze in science funding equates
to a real terms cut of 8.9% over three years. Photograph: Corbis

Remember the trick played by Labour in 1999 when it announced a three-year boost for the NHS of £21
billion which turned out to be an increase of £3.5bn each year for three years? By adding 3.5 + 7 + 10.5, the
government was - for the first time ever - giving a cumulative figure. The true increase in spending was
£10.5bn but through a sneaky double/triple count it was spun as twice the size. One major NHS player said
that a £21bn increase was "beyond his wildest dreams" - which was true since it really was a fantasy.

For the next three years the Secretary of State for Health read back this comment to him and opposition
spokesmen like me who exposed the true figures and complained about the over-hype.

So when we read this morning that the government has let it be known that science and research have
escaped significant cuts, we need to be cautious and avoid hostages to fortune.

I set out in this post back in September the basis upon which the spending review should be considered.
This is my six-point guide for considering the science R&D settlement

1) Consider only real terms figures

These are inflation-proof. They reflect more closely the real world (hence the adjective). A cash "freeze" for
science is predicted for the CSR, which is a real terms cut of 8.9% over three years. A cut is not a freeze.

2) Will a 10% cut in real terms be managed without pain?

The Royal Society has forecast that a 10% cut in real terms "would be painful but manageable, and could
only be delivered through substantial efficiency savings, and some rebalancing of investment priorities."
Even that, however, does not take account of some other factors and it requires substantial reinvestment
after the four-year term to reverse the damage done. Furthermore, UK science is already efficient and only
work judged excellent is funded, so there is not much scope for efficiency savings from cutting grants.

3) How does it compare with what our competitors are doing?

Scientific research is a global undertaking with a relatively mobile skilled workforce and the fact is that our
major rivals are increasing investment in R&D even as they battle their own deficits. In relative terms,
therefore, a 10% real terms cut is worse.

4) We don't know the plans for capital spending

Some current expenditure (including part of what we pay for major projects like CERN, which hosts the
Large Hadron Collider) is funded out of capital. The outgoing Labour government proposed 50% cuts in
202 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
planned capital expenditure, which the coalition has said it will not cut further overall. But what that
means for science is not clear. Capital is important in science of course both in terms of new facilities that
are state of the art but also to renew existing equipment. The one part of Labour's mixed record on science
R&D that cannot be quibbled with is the significant capital investment it oversaw, which is a fitting legacy
to former science ministers Lords Sainsbury and Drayson.

5) We do not yet know if the £2.1bn of R&D funded by other government departments is at risk

Although this spending is not formally part of the science budget or even the Department for Business,
Innovation and Skills (BIS) science spend (which also includes university research funding allocated by the
Higher Education Funding Council for England) the jobs it pays for are just as real, the scientific
programmes it supports are just as high quality as those funded through BIS.

If these are cut in cash terms then the reduction in science R&D is greater than 10% and the scope for
terrible cuts is considerable given the pressure on other government departments. Those figures - buried
within departmental budgets - will not be available for at least a few days.

6) There may be greater cuts in some research councils when the cake is divided up

The division may not be pro-rata as government will want it to match its research priority areas. There is
nothing wrong with government specifying broad areas (as long as it does so transparently because it is
accountable for taxpayers' money), but this could mean deep cuts in some areas. If theScience and
Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which mostly funds physics and funds much of the subject, is hit then
there will be damage. This is because the STFC has already faced cuts under Labour and has less scope for
savings because much of its budget is pre-spent on large facilities and international subscriptions. In fact if
anyone doubts the impact of a flat cash settlement they need only look at what STFC went through in
2008-9 and is still going through.

Overall, I would agree with those who believe the science community may have had an escape from the
prospect of terrible cuts. We should also judge that David Willetts, Vince Cable and Adrian Smith (the
director general for science and research at BIS) have done a fine job.

I also applaud the scientific "great and the good" like the Royal Society and other learned societies for their
lobbying. And we should pay special tribute to my colleagues in the "down and dirty" Science is Vital
campaign with their 35,000 signatories approving their direct pressure onWestminster and Whitehall,
which shows that political action by scientists can produce results.

But it is best to reserve final judgment for when the figures have become clear. That may not be the case
even by this afternoon. Many scientists also get paid to teach or work alongside those who teach in
universities, and it would be polite to see what is planned for them before popping the champagne corks.

2010/10/20 EXQUISITE LIFE: THREE REASONS


NOT TO KILL THE MESSENGER
Press officers in research councils, arms-length bodies and universities are rushed off their feet today
ensuring that the voices of their vice chancellors, scientists and CEOs are heard above the din around the
CSR.

We now hear the great news that the government has spared research from the worst of the axe, but will
those who have valiantly spoken on behalf of the whole of science be so lucky?

203 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
The alarm bells rang for me when one government-funded research body suggested some months ago
they may have to cancel a press briefing at the Science Media Centre. This was after emails sent by BIS
appeared to impose wide-ranging restrictions on promotional and marketing activities until after the CSR.
As with pre-election purdah, the rules were possibly over-interpreted by cautious managers. But
separately, one press officer told me: “Our staff and communications budgets have been frozen at exactly
the time when it was important for us to be more visible.”

To those eyeing up the budgets of the media relations departments I would say the following:

First, it has taken decades for the scientific community to embrace the fact that being funded by the public
purse makes them accountable to the public for what they do in their labs. Such has been the impact of
that engagement that in David Willetts’ first speech as science minister he claimed that the scientific way
of thinking is fast becoming the language that binds us together in an otherwise diverse society. One need
only look at the long-term impacts of disastrous debates over GM crops and MMR to see the high price
that academics and clinicians pay when they fail to engage effectively with public concerns.

Cuts to the PR departments of universities and research councils may be welcomed by some who would
like nothing better than to retreat to their ivory towers, but such a move would be a major setback to the
public’s support for and understanding of science.

My second point was made better by Laura Gallagher, Research Media Relations Manager at Imperial
College London:

“University researchers are helping us to understand the world in which we live and their work improves
our quality of life, whether that’s through creating a better treatment for a disease, developing a
technological innovation, or finding a way of generating cleaner energy. We need professional
communicators to tell the story of this work in an accurate and accessible way, generating excitement
about what researchers are achieving, inspiring the next generation of scientists and contributing to a
scientifically literate society.”

And third, in the kind of hard-headed argument we know the Treasury likes, there is evidence that publicity
for cutting edge science pays dividends. University press officers who have assessed the impact of their
work can demonstrate that media coverage has led to private sector investment from global companies, as
well as opportunities to create new spin-out ventures. It also attracts new students, results in new
collaborations with national and international researchers and leads to invitations to give keynote
addresses at scientific meetings.

Does anyone really think that the UK would continue to attract the kind of researchers of the calibre of the
Russia-born physicists who allowed us to claim credit for this year’s physics Nobel if the UK’s universities
did not publicise their academic achievements around the world? And has anyone ever thought through
how the MRC and universities recruit people to take part in their cutting edge clinical trials?

Posted by Fiona Fox


Comments
You say
"Does anyone really think that the UK would continue to attract the kind of researchers of the calibre of the
Russia-born physicists who allowed us to claim credit for this year‘s physics Nobel if the UK‘s universities did
not publicise their academic achievements around the world?"
Well yes, I do. I believe that good physicists are likely to be attracted by good physics, not by hyped up PR
stories
Posted by: David Colquhoun

204 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 RSC: SCIENCE BUDGET FROZEN IN
SPENDING REVIEW
The UK's science budget will suffer a 10 per cent cut in real terms over the next four years and higher
education has been hit hard in the government's public spending review announced today.

After recent fears that the science budget could be cut by up to 25 per cent, a tide of cautious relief has
spread through the UK's scientific community as chancellor George Osborne announced this afternoon that
science spending will be frozen at £4.6 billion a year through to 2014/15.

In practice, this will mean will mean real terms cuts of around 10 per cent, a better outcome than most had
feared. Further efficiency savings of £324 million will be made within the science budget, although details
of how were not given.

The UK government has announced deep cuts in its spending review

'A flat cash settlement is the best one could have hoped for, but it is a real terms cut from a starting level
of spending that's already not high by international standards,' says Richard Jones, pro-vice chancellor for
research and innovation at Sheffield University, UK. 'But that ring fence is really important because it
means you can plan for the future.'

Science funding is covered by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), whose budget will be
cut by an average of 7.1 per cent each year through to 2014/15. With the science budget protected, higher
education funding (also covered by BIS) is taking a significant hit - a 40 per cent reduction from £7.1 billion
to £4.2 billion by 2014/15. Higher and further education funding combined will be reformed to deliver
around 65 per cent of resource savings in the department as a whole.

Osborne today said that universities were 'the jewel in our economic crown' but that funding mechanisms
needed to be overhauled. Significant increases to university tuition fees were proposed last week in the
Browne review and an official response to the recommendations is due in the coming weeks, but the cuts
to teaching budgets announced today mean departments will be heavily reliant on attracting students
willing to pay higher rates for the courses they offer.

'One would hope that quality of teaching and the student experience will have a positive impact and the
students will still come and will pay the higher fees,' says Geoff Cloke of the University of Sussex's
chemistry department. 'But the cuts are likely to have a serious impact on recruitment and retention of
post-graduate students who are the engine for the generation of new science and technology. Universities
might be "the jewel in our economic crown" - but it seems like the students are going to be expected to
pay for the diamonds.'

205 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Jones emphasises that although the science budget is ring fenced, university research is carried out in
science departments that have a 'mixed economy', relying on funds from teaching and science budgets.
'The very large cuts in teaching budgets that we're anticipating are going to be very destabilising, and we
don't know how that's going to affect science departments,' he says.

'There's a big question about how many universities with chemistry departments believe they can recruit
students at the sort of level that they would need to charge fees that would replace the loss of public
funding,' says Paul Cottrell, national head of public policy at the Universities and College Union. 'Some
departments or institutions are just not going to be able to survive in that market place.'

He adds: 'We didn't think that the government would essentially go for wholesale privatisation of higher
education which is essentially the plan. We're very worried about the whole picture that being presented
as the future of higher education.'

Further details on departmental savings are expected in the coming weeks.

Anna Lewcock

2010/10/20 EXQUISITE LIFE: MORE POWER TO


THE STATE
The impact of Browne is less independence for universities

Lord Browne's report must worry every reader of Research Fortnight. The part that explains why students
must now contribute significantly to the costs of their education is unexceptional and was indeed widely
anticipated.

That part of the report has embraced many excellent principles. Government-backed money should follow
the student rather than be distributed to universities as block grants; state-funded universities may, within
certain upper limits, charge the fees the market will bear; and no student should have to pay fees upfront
but will be required to repay loans made on realistic but nonetheless modest interest rates.

Certain large London-based universities might not survive a freer market in fees, but that is the whole
point about markets: they weed out the weaker offerings.

But Browne has made another, more worrisome recommendation that is probably justified but which
nonetheless needs challenging: he has suggested extending the government fee-loan scheme to cover
part-time undergraduate students. Currently these students -- like many masters' students -- operate
within a largely free market, with their fees not being underpinned by government support.

Is this really the time to widen public programmes? Part-time students, generally adults in work, are one of
the current triumphs of higher education, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of students and proving, on
graduation, to earn on average more than full-time undergraduates. So if part-time undergraduate
education ain't broke, and if it is succeeding so well without taxpayer support, why is Browne fixing it?

Browne says that some people might be disincentivised by the current market in part-time fees, but the
evidence he proffers is slim, and since Browne has in his report already slain one sacred cow (he shows
how the 2003 predictions that top-up fees would reduce undergraduate admissions were absurdly wrong)

206 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
it must worry us to see him create a new one. If Browne really believes that this extension of government
support might increase social justice, where is his cost-benefit analysis?

Yet the real anxiety over Browne comes towards the end of his report where he suggests a comprehensive
restructuring of the agencies of higher education. There are currently six government agencies on which
Browne has designs: UCAS, the Student Loans Company, HEFCE, the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), the
Office of Independent Adjudication (OIA) and the Office of Fair Access (OFFA).

Browne suggests subordinating the SLC to UCAS, which would then act as a one-stop-shop to coordinate
both the admissions of students to universities and to process their loan applications. The justification
Browne gives for using UCAS and the SLC into a new body he calls Student Finance is that, currently, each
of the existing bodies forces students to fill in separate forms. Well, really. If, as Browne claims, students
are thus deterred, why not just not ask the two bodies to design a joint form?

Browne further proposes fusing the other four bodies, HEFCE, QAA, OIA and OFFA into one new body, to
be called the Higher Education Council. But Browne offers no rationale for this huge merger.

Because Browne has removed from HEFCE one of its two raisons d'etre, he hints that in its new incarnation
it would be too small to be viable. Yet the REF budget will still be considerable, so why – since, as Browne
admitted in his report, he has made no study of research - can he advise on the dispensation of a research
agency, which is what the residual HEFCE will be?

Browne gives no reasons for wanting to merge the QAA, either, into his new body. The QAA attracts its
share of criticism, so he presumably feels that it needs to be taken over by someone. Yet the QAA is
improving, and no-one has shown that its acquisition would increase its rate of improvement.

As for the OIA, HEFCE already stretches every rule of corporate governance by having been designated,
under the 2006 Charities Act, the sector's regulator as well as its funder, yet Browne – perversely – wants
to further diminish independent regulation by folding the OIA into a new larger body too. He does not say
why.

From his remarks Browne clearly doesn't rate OFFA's effectiveness, so he wants to subsume that too in his
new body. Again, he doesn't say why.

British HE is a vast industry with a turnover of £24 billion annually, which is larger than the advertising,
pharmaceutical or aerospace industries. Although the Government is pressing for a reduction in the
numbers of quangos in Britain, a £24 billion industry merits a proper portfolio of independent quangos, if
only to help them monitor each other. The lessons of 1688 and 1776 should not be lost: we need a
separation - not a concentration - of government powers in higher education.

To conclude: Browne has not wasted a crisis, and he has used the bankruptcy of the Government to
propose a huge reduction in the universities' financial dependence on the state. That is a good thing, both
empirically and morally. Empirically it is a good thing because the international picture confirms that the
more financially independent are a nation's universities (the USA is the obvious example) the better are
those universities. But it is also a good thing morally, because the prime beneficiary of a university
education is the graduate, so he or she should bear their share of the costs.

Unfortunately Browne has also tried to use the universities' residual financial dependence on the state to
increase the government's power over them in ways that flout the principle of university independence.
Happily, though, the very residual nature of the universities' remaining financial dependence on the state
also adumbrates their escape mechanism.

Posted by Terence Kealey

207 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 PHYSICS WORLD: UK SCIENCE
SPARED FROM BUDGET CUTS

Jewel in the crown

Physicists in the UK have today breathed a sigh of relief over the settlement for the country's science
budget. It had been feared that cuts of up to 25% could have been made to the science budget in today's
Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) but that figure will now be frozen at £4.6bn for the next four years.
However, physicists are still cautious of how this money will filter down into the individual research
councils that fund physics projects and give grants to physicists.

The long-awaited CSR details departmental spending for the four years from 2011 to 2015. Speaking in the
House of Commons, Chancellor George Osborne announced that the £21bn budget for the Department of
Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) – which is responsible for funding science and research – will be cut by
around 7.1% a year for the next four years. However, the science budget in BIS will not see any cuts and
will be kept constant at £4.6bn over the next four years. This will still mean a reduction of around 10%
once inflation is taken into account, which currently stands at 3.1%.

The announcement also comes with a guarantee that the science budget will the "ring-fenced" meaning
that the money allocated for the science budget cannot be spent elsewhere. "Britain is a world leader in
scientific research and this is vital to our future economic success," Osborne said in his budget statement.
"I am confident that our [scientific] output can increase over the next few years." Osborne also singled out
the Diamond Light Source synchrotron in Oxfordshire as a facility that has economic benefit for Britain and
announced £69m of funding that will enable it to construct more experimental beamlines.

Challenging years ahead

"It is good news for UK science." says Marshall Stoneham, president of the Institute of Physics, which
publishes physicsworld.com. "I am confident that we will have the skill and determination to weather the
next few years, and to contribute to the re-growth of our economy. In the longer term, I hope we will see a
return to a steady increase in the level of funding for research, both by the public and the private sectors."

"[But] make no mistake," he adds. "Even with a flat cash settlement, the next few years will be challenging
ones." Stoneham warns that the science community will need to work "very hard" to retain the best young

208 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
researchers and avoid any damage to the UK's international reputation given that other countries are
increasing their investment in research.

It is now expected that Research Councils UK (RCUK) – an umbrella organization of the UK's seven research
councils – which distributes the science budget, will start negotiating with the individual councils about
how the £4.6bn is divided between them over the next four years. That process is expected to take until
mid-December. "At this time we cannot speculate about the allocation that will be made to individual
councils or the impact on specific disciplines," says an RCUK statement.

Some physicists fear that even though the science budget will be kept constant, some councils, including
the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which supports key science facilities as well as
astronomy, particle physics, nuclear physics and space research, may still see its annual £490m budget cut.
Indeed, BIS will allow the £525m annual budget for the Medical Research Council to rise with inflation over
the CSR period, which will put some pressure on the budgets of the other six research councils. "This
means that some research councils will see a cut of around 13% in real terms," says physicist Philip
Moriarty from the University of Nottingham.

The STFC's budget has been hammered over the last few years due to a £80m hole in its finances, which
was discovered in late 2007. Any further cuts to the squeezed STFC budget would likely do further harm to
grants for UK physicists because the bulk of the STFC's budget goes on subscriptions to multinational labs
such as CERN, which are difficult to reduce or pull-out from entirely. "We have seen before with the STFC
that a flat-cash settlement can result in grant reductions of 25–40%," says particle physicist Mark Lancaster
from University College London.

Some fear that RCUK's Large Facilitates Capital Fund, which typically has a budget of £100m per year to go
on the construction of new facilities or on upgrading existing facilities, could be cut by as much as 50%.
Indeed, a statement from RCUK released today says that the cut in capital funding will present "significant
challenges to research".

As some of the budget for the ISIS neutron scattering centre in Oxfordshire and part of the CERN
subscription comes from the capital fund, any money to pay for those facilities would likely have to be
found elsewhere. "It is likely that any shortfall will end up coming out of grants for researchers," says
Lancaster.

Michael Banks is news editor of Physics World

2010/10/20 EXQUISITE LIFE: TODAY I GAVE


DAVID WILLETTS FLOWERS. HAVE I GONE MAD?
Before the CSR announcement, Evan Harris warned us not to be deceived by the spin. Other journalists at
the press conference looked at me with bemusement. But there I was, handing over a bunch of liliies and
roses. Even I thought I maybe was going a bit loopy.

Like everyone else, I’m relieved the settlement wasn’t worse. But even so, it would still be perfectly
possible to argue this is not a day for flowers.

Day-by-day spending on science will be flat for the next four years, a real terms cut of 9 per cent - more if
inflation is higher than the government is promising (not unlikely given the beneficial effects of higher
inflation on debt and growth). Capital spending will suffer deep cuts, a particular threat to the STFC’s range
of capital projects. Defence spending is down. Apart from health and green stuff, spending across the other

209 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
government departments on science will almost certainly be seriously down. Even if the Technology
Strategy Board does OK, its dancing partner in regional hi-tech spending is almost certainly going to be
down a lot. We don’t know what will happen to R&D tax credits. And looming over it all is the Browne
Report, which could if implemented badly leave many universities seriously short of cash.

But despite everything, there is reason in the floral madness.

The country simply is a lot poorer than it was, or thought it was. Science has to accept some of the pain of
adjusting to that reality. Looking at this settlement, there’s no reason for thinking it’s worse than things
would have been under Labour. And the consequences don’t look too awful.

Big capital projects are by their very nature things that take years to plan, years to implement and should
generate benefits for years. So the capital cuts we are looking at effectively mean deferring some
important things, and possibly in due course deciding to do something else instead. Annoying, but not
unreasonable.

The flat cash settlement for day-to-day spending is also not obviously badly damaging, especially as it is
ring-fenced. One way for universities to respond would be with a pay freeze. With unemployment rising,
why not?

In other words, flat cash doesn’t necessarily mean less science, it could just mean less in the pay packets of
scientists.

Yes, Browne is a big, big uncertainty but there is still time for the Coalition to make it work.

Meanwhile, underneath the surface something very important has happened.

Since the election there has been a question mark where the Coalition’s strategy for growth should be.
George Osborne managed to get through his emergency budget without explaining where growth would
come from. Meanwhile, it was far from clear that the Department for Business Innovation and Skills was in
fact the ‘Department for Growth’ that it is now being touted as. Back in the summer, Willetts and Vince
Cable could not even bring themselves to utter the sounds “TSB”.

None of that was a surprise. The last time we had a Conservative prime minister, there was no TSB, or
anything like it. Growth was supposed to come from a private sector loosened from the ties of red tape
and taxes. Public spending on “near market” research was banned. There simply was no role for the state
in developing a hi-tech economy.

Even when this approach softened rhetorically and intellectually under Michael Heseltine in the later years,
the money was never there to actually make a difference.

In the months after the election, we found ourselves in no man’s land. On the one hand, Osborne resisted
the temptation to revert to 1980s-style rhetoric on growth. Even when announcing the cuts in Corporation
Tax, the justification was in terms of international tax competition and winning inward investment, not a
more general claim that low taxes would lead the private sector to grow more rapidly.

On the other hand, There was no explanation of where growth would come from, nor any explanation of
what the state’s role was in trying to stimulate that growth. Pre-election talk of a rebalancing the economy
towards hi-tech industrial sectors evaporated.

Well, now we’re past that. As of today, the Coalition does have a view on the place of science and
innovation in generating growth. It’s there in Osborne’s speech and the CSR book. The two themes of
today were “fairness” and “growth”. And wherever “growth” was, “science” was not far behind. Science
has come into the centre of the Coalition’s thinking about growth.

210 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
“I’m a great fan of the TSB,” Willetts said today. What a change that is from three months ago.

Near market research? Yes, Conservative ministers will be spending hundreds of millions a year on that.

In my view, this is smart politics for the Coalition. It doesn’t matter that the Coalition’s approach is
increasingly similar to Labour’s in this area. Come the election, it will be Labour that has to differentiate
itself from the government’s position.

More importantly, the greatest hazard the Coalition faces in getting re-elected is a lack of growth. The
country is about to go through a painful time. Bad as it may be, it will edge towards the intolerable if the
economy does not pick up. With growth - new jobs, rising wages, a sense that things are getting better.
Without growth - intensifying bitterness.

Despite all the promises, the Coalition can have no confidence in achieving the sunny scenario. It depends
too much on the global economy and other things out of their control. Geoffrey Howe, who never cut as
deep as Osborne, was rescued by a global boom. But no one’s expecting another one of those in the
coming years. No wonder Mervyn King is talking about a sobre decade - the governor of the Bank of
England thinks we’ve got no choice.

So the Coalition has to plan for the gloomy, no-or-feeble-growth scenario. In that case, a strategy for
growth will become not just an economic but also a political necessity. Even if the growth hasn’t arrived
yet, voters will need to be convinced that the Coalition is doing the right things to deliver growth
eventually.

Now the Coalition is beginning to develop an answer to that challenge - and one that is quite different to
Margaret Thatcher’s. Science, technology, innovation - from today on the Coalition will argue that these
are an important part of our engine of growth, and areas that the government has to support, and that it is
indeed investing in them.

But although this is good politics for the coalition, it is not an altogether confortable place for Willetts to
go. There are too many Conservatives who distrust this kind of talk. Asked today about the change from
the 1980s, he said, “I’m here to look forward, not back.”

“One thing that has changed is the level of empirical evidence. Our research base clearly is the most
productive in the advanced Western world. And evidence is now coming in of economic returns to science.
The empirical research has been very helpful.”

That is exactly what he will need to say to recidivist Conservatives such as the Adam Smith Institute. Look
at the evidence. The world has moved on.

So it was no act of madness. This is what the flowers were for. For getting us out of no mans land. For
leading Conservative economic thinking into the 21st century. For matching new rhetoric with real action
in terms of limited cuts in science. And all in the space of a few short months.

Thank you, David Willetts, for making my day.

Posted by William Cullerne Bown

211 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 DAILY MAIL: BREAK OUT THE
CHAMPAGNE - OR AT LEAST THE CAVA.
So the nightmare did not, in the end, come to pass. A few weeks ago it was looking bad. Cuts of 15, 20
even 25% in the science budget were being mooted in the spending review. I argued, as did just about
everyone else, that anything over 10% would have been dire, and 20%+ would have amounted to game-
over, triggering not so much a brain drain as a cerebral flood. Instead, the science budget has been frozen.
Not a perfect result but far, far better than it could have been.

Britain’s contribution to CERN and the LHC seems safe. Diamond (pictured) will not be closed. We won’t
pull out of ESO. The closure of university departments will not happen. Britain keeps its seat at the
scientific top table.

As recently as the beginning of this week it was still looking grim. Rumours swung this way and that, but by
Tuesday morning they seemed to have stabilised on a pretty firm prediction that the science budget would
be slashed by 10-15%. Not doomsday perhaps, but bad enough. Then came the good-news bombshell.
Interestingly, after a flurry of last-minute cancellations the one press briefing that still went ahead this
afternoon, after the Chancellor’s statement, was given by the science minister David Willetts.

Clever and rather waspish, Mr Willetts creates a good impression. There are plenty of clever minsters of
course, but few speak human as well as this chap. I was impressed how, under a barrage of rather involved
questions involving the arcane details of how exactly the £4.6bn science budget was going to be allocated,
capital expenditure-vs-annual budgets and so forth, he made no attempt to hide behind his officials and
instead referred to his paperwork and made a good stab at giving numerate, clear and lucid answers. He is
on top of his brief, which is a good thing.

The ‘flat cash’ settlement means that the science budget will be frozen for the four years of the SR period.
Of course freezing spending does, in real terms, amount to a cut; thanks to both economic growth and
inflation by 2014-2015 the science budget will have shrunk by 10%. A real-terms 10% cut will, according to
the Royal Society, be ‘painful but manageable’; we shall see.

The devil is in the detail. We still do not know what is happening to capital spending – big one-off dollops
of cash used to fund individual projects.

And we don’t yet know how the money that we do know about is going to be divided up. Then there is the
fact that the £4.6bn figure accounts only for the science funded by Department of Business, Innovation and
Skills – via the Research Councils and ‘QR’ (Quality-Related research), a centrally-allocated chunk of cash

212 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
given to researchers. A fair bit of ‘science’ funding actually comes via other departments, such as the Home
Office or Department of Health.

Some science funding (about £2.2bn) comes from the Department of Health, some from Defence. The
latter may face cuts (Mr Willetts hinted it would) the former probably not (he said ‘medical research’ in
general would be ring-fenced, in real- as opposed to flat-cash terms). So, maybe we can expect the MRC to
do rather better than, say, the STFC which handles the big physics and astronomy projects.

Two things struck me. First, just how insanely complicated the whole structure of science funding in the UK
is. A whole zoo of acronyms and councils, some operating UK-wide, others just in the various bits of the
country. There are the seven research councils, the various bodies overseeing university funding, the
UKCMRI, the various departments and parts of departments outside BIS that fund science, NESTA, the
Royal Society, and so on. There are more, and I certainly don’t pretend to know exactly what they all do or
exactly how they all work. What I do know is that all these bodies consist of cosy bureaucratic empires,
with legions of well-paid chief executives, deputy chief execs, press offices, IT departments, secretaries and
assistants.

Mr Willets talks (probably optimistically) of making up the 8-10% gap caused by inflation by finding
‘efficiencies’. Perhaps a bonfire of the funding-bodies would be a way to go. Yes, a bit of diversity – a
‘healthy ecosystem’ as Mr Willetts puts it – is probably a good thing. But the situation we have now is
absurdly complex.

Secondly, and more happily, we see a stark contrast between the attitude of this government and that of
the last Tory administration, which at times was almost rabidly anti-science. There has been a concerted
campaign in the last few weeks, including demos and behind-the-scenes briefings, to persuade ministers
that cutting R&D would be madness. Science has made its case, made it well and can, fairly be said to have
won. No wonder there were flowers - a huge bunch – for Mr Willetts this afternoon.

2010/10/20 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG: THE


GOVERNMENT AGREES: SCIENCE IS VITAL

The doomsayers predicted we'd fail, but with very little time and a massive effort we scientists have shown
that united we really can get results, says Jenny Rohn

213 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Protesters on the Science is Vital
rally outside the Treasury in London, Saturday 9 October 2010. Photograph: Prateek Buch

Last week, I helped deliver the Science Is Vital petition to Downing Street, attended a lobby of parliament,
and was part of a delegation invited to speak with David Willetts about the importance of science funding
for the economy. During the intervening period, in the calm before the spending review storm, I have been
living in quiet fear of today's announcement. And last night I was genuinely astonished at the news leaked
from the Treasury: that cuts to the scientific research budget were to be much less severe than initially
indicated. Astonished and, yes, happy.

Twitter was alive with jubilation. This morning I woke to a backlash: we wanted investments, not cuts,
people were saying, even though what we lost was far less than the 15% that Julian Huppert MP told us
last week would constitute a victory. We should be wary, not pleased. Although I do not dispute the
wisdom of these sentiments, I think the tide of public opinion will inevitably continue to shift and resettle
today as we struggle to know whether we should be toasting our efforts or sobbing into our pints.

The answer, I suspect, lies somewhere in the middle. I speak now not as the founder or official
spokesperson of Science is Vital, but as someone at the coal face of scientific research, as one of these
young, not quite "excellent" scientists whose career is threatened by the tightening belt of funding. It is no
surprise that our emotions are rollercoastering to such an extent: the campaign has been a long,
exhausting trip. We packed into four weeks a number of great achievements that most campaign groups
would have been happy to notch up after half a year's efforts.

When I kicked this entire thing off a month ago, I truly was not sure we would have any effect on the
government whatsoever. Within hours of tweeting my initial call to arms, someone replied that things like
this never work, that it would probably just be a sad cluster of a dozen scientists demonstrating in the rain.
Even just before the rally, when we had more than 2,000 people signed up to attend, another person
helpfully pointed out that if no one showed up, we'd look ridiculous. And yes, that lonely, rainy scenario
kept me awake for more than a few nights in the runup.

To make some sort of difference, though, hefty inertia needs to be overcome. I think it is human nature to
despair at turning oil tankers, and to think that ordinary people can't make a difference. It is far easier to
criticise than to get off one's seat and at least try to do something. Fortunately, these sorts of inertial types
were in the minority, and the vast majority of people who heard our call responded in an overwhelmingly
positive way: 33,000 signatures; 2,000 demonstrators, 110 MPs signing our early day motion, hundreds of
pieces of news coverage, a packed lobby in parliament. Somewhere in the thick of these successes,
Malcolm Gladwell wrote a sly piece in the New Yorker saying that Twitter couldn't start a revolution. I think
that most would agree that the Science Is Vital campaign proved him wrong.

214 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
For me, the most important thing to remember today is this: by all indications, our message was indeed
heard, and heeded far more than we had any reason to expect or hope. Yes, there is no controlled
experiment where Science is Vital did not exist, but a number of credible sources have credited the science
community's voice for the fact that the announced cuts are less than the 25-40% predicted.

The government's own language suggests that our message became absorbed. David Cameron used the
adjective "vital" when talking about science in prime minister's questions last week, and in today's
announcement, Osborne said: "Britain is a world leader in scientific research and that is vital to our future
economic success."

For this achievement – and make no mistake that it is one – we scientists must allow ourselves a moment
of quiet celebration: not that our research funding has not been cut in real terms, or that UK science is still
not being funded optimally, but that we were able to come together and make some sort of tangible
difference to the outcome.

And perhaps more importantly, we now know, in the face of future threats to science funding, exactly how
powerful we can be when we pull together to make our voices heard. In this respect, scientists will never
be the same again: we've done the experiment.

2010/10/20 SCIENCE INSIDER: JUST A FLESH


WOUND? U.K. SCIENCE BUDGET SPARED DEEP
CUTS
by Daniel Clery, John Travis

Today, many U.K. scientists will likely see the glass as half-full. The U.K. government's long-
awaitedComprehensive Spending Review (CSR) was released today, and it calls for a flat science budget
over the next 4 years. While inflationary costs mean that the budget will likely see a cut of about 10% in
real terms over that period, this scenario is far less dramatic than rumored cuts of 20% to 30% in real cash.
In fact, the flat budget scenario was the best of three options recently considered by the Royal Society in
an analysis given to the government as it was producing the CSR. In that analysis, the society labeled its flat
budget proposal scenario as "Weathering the Storm"—versus "Slash and Burn" and "Game Over" for
scenarios representing cash cuts of 10% and 20% respectively—and concluded: "A flat cash settlement
would be painful but manageable, and could only be delivered through substantial efficiency savings, and
some rebalancing of investment priorities." The society's analysis, however, was done before the coalition
government indicated significant cuts to the block grants given to universities, some of which goes to cover
research costs.

U.K. science bodies and prominent researchers have already issued a wide range of reactions to the CSR,
many expressing relief but others continued concern. Colin Blakemore, former head of the Medical
Research Council, saw the budget as a victory for the vigorous lobbying done recently by scientists: "It is
wonderful to learn that Government has listened to the scientific community. Collectively we have made
the case that funding science is not a cost but a way to invest in creating a stronger economy, which is the
best way to guarantee the recovery that will benefit everyone. It will now be important to maintain the
dialogue with government as it reviews budgetary commitments for the future."

Others are less satisfied. "A 10% cut over four years is a significant blow to the UK's competitiveness. The
Government has failed to recognise what all Charities know, an economic downturn is the time to invest in
215 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
fundraising to ensure future prosperity. It is Research and Development, coupled with skilled people that
will deliver growth. Our international competitors have recognised that: the coalition Government has yet
to fully accept that reality," Mark Downs, CEO of the Society of Biology, said in a statement.

David Willetts, the U.K. science minister, will be holding a briefing later today, and ScienceInsider
and Sciencemagazine will provide further reaction and analysis.

2010/10/20 NATURE: UK SCIENCE SAVED


FROM DEEPEST CUTS
Research councils are spared but other government funding is under threat.

Geoff Brumfiel

George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, did not cut science


as deeply as some other areas.David Wimsett /Photoshot

Core science funding has largely been spared budget cuts in the UK government's spending review. But
capital funding, local agencies and some government departments have been left unprotected.

In total, £4.6 billion (US$7.3 billion) has been promised protection, leaving science advocates in a
celebratory mood. At a briefing at London's Science Media Centre, science minister David Willetts was
greeted with bouquet of white roses — sent by William Cullerne Bown, founder of the science policy
newsletter Research Fortnight. "I'm genuinely relieved," Bown says, in explanation of the gift.

The spending review seeks to slash government spending and the United Kingdom's deficit, which stands
at £109 billion. In putting the plan into action, the government predicts that it will cut nearly half a million
public-sector jobs and slash funding for many government departments. The budget will "confront the bills
from a decade of debt", George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, told parliament in a speech today.

Many departmental budgets are being slashed by 19% or more, but the £4.6-billion core science budget
will remain flat over the period covered by the spending review. Moreover, the budget will be ring-fenced,
meaning that it cannot be raided for other government needs. The core funding includes some £2.75
billion for the research councils and another £1.6 billion in "quality related" research from the Higher
Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE). "We have a fantastic deal for the scientific community,"
said Willetts at the media centre press briefing.

Once projected inflation is factored in, the promise of flat funding for science over the four-year budget
period is equivalent to around a 10% cut. All the same, the settlement is seen as a victory for scientists,
who feared that deeper cuts would leave research councils unable to issue new calls for grants.

Missing billions

216 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
But the new spending document does leave more than £2 billion in research funding unprotected. That
includes roughly £450 million in capital expenditures at the research councils — money that typically goes
towards facilities, and subscriptions to organizations such as the European Space Agency. Willetts says that
the capital budget will face constraints but added that it was too early to provide details.

Some government departments will also face cuts under the plan. Money at the Department of Health will
be protected, but the roughly £650 million spent per year by the Ministry of Defence on basic research will
probably face a "modest" reduction, according to Willetts. Smaller sums spent by departments including
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Department for Transport are also
vulnerable.

Finally, the fate of over £400 million spent each year on science by Regional Development Agencies, local
groups that have often backed research parks near universities, has been left up in the air. The
development agencies will be dissolved after the spending review, and their research efforts will be
transferred to the Technology Strategy Board, a national body that is intended to foster innovation. But in
a hearing at the House of Lords last week, Willetts warned that "there will be a reduction in public funding"
when the cash is moved.

Despite the uncertainties, even sceptical science advocates seemed momentarily disarmed by the budget's
positive outcome. "I'm trying to be a grumpy pants," says Imran Khan, director of the advocacy group
Campaign for Science & Engineering in the UK. However, he admits, the budget is "a very positive step".

2010/10/20 TELEGRAPH: SPENDING REVIEW:


SCIENCE BUDGET ESCAPES SWINGEING CUTS
A freeze in the research funding was welcomed by scientists who had feared swingeing cuts.

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent

The Large Hadron Collider. British science has avoided the worst of the cuts under the Spending
Review. Photo: AFP/GETTY

Months of campaigning by academics appeared to have paid off when the £4.6 billion science budget was
ring-fenced for the next four years.

217 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Taking inflation into account, this still amounts to a real-term reduction of around 10 per cent but the
government believes this could be almost all offset with a planned £324 million efficiency drive.

The research community, which had been expecting a "catastrophic" 20 per cent cut in grants, said the
move was a huge "vote of confidence" for British science.

They breathed a collective sigh of relief but acknowledged that Britain still lagged behind its major
competitors when it came to science funding.

Professor Colin Blakemore, the leading neurobiologist at Oxford University and former head of the Medical
Research Council, said: "It is wonderful to learn that Government has listened to the scientific community.

"Collectively we have made the case that funding science is not a cost but a way to invest in creating a
stronger economy which is the best way to guarantee the recovery that will benefit everyone."

In his speech, George Osborne said: "Britain is a world leader in scientific research, and that is vital to our
economic success."

He also signalled continuing support for a number of capital projects including the new £600 million Centre
for Medical Research and Innovation at St Pancras, London, and the Diamond Synchotron in Oxfordshire.

The decision was warmly welcomed by leading members of the scientific community.

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Immediate reaction?
Relief that science has been spared the deepest of cuts.

"Followed swiftly by the realisation that even at about 10 per cent down, we'll be playing catch-up in an
international field which could see UK science left behind."

He pointed out that charities were likely to come under greater pressure to fund more medical research.

Tough decisions remain to be taken on how the available funds will be allocated.

The Government distributes science money among the seven research councils, which in turn hand out
grants to deserving scientists and institutions.

It is likely the share-out will favour areas expected to deliver wealth creation and promote a low carbon
economy.

British science in general also benefits from grants from the NHS, defence and charities.

Sir Mark Walport, Director the Wellcome Trust said: "I am delighted that the Government has recognised
the huge importance of science to the future prosperity and health of the UK economy and people.

"The Government has listened to the voices of the science community who argued that continued
investment in science was vital to the UK's future success. It is now up to the science community to ensure
it delivers on this crucial vote of confidence."

218 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 GUARDIAN SCIENCE: SCIENCE
COMMUNITY RELIEVED AS IT ESCAPES SPENDING
AXE
Settlement freezes science research spending at £4.6bn – equating to a 10% cut after inflation

Ian Sample, science correspondent

Universities will be urged to make


up the shortfall in science funding through efficiency savings. Photograph: Alamy

Scientists expressed cautious relief today as fears of severe cuts to the science budget failed to materialise
in the government's spending review.

The £4.6bn spent each year on scientific research by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
(Bis) will be ringfenced in a "flat cash" agreement that corresponds to a 10% cut, after allowing for
inflation.

Universities will be urged to make up the shortfall through efficiency savings drawn up by Sir Bill
Wakeham, the former vice-chancellor of Southampton University, in a report earlier this year.

"The flat cash settlement for science is much better news than was feared and suggests that the arguments
for the fundamental economic importance of scientific research have been heard and at least partly
understood," said Professor Simon Gaskell, principal of Queen Mary, University of London.

The settlement is a victory for the business secretary, Vince Cable, and the science minister, David Willetts,
who argued that science and innovation were critical to Britain's future economic recovery. In his budget
speech, George Osborne said: "Britain is a world leader in scientific research, and that is vital to our
economic success."

Fears of severe cuts prompted leading scientists to demonstrate outside the Treasury and warn of a brain
drain of key researchers to other countries, such as the US, Germany, France and Singapore, which are
investing in science to spur their financial growth.

219 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
"The flat cash settlement for the core science budget is welcome news in the context of this very tough
spending review," said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society. "The support of science is crucial not
only to the strength of our education system, but to economic recovery and the solution of global
problems."

The deal guarantees £2.75bn for the UK's seven research councils, £1.6bn for university research through
the Higher Education Funding Council for England, £150,000 for the Higher Education Innovation Fund and
£100,000 for national acadamies.

Sir Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, said the settlement should allay fears of a brain drain,
but called on scientists to make good on their promises. "This should help to head off concerns of a brain
drain, but it is up to scientists now to sell the subject to young people," Walport said. "Scientists have
argued that research is good for health, wealth and society and the government has trusted them on that.
Now they have to deliver."

Dr Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat science spokesman, said: "Hopefully this will convince any
scientists thinking of leaving the country that all is not lost. Morale will be boosted by this because, on the
face of it, it is a good settlement."

Others were less impressed with the deal and warned that Britain would struggle to be competitive. "Even
at about 10% down, we'll be playing catch-up in an international field which could see UK science left
behind," said Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation.

Question marks remain over the £1.4bn capital expenditure budget for science, which is used for major
facilities and administration. The allocation for science has yet to be decided, but the total capital budget
at Bis has been cut by 44%.

More than £2bn is spent on scientific research by other departments, with the majority going to support
health and defence projects. Medical research will be maintained across government in real terms, but
defence research faced a "moderate cut", Willetts said.

The science research budget will be allocated to funding councils in the coming weeks and months.

2010/10/20 THE INDEPENDENT: ACADEMICS


CELEBRATE AS SCIENCE BUDGET FROZEN
Scientists were today celebrating a "vote of confidence" after learning they had been spared swingeing
cuts.

Months of campaigning by academics appeared to have paid off when it was revealed that the science
budget would be frozen over the next four years.

Taking inflation into account, this amounts to a real-term reduction of less than 10%.

The research community had been bracing itself for cuts of up to 20% or more in Chancellor George
Osborne's Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).

Leading scientists warned that the results of such action would be catastrophic for British science and the
UK economy.

220 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Today they breathed a collective sigh of relief, while acknowledging that Britain still lagged behind its
major competitors when it came to science funding.

In his speech, Mr Osborne announced that science cash funding would be protected at £4.6 billion.

He said: "Britain is a world leader in scientific research, and that is vital to our economic success."

The decision was warmly welcomed by leading members of the scientific community.

Leading neurobiologist Professor Colin Blakemore, from Oxford University, former head of the Medical
Research Council, said: "It is wonderful to learn that Government has listened to the scientific community.

"Collectively we have made the case that funding science is not a cost but a way to invest in creating a
stronger economy which is the best way to guarantee the recovery that will benefit everyone. It will now
be important to maintain the dialogue with Government as it reviews budgetary commitments for the
future."

Gail Cardew, head of programmes at the Royal Institution, said: "It is encouraging that the science budget
will be maintained, given the critical role that research and innovation will play in the UK's economic
recovery over the next decade. While it is still a cut in real terms, this decision is a significant vote of
confidence in the UK's scientific community and the contribution it makes."

Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Immediate reaction?
Relief that science has been spared the deepest of cuts. Followed swiftly by the realisation that even at
about 10% down, we'll be playing catch-up in an international field which could see UK science left
behind."

He pointed out that charities were likely to come under greater pressure to fund more medical research.

Tough decisions remain to be taken on how the available funds will be allocated.

The Government distributes science money among the seven research councils, which in turn hand out
grants to deserving scientists and institutions.

It is likely the share-out will favour areas expected to deliver wealth creation and promote a low carbon
economy.

One casualty could be "Big Science", overseen by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

The STFC funds large facilities such as the Diamond Light Source synchrotron facility in Oxfordshire,
astronomy programmes, and Britain's involvement in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

221 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 BBC Q&A: SCIENCE IN THE
SPENDING REVIEW

Some observers say that PhD places could be reduced next


year

The budget for UK science was announced on Wednesday as part of the Spending Review.

Q: What has happened to the science budget?

The nominal budget for science has been ring-fenced, to be held fixed for the next four years at a value of
just over £4.6bn.

Q: If the science budget is frozen over the next four years, why is this being regarded as a cut?

Because inflation devalues the pound each year, the cost of the research will increase. But since the money
to pay for it will remain the same, it is functionally a reduction in the budget. The Treasury estimates that
this amounts to a real terms cut of just under 10% over the four years.

Q: So there will be less money for science, overall. How will the shortfall be overcome?

This remains unclear, though "efficiency savings" has been mentioned a number of times.

"Building on the Wakeham Review of science spending, we have found that within the science budget
significant savings of £324m can be found through efficiency," the Chancellor said.

In a briefing following the announcement, Science Minister David Willetts said that administration of the
research councils would be a particular target.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

Even at about 10% down, we'll be playing catch-up in an international field which could see UK science left
behind”

Professor Peter WeissbergBritish Heart Foundation


222 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
"A pound spent on overhead, on back office functions that should be spent in scientific research is a pound
wasted, so we're going to be ruthless on the back office," he said.

Q: Yet the science budget has done relatively well relative to other departments, which have been cut
much more. Why?

In the chancellor's words, "when money is short we should ruthlessly prioritise those areas of public
spending which are most likely to support economic growth, including investments in our transport and
green energy infrastructure, our science base and the skills and education of citizens".

Normally, science spending does not have such a high profile when the chancellor sets out the
Government's plans. This year, however, it is high on the political radar because strong representations
have been made by the scientific community about what they have described as "long-term and
irreversible" damage to the UK economy if there are deep cuts to research funding.

Q: How is the scientific community reacting?

Many scientists reacting to the cuts have been positive that they were not nearly as severe as they were
rumoured to be; some had speculated on cuts as high as 25%.

But there is concern that the UK is cutting its science spending when competitor nations are increasing
theirs.

"Even at about 10% down, we'll be playing catch-up in an international field which could see UK science
left behind," said Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation.

Further, as Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the
London School of Economics and Political Science points out, it remains unclear how the "efficiency
savings" of £324m will be achieved.

"Nor is it clear how the spending of the higher education funding councils on research will be affected by
cuts in support for universities. Until these issues are clarified, we cannot be sure that the UK's world class
research base will be safe," he said.

Q: What does the science budget consist of?

Science Minister David Willetts stressed that the exact breakdown had not yet been decided but said that
the rough numbers would include:

£2.75bn for research councils

£1.6bn in "QR" funding that is to go directly to universities based on the quality of their research

£100m for national academies such as the Royal Academy of Engineering

Q: How exactly will that money be distributed among universities, research councils, international projects,
and so on?

Much of this is yet to be determined, beyond broad brushstroke statements about what issues are
considered by the Government to be important.

How funds will be divided among the research councils, for example, remains undecided, as does the
future of UK collaboration in international projects such as the Large Hadron Collider.

223 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Two projects will definitely carry on: the Diamond Light Source synchrotron in Oxford and the UK Centre
for Medical Research and Innovation (the latter secured with the benefit of a committed £200m from the
Department of Health).

Q: How many jobs will be lost?

It is too soon to tell, but an initial assessment by the Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case) suggests
there will be significant decreases in new research staff entering science and engineering. Case says that
PhD places could fall by up to a tenth next year.

Q: What happens next?

Distributing the new budget among the UK's seven research councils over the next few weeks in a series of
meetings between each research council head and the director-general for science and research, Adrian
Smith.

This will almost certainly involve vigorous arguments about the proportion of the cuts each research
council should bear.

Professor Smith will follow a strategic guide issued by the Treasury which sets out in broad terms the
government's priority areas for research spending. These are likely to include wealth creation and the
delivery of a low carbon economy.

Q: So there will be winners and losers among the research councils?

Yes. The Chancellor has already said that the Medical Research Council will have its funding maintained in
real terms - this inevitably means that there will be less to go round the other research councils.

One research council that is particularly vulnerable, however, is the Science and Technology Facilities
Council (STFC), which funds large test facilities and pays for the UK's involvement in international
collaborations such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), astronomy programmes like the European
Southern Observatory, and so on.

Until the level of capital funding is determined and the allocations are decided there's a risk that STFC may
have to withdraw from a major programme. Alternatively, it would have to cutback or close one of its
research institutes.

224 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 BBC: REACTION TO THE SCIENCE
CUTS

Many fear the cuts could still be a


blow to the UK scientific research

The UK's science budget is to be frozen in cash terms, which equates to a cut of less than 10% over the
next four years. The UK Chancellor George Osborne outlined the cuts in his Spending Review on
Wednesday.

Here is the reaction to the announcement.

LORD KREBS, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE OF LORDS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SELECT COMMITTEE

I very much welcome this news.

The coalition has recognised that investing in the science base is a key element of economic recovery, and
that it is important to maintain the UK's position at the very top of the international science league.

JOHN BEDDINGTON, UK CHIEF SCIENTIFIC ADVISER

I am delighted by the Government's decision to protect the science and research budget. This is a genuine
signal that the Government recognises that science and research are vital in driving growth and securing a
strong economic recovery.

The "frozen"/flat cash budget settlement for science and research needs to be put in context. This is a
major success in the current position and will allow us to sustain the science and engineering base and
build for the future.

The UK has a world leading tradition of excellence. This month for example we have seen UK scientists
awarded Nobel prizes both in Physics and medicine, as well as Economics. The UK is also the most
productive research nation in the G8 producing 14% of the most highly-cited papers, 9% of world research
publications; whilst making up only 1% of world population...

...I urge the Scientific Community to respond positively to this signal of the value the government places in
its role in the economy. We must now work to ensure priorities are recognised and public money is used
effectively to enhance the UK economy and international standing as a world leader.

225 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
MARTIN REES, PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY

The flat cash settlement for the core science budget is welcome news in the context of this very tough
Spending Review.

The government has recognised the importance of sustaining the international standing of UK science in a
context where other nations are forging ahead.

The support of science is crucial not only to the strength of our education system, but to economic
recovery and the solution of global problems.

There remain areas of concern, especially with regard to capital spending, and the funding of universities.

But this outcome enhances our optimism that such issues can be addressed on the basis of a genuine
realisation that it is in the UK's interests to remain among the world leaders in key areas of science and
innovation.

IMRAN KHAN, DIRECTOR OF THE CAMPAIGN FOR SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (CaSE)

By offering relative protection for research from cuts, maintaining a ring-fence for the science budget, and
promising to increase medical research funding from the MRC and Department for Health in real terms,
the government has signalled a desire to support science and engineering.

A 10% cut over four years is significant, especially at a time when our competitors like the US and Germany
are having real-terms increases - but today saw an important 'statement of intent' from the coalition.

Important questions remain over the details of some of the funding plans - particularly over capital
expenditure for Research Councils and universities, funding for the Technology Strategy Board, and the
status of R&D tax credits.

But the scientific and engineering community will now look forward to engaging constructively with the
government on how to put research at the heart of the UK's growth agenda.

MARSHALL STONEHAM, PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

Some observers say that PhD places could be reduced next


year

226 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
It is good news for UK science that the government recognises the value of a strong scientific research base
to the UK economy, which will be complemented by investment in an elite network of research and
development intensive technology and innovation centres.

Make no mistake: even with a flat cash settlement the next few years will be challenging ones. The science
community will need to work very hard to maintain the excellence of our research, retain the best young
researchers and avoid any damage to our international reputation in a world where many other countries
are increasing their investment in research.

But we have to be realistic. In our current financial situation, all sectors of society will have to face some
sacrifices, and the science community accepts that it cannot be immune.

Over many years, UK researchers have proved that they can deliver outstanding results with relatively
limited resources. I am confident that we will have the skill and determination to weather the next few
years, and to contribute to the re-growth of our economy. In the longer term, I hope we will see a return to
a steady increase in the level of funding for research, both by the public and the private sectors.

It will be some time before we know the detailed impact of this settlement for science. We will continue to
watch the situation closely, and to make the case for protecting vital areas of the UK's research base.

COLIN BLAKEMORE, FORMER HEAD OF THE MEDICAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

It is wonderful to learn that government has listened to the scientific community.

Collectively we have made the case that funding science is not a cost but a way to invest in creating a
stronger economy, which is the best way to guarantee the recovery that will benefit everyone.

It will now be important to maintain the dialogue with government as it reviews budgetary commitments
for the future.

GAIL CARDEW, HEAD OF PROGRAMMES, THE ROYAL INSTITUTION

It is encouraging that the science budget will be maintained, given the critical role that research and
innovation will play in the UK's economic recovery over the next decade.

While it is still a cut in real terms, this decision is a significant vote of confidence in the UK's scientific
community and the contribution it makes.

MARK DOWNS, CEO, SOCIETY OF BIOLOGY

A 10% cut over four years is a significant blow to the UK's competitiveness.

The government has failed to recognise what all charities know - an economic downturn is the time to
invest in fundraising to ensure future prosperity.

It is research and development, coupled with skilled people that will deliver growth. Our international
competitors have recognised that: the coalition government has yet to fully accept that reality.

The Browne review was set up to ensure investment in our universities, not to simply substitute
government funding.

Biology is at the heart of health, the environment, food security, biodiversity and climate change. There is
no cheap option for teaching it well. Hands-on practical work in the laboratory or field must continue.

We urge the government to better recognise the differential costs between degrees.

227 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Accreditation of research based degrees must play a central role in ensuring specific degrees meet the
needs of employers and expectations of students, including high level practical training. The additional cost
of this must be recognised.

PETER WEISSBERG, BRITISH HEART FOUNDATION

Immediate reaction? Relief that science has been spared the deepest of cuts.

Followed swiftly by the realisation that even at about 10% down, we'll be playing catch-up in an
international field which could see UK science left behind.

We will have to wait before the full picture becomes clear, but it's likely charities will now come under
greater pressure to fund more medical research.

Maintaining a strong Charity Research Support Fund for universities is therefore vital to ensure we can
continue to fund life-saving science in partnership with both the Government and universities.

MALCOLM GRANT, PRESIDENT AND PROVOST, UCL

The quality - and value for money - of British science is outstanding.

The Chancellor's recognition of its economic value is truly welcome.

I hope that even with the reduced funding that this announcement implies, Britain can continue to train
and recruit the best in the world and to lead in scientific discovery, innovation, improving the lot of
mankind and the planet.

DAVID BROWN, CEO, INSTITUTION OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERS

We cautiously welcome the news that the science budget is set to be frozen in cash terms. Whilst it does
still represent tough times ahead, things could have been much, much worse.

But the fact that we are now one of the only countries in the industrialised world that is not increasing our
investment in science and research means that we need to think very carefully about how the money is
spent and it must be increasingly directed towards applications that UK engineering can translate into
commercial gain.

However the recommendations made in Lord Browne's report pose a grave risk to UK industry.

Some of our greatest economic assets are the graduates from our universities. If we can't produce enough
talented scientists and engineers each year to meet industry demand, inward investment will suffer and
our economic prosperity will be further weakened.

Government must look closely at which courses produce the graduates that have had - and will continue to
have - a really positive impact on the UK economy and protect those subject areas accordingly.

228 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/20 ROYAL SOCIETY: SPENDING
REVIEW: UK'S SCIENCE BUDGET FROZEN IN CASH
TERMS
Chancellor George Osborne unveiled details of the Spending Review today, announcing that the UK’s
science budget will be frozen in cash terms.

In response to the announcement President of the Royal Society Lord Martin Rees said:

“The flat cash settlement for the core science budget is very welcome news in the context of this extremely
tough Spending Review. The government has recognised the importance of sustaining the international
standing of UK science in a context where other nations are forging ahead. The support of science is crucial
not only to the strength of our education system, but to economic recovery and the solution of global
problems. There remain areas of concern, especially with regard to capital spending, and the funding of
universities. But this outcome enhances our optimism that such issues can be addressed on the basis of a
genuine realisation that it is in the UK's interests to remain among the world leaders in key areas of science
and innovation.”

For full details on the Spending Review visit www.hm-treasury.gov.uk.

2010/10/20 CASE: CASE RESPONSE TO THE


CSR
By IMRAN KHAN

“Government signals support for science and engineering”

Commenting on the 10% real terms cut to the science budget over four years, Director of the Campaign for
Science and Engineering, Imran Khan, said:

“By offering relative protection for research from cuts, maintaining a ring-fence for the science budget, and
promising to increase medical research funding from the MRC and Department for Health in real terms,
the government has signalled a desire to support science and engineering.”

“A 10% cut over four years is significant, especially at a time when our competitors like the US and
Germany are having real-terms increases – but today saw an important ‘statement of intent’ from the
coalition.”

“Important questions remain over the details of some of the funding plans – particularly over capital
expenditure for Research Councils and universities, funding for the Technology Strategy Board, and the
status of R&D tax credits. But the scientific and engineering community will now look forward to engaging
constructively with the government on how to put research at the heart of the UK’s growth agenda.”

CaSE highlights the following details resulting from today’s announcements:

229 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
 Out of the core £3.5bn ‘science budget’, not including spending on research by universities,
£2.75bn has been preserved for next year. The rest makes up ‘capital expenditure’. That part has
not yet been confirmed and we are expecting announcements in the forthcoming weeks. This is a
particular concern for STFC; to see their expenditure broken down by near-cash and capital, see
here:http://www.stfc.ac.uk/resources/pdf/STFCCurrentBudget.pdf
 The Ministry of Defence spends over £2bn a year on research and development. It is not clear how
far this will be affected by cuts at this department, but it forms an important part of the UK
research landscape.
 The Department for Health spends over £700m a year on research and development. This forms
over half of the non-MoD Whitehall expenditure on research and development. The Chancellor
announced that this will be protected in real terms.
 CaSE believes that departmental research should be protected but can also be made more efficient
generally. CaSE Director Imran Khan said: “To build on today’s announcements, the government
should find a way to maximise the impact of departmental research spending and procurement in
order to stimulate our science and engineering base.”
 The Spending Review details that the Medical Research Council budget will increase in real terms. If
the total science budget is frozen in cash terms, this is likely to mean that all the other research
councils face falling budgets in cash and real terms.
 The details of how the science budget will be allocated to different fields of research and projects
will be being worked out by BIS over the coming weeks and months.
 CaSE has provided a breakdown of research spending across
government:http://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/documents/2010/20100923CaSEbrief

2010/10/20 NATURE WORLD VIEW:


SCIENTISTS VS ENGINEERS: THIS TIME IT'S
FINANCIAL

As public funds dwindle, long-standing divisions between engineers and scientists over their status in
society will be laid bare, says Colin Macilwain.

Colin Macilwain

My name is Colin, and some time ago, I trained as an engineer. I live in the United Kingdom, where
engineering has a long-standing status problem, best summed up by the greeting: "If you're an engineer,
I've got a lawnmower that needs fixing." I used to live in America, whose engineers also often feel that
they don't get the respect they deserve from scientists, policy-makers or the public at large.

230 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Engineers seem to enjoy higher status outside the English-speaking world — in France, Germany, Japan or
China, for example. Perhaps that's for deep-seated cultural reasons, or maybe it's just because the English
word 'engineer' is associated so directly with old engines. In fact, the term derives from the Latin ingenium,
or talent.

Science is mainly concerned with unearthing knowledge. Engineering seeks to deliver working solutions to
practical problems in the form of technology. Yet the terms 'engineering' and 'technology' have been
increasingly subsumed into 'science' — in the names of institutions, in discussion of 'science policy', in
media coverage and in popular parlance. The situation upsets engineers and their leaders, but they tend to
keep quiet for fear of being accused of having chips on their shoulders.

Now that public money is scarce for both the science and engineering communities, the fault line between
them has started to creak. In the run-up to this week's UK Comprehensive Spending Review, Martin
Earwicker, a vice-president at the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng), wrote to The Times to point out
that engineers are needed to turn a scientific discovery into hard cash. It was a "logical leap that is not in
general supported by experience", he wrote, "that a scientific discovery, however important, will
automatically turn into economic success."

This was not the first dig at science from Britain's top engineering body. In its June submission to the
spending review, it said: "Although particle physics research is important, it makes only a modest
contribution to the most important challenges facing society today, as compared with engineering and
technology where almost all the research is directly or indirectly relevant to wealth creation." This
frankness angered scientific groups, including the Institute of Physics and the Royal Society. The engineers'
crime was to say what a number of others, not just in Britain, think in private. William Wulf, a computer
scientist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, was president of the US National Academy of
Engineering from 1996 to 2007, where he repaired relations with its elder sibling, the National Academy of
Sciences. Despite that success, he maintains that "there is a general attitude among the scientific
community that science is superior to engineering".

Wulf attributes this partly to the 'linear' model of innovation, which holds that scientific discovery leads to
technology, which in turn leads to human betterment. This model is as firmly entrenched in policy-makers'
minds as it is intellectually discredited. As any engineer will tell you, innovations, such as aviation and the
steam engine, commonly precede scientific understanding of how things work. Engineers also grumble
about how the media report on science, but give almost no coverage to engineering or technology
development.

These slights are probably felt most keenly by engineers in academia: their colleagues in industry have
other things to think about, such as their superior pay, company cars and career opportunities.

During the long economic boom that ended in 2008, divisions between engineers and scientists over how
government should spend money lay largely dormant. They've been stirred back to life because of
threatened spending cuts, and by the realization that strong university science isn't enough to secure
industrial competitiveness.

“UK engineers have started a scrap that will grow uglier as the spending cuts begin.”

The RAEng said in its submission that each active research academic in physics and maths gets 'several
times more expenditure' than those in engineering and technology. But industry spends twice as much —
about £15 billion (US$23.8 billion) — as the UK government on research and development each year, and
most of that industrial money supports engineering, not science. In addition, state programmes that
concentrate on applied work — such as the European Commission's Framework Programme — tend to be
more politicized, less meritocratic and less efficient than science programmes such as those of the US
National Science Foundation.
231 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
So there is a strong case that the UK government should focus its attention on science. Even so, some of
the questions from engineers deserve answers. The United States and Britain have dominated science for
decades, but the productive sectors of their economies remain weak. Until 2008, there was remarkable
complacency in both countries about their wholesale retreat from high-value-added manufacturing.
Germany, with weak research universities but strong engineering labs in both the public and private
sectors, exported a larger value of goods last year than either of them.

With money so tight, research priorities in Britain and the United States face re-examination. It is axiomatic
that scientists won't do this: their central operating principle is not to upset the next person's rice bowl. If
politicians try to set priorities, they'll be assailed for interfering and 'picking winners'. That leaves
yesterday's habits as the main way to allocate tomorrow's resources. By casting a stone at their rivals, UK
engineers have, at least, demanded better. They've also started a scrap between disciplines that will grow
uglier as the spending cuts begin.

Colin Macilwain is a contributing correspondent with Nature. e-mail:cfmworldview@gmail.com

2010/10/21 STFC: Government recognises importance of science in CSR announcement

Colleagues,

As you know, Chancellor George Osborne yesterday confirmed the very good news that the science vote
will be relatively protected – with a “cash freeze” over the four years from 2011-15 for the total allocation
to the Research Councils (around £2.7 billion each year). Taking inflation into account this outcome
equates to a “real cut” of around 8-9%.

The Prime Minister, Chancellor and our own Ministers made a point of stressing the importance for the
UK’s future of a strong and vibrant research base. This is the argument that we, and the other Councils,
made very strongly in our submissions over the past months to the government, and it’s pleasing that
government responded so positively to the coordinated action from the Councils, research community,
business leaders and supporters such as the Science Is Vital campaign. Real thanks are due to our Ministers
Vince Cable and David Willetts, as well as to Adrian Smith and his team at BIS, for their work in convincing
government of the benefits of investing in science and research.

However, this result represents real challenges for the research base, especially coming on top of the
reductions in university funding. A “real” reduction of around 8-9% will force a rethink by all Councils of
our forward plans, and a complicating factor is that the situation in respect to capital funding is unclear.
The Chancellor on Sunday reconfirmed the Diamond Phase III capital due over the next four years, which is
great news, but we won’t have clarity about ISIS, Hartree or other capital projects or operational capital for
some time.

The next stage will be for BIS to negotiate with all Councils to set specific allocations, including capital. We
do not know whether the “flat cash” outcome will apply to our budget. We do know that “reverting to the
status quo” is not an option and it continues to be very important for STFC to demonstrate prioritisation of
its science, and clearly articulate how we will achieve efficiencies and reform our operations to deliver
maximum value for the UK.

The Government has already announced it will protect the MRC budget in “real terms”, and this is very
good news for the research supported by our sister Council. Science Minister David Willetts told reporters
in London yesterday he did not expect this would be “disruptive” for the other Councils, and he also
indicated there were no plans to merge councils or to withdraw from any of our international
subscriptions.

232 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
However, we obviously cannot be certain of the impact on our programme, facilities or staff until we have
a final budget. Our Council will continue to play an important role in overseeing and guiding our final
submissions and decisions, and of course Science Board, PPAN and PALs will have direct input on any
science prioritisation issues.

We expect the next request for information from BIS in the next week, with the current intention of
announcing a Delivery Plan before Christmas. We also need information from BIS about the impact of
“efficiency savings” announced by the Government totalling £327 million. Mr Willetts said this money
would be linked to changes to the FEC regime as proposed by a recent report by Professor Bill Wakeham
(not the report he authored into physics). In addition, we have to receive an allocation from BIS for our
“administration” budget, which will then be reduced by one-third over the next four years.

So – a lot of information announced yesterday, and we are thankful for the relatively small reduction in the
science budget. This really is good news, and a strong endorsement by Government of their faith in us and
the other Councils to deliver world leading science, innovation and skills, and to play a significant role in
contributing to the future economic health of the UK through scientific and technological advances.

But the CSR outcome isn’t pain free. We have a Council meeting next week, and the Council CSR sub-group
and Executive held a telecon today. We’ll provide you with more information as it comes to hand. I’d like
to personally thank you all for the work you’ve done so far in helping us make the case. The job’s not
finished.

Keith Mason

Chief Executive Officer

2010/10/21 NEW SCIENTIST S WORD: WHAT


DOES THE UK SPENDING REVIEW MEAN FOR
SCIENCE?

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering

Throughout the summer, the science and engineering community has been bracing itself for devastating
cuts to research funding in the UK. Talk of 20 to 30 per cent reductions in investment was commonplace.
There was a genuine risk that the UK could make an embarrassing, unprecedented, and irreversible fall
from the top table of global science.

Instead, the UK's core science budget has been frozen for the next four years. This is administered by the
Department for Business, Innovation and Skill (BIS). The figure actually translates into a cut, as inflation
means £1 today will probably be worth around 90p in four years' time, but it means that science fares
better than many other areas of expenditure. The "ring-fence" around the science budget will also be
maintained, so that research money can't be appropriated for other costs on a minister's whim. And the
233 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Department of Health, which at over £700 million is Whitehall's third biggest departmental research
funder, will see real-terms increases in its science investment.

It's not entirely clear what happened over the past few days. Maybe George Osborne found a few billion
pounds down the back of a Treasury sofa. Perhaps David Willetts and Vince Cable came through and
convinced David Cameron that slashing science spending while our competitors were increasing theirs was
economic madness. Or maybe the memory of theScience is Vital rally outside HM Treasury inspired
Whitehall mandarins to challenge their political masters.

We may never know. My personal, if slightly boring, theory is that the combined efforts of everyone - from
ministers and civil servants at the highest level of government, through to ordinary people who value, work
in, or study science and engineering - consistently pushing all through summer, emphasised the
extraordinary economic and political cost of cuts to the science budget.

I'd like to think my own organisation, the Campaign for Science and Engineering, played its own small part.
In a world where our national papers have a finite amount of space the fact that last month was our best
ever for media coverage means that the science and engineering community's voice was heard. Everyone
involved can perhaps take a day or two to be relieved.

But UK science is not out of the woods. While our scientists celebrate at having achieved a slowly
degrading status quo, German researchers will be seeing a 7 per cent increase in their funding. We have
four very difficult years ahead, and then another battle with the Government to make sure that it reinvests
so that we can start to make up the enormous ground we will have lost.

Today's announcement said nothing of funding for the Technology Strategy Board or plans forresearch and
development tax credits, two enormously important mechanisms for rebalancing our economy into a high-
tech one.

The Spending Review preserved a science spend of £4.6 billion a year. This includes £2.75 billion for
research councils, £1.6 billion for university research, £100 million for the national academies (like the
Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering), and £150 million for the Higher Education Innovation
Fund.

However, the Research Councils have been used to a higher figure than £2.75 billion - they receive roughly
£3.5 billion. The discrepancy arises because of their "capital expenditure" funds: the money which they use
to build new world-class labs and facilities, maintain existing ones, invest in other forms of long-lasting
resources and help pay subscriptions to institutions like CERN. While this funding is not being scrapped, it is
completely up in the air.

BIS will receive £1.8 billion for its capital expenditure budget next year, decreasing to £1.1 billion the year
following, and as yet there is no decision on how much of that will go to science. This will be a particular
source of anxiety for the Science and Technology Facilities Council, where capital expenditure makes up
over a sixth of their entire outgoings.

The Ministry of Defence is one of the nation's biggest research funding bodies, at over £2 billion a year.
With that department being hit by 8 per cent cuts it remains to be seen how its £2 billion research budget
will fare.

There will also inevitably be wrangling over the priority given to different fields of research. The Medical
Research Council has already been earmarked in the spending review for preferential treatment, and this
may come at the cost of cash cuts to other research councils.

234 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
But scientists and engineers will now have a renewed confidence that these problems can be ironed out.
Ever since the election I have been calling for the government to issue a clear signal of support for the UK
research base. They are clearly trying to do so.

2010/10/21 THE INDEPENDENT: SCIENCE:


WILLETTS WINS FUNDING BATTLE WITH WARNING
OF 'BRAIN DRAIN'
By Steve Connor, Science Editor

REX FEATURES

The commitment to science spending of £4.6bn a year has been ring-fenced

British scientists gave a collective sigh of relief yesterday at the Government's decision to keep the £4.6bn
science budget at the current level for the next four years, meaning that the sector has escaped with a
relatively small 9 per cent cut in real terms until 2015.

It is widely seen as a victory for David Willetts, the science minister, who persuaded the Treasury of the
importance of maintaining the science base in order to provide the technological breakthroughs and
expertise that could help to revive long-term economic growth and employment.

Scientists had given warning that the rumoured cuts of 20 per cent to the science budget would mean
"game over" for science in Britain. But yesterday, Mr Willetts insisted: "This is a fantastic deal for the
science community... We have ring-fenced the commitment to science spending of £4.6bn per year."
Efficiency savings of more than £300m could be found within scientific organisations to offset the real-
terms cut in funding, he added.

Some £2.75bn of the budget will be divided between the six research councils. The biggest winner will
likely be the Medical Research Council, given the immediacy of its research to NHS patients. But smaller
research programmes in the physical sciences are likely to be squeezed hardest, given the Government's
commitment to projects such as the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva.

Lord Rees, the Royal Society's president, said the settlement for the core science budget was welcome
"The Government has recognised the importance of sustaining the international standing of UK science in a
context where other nations are forging ahead," he said.

235 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/21 BBC NEWS: HOW SCIENCE WAS
SAVED FROM THE AXE
By Pallab GhoshScience correspondent, BBC News

Diamond synchrotron (a type of


particle accelerator) is the largest UK-funded facility to be built in England for 40 years

As the dust is settling on a brutal spending round, the scientific community is beginning to suspect that it
might have done all right.

While other budgets have received sizable cuts, science has been awarded a freeze on its funds over four
years - which amounts to a 10% cut in real terms.

But those close to negotiations with the Treasury say that they were within a whisker of having very deep
cuts that could have led to the closure of research institutes, the withdrawal from major international
programmes and the departure of talented scientists from the UK.

They say it was only an "11th hour" intervention by the Business Secretary Vince Cable and in particular
the Science Minister David Willetts that the department got what the Prime Minister David Cameron
described as "a good deal for science".

"More for less"

Only last month Vince Cable said that the scientific community had to do "more for less" and (mistakenly)
that "something in the order of 45% of the research grants that were going through were going to research
that was not of excellent standard".

236 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Earlier, UK Business Secretary Vince Cable said that the
scientific community had to do "more for less"

Many interpreted those comments as paving the way for cuts of around 25%.

The scientific community's difficulty was that it had received huge support in the past from Gordon Brown
and John Kingman, a former senior civil servant at the Treasury.

After both men had gone, there was a feeling that the Treasury had reverted to type.

Officials tended to react against arguments that over the long term an investment in science benefited the
economy.

This was coupled with the fact that neither David Cameron nor George Osborne was familiar with the
world of science.

'Innovation agenda'

Instinctively both men felt that the so-called "innovation agenda" of transforming scientific research into
goods and services to benefit the economy was very much a New Labour view of the world.

But faced with having the UK's strong science base demolished, the Government's Chief Scientist John
Beddington and director-general of science and research Adrian Smith went hard to work making the case
to Treasury officials, while David Willetts and Vince Cable pressed Ministers.

Annoyingly for the Treasury, the officials and ministers arguing the case for science were arguing a good
case.

Beddington, Smith, Willetts and Cable were giving them the hard evidence that they'd asked for, which did
demonstrate the value of the science base to the UK economy.

But they had their targets and would not budge.

One source said that treasury officials looked "faintly embarrassed" when in the face of such a convincing
argument they were still insisting on deep cuts that would have, in the view of those campaigning against
cuts, irreversibly damaged UK research and Britain's universities.

But with less than a day to go, the science team pressed their case that for a relatively small amount of
money, David Cameron and George Obsorne could offer a ray of hope amongst all the gloom: that growth
could come from investment in the UK's research base.

Awaiting details

As the pieces of the spending review fell into place, the Treasury found that it did have the loose change to
offer science a freeze (and protection) on its funding over four years.

237 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Officials at the Office of Science have been urging the scientific community to "get behind" the deal and to
give Cameron and Osborne credit for the fact that they have recognised that they have accepted the view
that science is "vital" to the UK's economic growth.

While offering public support, many are waiting to see the detail.

Of particular concern is the fact that so-called capital spending, which accounts for 20% of the spending of
research councils, was stripped out of the spending review announcement.

This was done so that ministers could have the headline that the science budget was frozen over four
years.

But if the capital budget receives a sizable cut as is widely expected, then the shine will be taken off "the
great deal for science".

2010/10/21 TIMES HE: SPENDING ON PURE


SCIENCE 'NEEDS TO BE PROTECTED'
By Paul Jump

Cern leader to tell engineers that advances come from fundamental research. Paul Jump reports

The Royal Academy of Engineering made a big bang in the scientific world when it said in its submission to
this week's Comprehensive Spending Review that some of the public money currently spent on particle
physics should be redirected to engineering research.

So it raised some eyebrows when the academy announced that its annual Hinton Lecture was to be given
by Lyn Evans, the retiring project leader of the Cern particle physics facility's flagship project, the Large
Hadron Collider.

Dr Evans agreed to give the lecture several months before the CSR submission, but speaking before the
event last week, he said that rather than pulling out, he saw the lecture as a chance to "educate" engineers
about the value of pure science.

"Time and time again it has been proved that the real (scientific) advances have been discovered through
fundamental research. But I understand that in these difficult times everyone is looking after their own
patch," he said.

Dr Evans, a Welshman who is also a visiting professor at Imperial College London, said Cern represents an
"extremely well-organised" pooling of global spending on particle physics, and had already agreed a €250
million (£220 million) cut in its budget for 2011-15. Its running costs, he added, are no more than those of
a "medium-sized European university".

He said the UK, which provides 15 per cent of Cern's budget, is getting "excellent scientific value" from the
Large Hadron Collider.

But he admitted that despite British laboratories' central involvement in the design of many of its
components, the decline in the country's manufacturing base meant that the UK has been unable to win its
fair share of the lucrative contracts to build them.

238 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
"We need to try to avoid this happening again, in areas such as renewable energy. I have heard politicians
say we need to move on to the next level (and focus on a services economy), but it is manifestly not the
whole story," he said.

Dr Evans, who led the Large Hadron Collider since its first designs were drawn up in 1993, said keeping the
public informed and excited about the project is "part of our job", and he welcomed the media attention it
had attracted - even if it had not always been for the right reasons.

He was philosophical about the breakdown that closed the collider for more than a year just nine days
after it was first switched on in September 2008.

And he was not unduly concerned that its launch had been "spiced up" by internet scare stories warning
that recreating the conditions just after the Big Bang could give rise to mini black holes that would swallow
up the Universe. "The coverage was quite tongue-in-cheek in the UK, and I quite enjoyed it," he said.

He admitted that trying to maintain media discipline among the 3,000 physicists involved is "like trying to
herd cats", and he expected others to follow in the footsteps of University of Padua physicist Tommaso
Dorigo, whose blog this summer reported unfounded rumours that the Higgs boson - the fabled "God
particle" - had been detected by the Large Hadron Collider's US rival, the Tevatron.

"Normally new data are presented at scientific conferences, but when the big breakthrough is made let's
see what really happens," he said.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com.

2010/10/21 EXQUISITE LIFE: SAVE THE


INTELLECTUALS
Who will be the next H.A.L. Fisher, Richard Crossman, or David Willetts?

In its spending review statement published yesterday the government has prioritised research spending on
science, at the expense of teaching funding, which is apparently to be axed altogether for the arts and
humanities. This is a high-risk strategy, endorsed by the Browne Review but threatening the very stuff of
the nation’s intellectual life.

The members of the Browne review panel included only one academic practitioner in the arts and
humanities: this was David Eastwood the historian and vice chancellor of Birmingham University and
former chief executive of HEFCE.

Eastwood must have found himself hopelessly outnumbered in trying to bring the complex realities of
academe before a panel external to that world; just as David Weatherall was on the Dearing report group
more than ten years ago. Both will have felt like Boethius: trying to salvage the culture of antiquity for
future generations while the barbarians destroyed the glory that was Rome.

The Browne panel proposes that public funding for the teaching of most arts and humanities subjects
should end. What is going to happen to students -- including research students -- and to lecturers in these
subjects? Moreover, what will happen to lecturers teaching these subjects?

Traditionally, employment contracts for university academic staff require them to do both teaching and
research. Academic salaries mostly come out of the infrastructure funding allocated by HEFCE in a block
grant. This is notionally divided into teaching and research streams.

239 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
But in the case of individual academic contracts, the proportions are not fixed. Universities have been
unwise in claiming that it costs, say, £8,000 a year to teach an undergraduate. The truth is that no one
knows.

But let us suppose that the government and the new Higher Education Council decide that the proportion
should be 50:50. And suppose some research in the arts and humanities survives the ‘research’ cuts. If a
humanities lecturer is also supervising a research student, is this to come from the teaching or research
budget?

There is a more fundamental point: if current research students are supported until they complete their
doctorates, what will become of those who would in previous generations have aspired to become
academics themselves? It seems there will be no more H.A.L. Fishers or Richard Crossmans -- both Fellows
of New College, Oxford; one a Liberal politician, the other a former Labour cabinet minister.

Moreover, if this or a future government changed its “priority” subjects, it is simply not possible to turn
one tap off and turn another one on. By the time lecturers in politically-unfashionable subjects have been
evicted, the wind may have changed and a different government may be desperate to recruit teachers at
the cutting edge of knowledge in these fields. The short-lists may be very short indeed.

The government also needs to understand that evicting academics from politically-unfashionable subjects
will itself not be easy, or cheap. In the pre-1992 universities there is quite a complex procedure to be gone
through under the Model Statute before academic staff can be made redundant.

At the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the whole academic community would have to be involved in
debating and voting whether to strip out a proportion of, say philosophers or literary critics. It is hard to
believe there would be a resounding, “yes”, for any faculty might be next. Individuals may be persuaded
into voluntary redundancy but at a price. Will universities be allowed to spend public money on financial
settlements under compromise agreements? Besides, that may leave “Swiss cheese” departments without
the range of expertise to offer a balanced course in the subject.

Both the CSR and the Browne panel think in terms of an instrumentalism using a Heath Robinson
construction of levers and pulleys tied together with string. Has it been forgotten that Isaac Newton and
Charles Darwin, like many of the British scientists of earlier centuries wrote on the humanities as well as
science and were probably better scientists for it.

G. R. Evans is professor of medieval theology and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge

Posted by G.R. Evans

240 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/22 THE GREAT BEYOND: RUTH‟S
REVIEWS: 'LIFE ASCENDING' SCOOPS ROYAL
SOCIETY PRIZE

Nick Lane’s Life Ascending has won the annual Royal Society Book Prize, beating the other
shortlisted titles to a £10,000 reward. His book is eloquent and elegant, guiding the reader through the
authors’ chosen top ten great inventions of evolution.

Lane joins a list of accomplished authors, including Steve Jones, Steven Rose and Bill Bryson in winning the
prize.

His book was released 2009, a year in which we celebrated two big Darwin anniversaries, and was timely in
this sense. From complex cells to consciousness, movement to sex, the book is a genuine page turner,
which contains reams of information described in an accessible, warm voice.

“Writing is my way to understand the world. I tried to get across the boundary between what we know and
what we don’t know,” Lane explained. “It’s a thrilling tapestry that writing can take you across – you can
ask any question you want, but there’s responsibility that goes with that.”

Maggie Philbin, Chair of the Judges said: “Life Ascending is a beautifully written and elegantly structured
book that was a favourite with all of the judges. Nick Lane hasn’t been afraid to challenge us with some
tough science, explaining it in such a way that we feel like scientists ourselves, unfolding the mysteries of
life.

Sadly however the prestigious book prize, which has run for more than 20 years may be in its last year due
to problems with raising the necessary funds necessary.

Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, said: “Science is an integral part of our culture and it is
immensely important that the joy, wonder and excitement of scientific discovery is effectively
communicated to all. The Royal Society Prize for Science Books has celebrated the very best science writing
since 1988 and helped to encourage engagement with science from audiences young and old in the UK and
internationally. The Royal Society greatly values the Prizes, however, in these tough economic times we
have to secure a sponsor to ensure the Prizes can continue in future years.”

“A lot of my heroes have won in the past. When you receive a prize like this it does inspire you,” Lane said.
“I hope the funding materializes.”

Read the Great Beyond review here: Ruth’s Reviews: Life Ascending

and Lewis Wolpert reviewed Life Ascending when it was published in 2009. Read his review here: Great
inventions of life

241 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/23 ALICE BELL BLOG: ENGAGING
AUDIENCES: RETHINKING “DIFFERENCE”
Posted on October 23, 2010 by alicerosebell

I’m blogging from the Co-Curation and the Public History of Science & Technology conference at the
Science Museum (picture is of an exhibit)

Saturday’s programme started with a “provocation” (or keynote talk) entitled “New Ways to engage
people” from Andrew Pekarik of the Smithsonian’s Office of Policy and Analysis.

Pekarik is an exceedingly smooth speaker. He rolled off lines about the need to not only “see difference” in
audiences but also “be that difference”: to embody such difference within the curatiorial team. To “See it,
be it, and then use it too”. To use this difference in content, but also use it in determining display.
Moreover, they need to follow this all up by testing the difference. That such testing should be about
checking a team’s work, but also a way to identify new differences. As Pekarik concluded, this should
become a continual cycle; one that is more important than any step individually.

All lovely sounding stuff, but what do we mean by “difference” here? What of the many possible
differences are they looking for?

Answer: between “people people”, “object people” and those who are more “ideas people”. Pekarik noted
most curators aren’t really “people people”, they are drawn to the job precisely because they like books
and objects, and talked enthusiastically about a process of bringing in “people people” from other areas of
the museum. For me, such a categorisation of “people, object or ideas” “people” didn’t ring true.
Moreover, it seemed like a distraction from more important differences (class, ethnicity, gender, age).

A couple of senior Science Museum staff picked up on this in questions. One suggested that these three
categories are just a 1st step which ends with 2.7 million forms of difference (i.e. as in 2.7 unique visitors).

242 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Another flagged up the difference between those who like hands-on experiences at museum. She also
raised concern over Pekarik’s starting point of asking people about their most meaningful museum
experience. What about people who never have museum experiences? How do you capture those who
don’t already like you?

We didn’t have time for my question, but I wanted to ask whether he was still worried about class, race,
age, gender, etc. Would he, for example, think about putting children in a curatorial board? I don’t
necessarily mean to argue that we should categorise difference in such a way. Indeed, we might argue that
limiting ourselves through these sorts of (equally reductive?) audience categories. Maybe another way of
conceiving of diversity of audience is useful. It’s also worth underlining points several people made on
twitter: however we choose to think about difference, identity (a) is always fluid and multiplicitous and (b)
can be changed by the experience of visiting a museum (indeed, people might go to museums to be
changed).

I’m sure that interesting work has come out of Pekarik’s sense of difference, and I love his point about the
need to consider this as an ongoing process. Still, I worried that it’s a bit too abstract, a bit too devoid of
social context (though maybe he’d say I’m just being too much of a “people person”…). Personally, I felt
more comfortable with the notion of “community curation” discussed later by Karen Fort from
the National Museum of the American Indian. I suspect this sort of approach captures the social and
cultural diversity museums I’m worrying about and, in the process, will probably end up covering the
differences Pekarik was playing with too. Similarly, we heard about some very open and exploratory ways
of involving audiences today – Denver Community Museum, Wellcome’s Things and London ReCut – I
suspect there are all sorts of “differences” captured by these too. Also relevant, I think, was Nina
Simon’s challenge to think about how a busy museum could, in a web2.0 sense, help make a museum
better (not just break exhibits). Projects like these seemed like genuine attempts to involve more
viewpoints than just those already held by a museum. In contrast, Pekarik seemed to be working from a
point of view where the museum retained the power to frame and articulate its audiences.

Maybe he’s right to though. Maybe we want museums to talk to their idea of us rather than integrate
audiences in the very fabric of their production. Maybe I’m just stuck in the 1980s with a focus on Big
Social Issues like class. Or, maybe when it comes to communication projects, we need to think about what
we have in common rather than what sets us apart; areas of similarity, not difference. (Maybe that’s just
another distraction).

ADDED 25/10. At the end of the final day, Elizabeth Anionwu from the Dana Centre’s African-Caribbean
Focus Group argued she shouldn’t have to be there: the museum shouldn’t have to go to a special focus
group for that sort of perspective, it should it be part of conversations happening already. It should be
woven into the infrastructure of the museum.

I couldn’t agree more. I heard the line “but the Science Museum is this great big oil tanker of an institution,
it takes ages to change” three times over the course of the weekend. I also heard complaints that I heard
10 years ago when I first started working there. And complaints about problems from the 80s I only learnt
about in my history of science degree. It’s time to decommission that bloody oil tanker. The museum is, at
least in part, its staff. The crowdsourced grass-roots innovative bottom-up change people were banging on
about at the conference applies within the institution too. Don’t like it? Do something.
10 Responses ―Engaging audiences: rethinking ―difference‖‖ →
Tas October 24, 2010
Hi Alice,
Good post. I‘m not sure that an audience necessarily knows what it wants. Sometimes, speaking as a member of
the public, we visit with an open mind ready to be guided rather than with any sense of expectation. But I also
think, we need to learn about others through their eyes not through our own, if that is possible. Sometimes, the

243 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
teacher does need to learn from the student outsides of the confines of the classroom. In that sense, Pekarik
has a point but implementing such ideals may not be realistic.
alicerosebell October 25, 2010
I think you‘re right about not always knowing what they want – I like to go to museums to be surprised!
I also often go to them wanting to be told stuff, reasonably passively (not spend time contributing). It‘s
a free time activity and ―engagement‖ sounds like too much work sometimes!
Pete October 25, 2010
Interesting discussion. To state the obvious I‘d suggest the real difference is between people who visit
museums and people who don‘t think they‘re for them – you can‘t engage with people if they never make it
through the door. I remember looking around a certain museum event and realising that it was full of people
from the same class/race/area. This spurred us to put together a roadshow to take talks/events out into the
local community/region instead of expecting the community to come to the museum and engage with us.
alicerosebell October 25, 2010
Yes, best presentations at that event emphasised that if you want to find those ―hard to reach
audiences‖, you need to get off your bottom and go out to where they are.
hapsci October 25, 2010
A thought struck me as I was reading this post and as I read Tas‘ comment, is engaging someone really any
different to selling to someone? And if you think about engaging with someone as selling to them, does it help
you to achieve it?
I can see how you would argue that engaging and selling are different, but hear me out. Engaging someone
involves connecting with them, drawing them in and possibly getting them excited. It will involve them ‗buying
into‘ an idea or concept. Good and successful sellers have products and marketing campaigns targeted to a
specific group/person. Museums have a tougher job here as they are trying to draw in a diverse group of people
but they do target groups of people and within that can specifically target smaller groups of people through
specific events (e.g. school children between 5-9). No one product would expect to target everyone between
the ages of 5-50 – unless it is essential (like toilet roll and even then toilet roll is targeted at different
types/groups of people). The museum needs to decide which groups of people they are selling too.
I disagree somewhat with Elizabeth Anionwu‘s statement as not every group of people is represented within a
museum and therefore people may forget about people different to themselves (human nature), so having focus
groups can help give people perspective and create awareness. Nor do I believe that every group of people
needs to be represented on a panel/consortium in order to reach out to all diverse groups. It‘s all about knowing
your target market and knowing how to sell to them. A woman can design the marketing campaign and sell razors
to men even though she doesn‘t shave, but she needs to do her market research first to know what kind of men
she is selling the razor to and what they respond to. There are a million and 1 different ways you could split a
group of people into categories and categorising them can help target and sell to them, but you need to find the
right categories depending on what you are selling. For example, you could split men into age groups and sell the
razor in a way that 40-50 year old men respond to OR you could split the men into ones that shave daily and sell
and market your product in a way that they respond to. There is no right or wrong answer – but you do need to
fix a category and a target before you can start selling. All good sellers/marketers use focus groups and other
consumer research tools to find out who they are trying to connect with and how best to do that. There are
also tools to help categorise people. These tools and the information gained from sessions such as focus groups
have to be used and interpreted properly or little or no benefit will be gained. Use Tas‘ comment as an example,
if you ask people directly what they want vast majority of the time they cannot tell you because they don‘t
know.
alicerosebell October 25, 2010
Engaging in the context discussed at that conference is often comparable to selling, yes. It‘s not a very
controversial thing to say. I like to get my students to acknowledge the PR aspect of a lot of so-called
―engagement‖ work. That said, equally PR professionals would often say they job is to advocate as much
as sell (which, depending on context, might be seen as slightly different). Moreover, the notion of
―engagement‖ in both science communication and museums (so doubly-so at The Science Museum) it‘s
also mixed in with more ―dialogue‖ based ideas too, where you seek to make audiences part of the
production of the material communicated.
As BIS have stated in some doc or another, engagement is an ―umbrella term‖. My translation: ―includes
so many meanings it is almost meaningless‖ ;)
I think Anionwu was talking about the context of her focus group and the Science Museum (which is
huge). I maybe should have added something else she said, which was to ask what is the diversity of
museum staff? Similarly, what is the diversity – ethnic, gender, class, otherwise – of the science
communication industry? Most of my students are white Russell Group trained women (not all, in the

244 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
slightest, but most of them). I should also say that you could equally use the bit you pull out of Tas‘
comment to argue she‘s right that you shouldn‘t have focus groups…
Tas October 25, 2010
It‘s funny that this debate on the nature of engagement should come up. This is a topic I have had on
my mind having recently being appointed in an engagement role for UK PubMed Central (UKPMC). I think
it is certainly not only PR because PR only involves selling the good points and working out how to include
key messages in a product that is already developed. I do think of it more as an ongoing dialogue. It
involves mostly trying to work out in some way what it is our consumer expects. To engage is to try to
reach a mutual understanding. For me, this should be tangible, for example researchers wanting another
tool or hating a particular feature. I expect my audience to argue and debate and most are pretty hard
to please. For you, this its much more abstract because the ‗consumer‘ will never really have an idea of
what they want until you forcibly put some ideas in their head to work with and make them to play about
with the concepts. Most will not want to do anything except be passive. The Wellcome Trust say they
want people to be ‗informed, inspired and involved‘ in their mission statement for public engagement
with Science. I would argue that is not necessary that all of your audience has to be all of those things.
It depends on aptitude, inclination, time and many other factors. Sometimes one is enough.
As for focus groups, we can‘t predict for certain what would emerge but could you argue that one group
that included more ‗diversity‘ would produce more interesting results than another that had only white
Russell group-educated males? The outcome is often dependent on individual personalities and group
dynamics and probably much more so than on ethnic background.
alicerosebell October 25, 2010
I think you are right about group dynamics, but think of the way the museum are using Anionwu‘s focus
group as a (rhetorical as well as developmental) tool. I still think she is right that it‘s depressing that
she has to be there.
On THE MEANING OF ENGAGEMENT. In the big scheme of things, it doesn‘t have a meaning. Instead,
it has many. So, your idea that ―To engage is to try to reach a mutual understanding‖ is entirely valid,
but so is the Wellcome Trust and the Science Museum‘s definitions (and frankly they are bigger and
scarier than you, or me for that matter).
Seriously: BIS‘ point about the ―umbrella term‖ is v accurate. I don‘t think fighting over what
engagement does or doesn‘t mean will get anyone in sci com‘n very far. Talking a bit about it and thinking
about the history of the term can be useful, but trying to decide on a definition is a huge red herring. I
feel quite strongly that we‘re better off trying to avoid using it and instead talkingspecifically about
what we mean.
hapsci October 26, 2010
Totally agree. Focus groups can be completely useless, however, if you do your market research with the
correct people in the correct way you can gain an awful lot from it and that doesn‘t need to involve
asking people directly what they want.
Tas October 26, 2010
I think I do agree with you there. As someone from a scientific research background, vague umbrella terms
make me uncomfortable hence the tendency to define a meaning. It‘s much better broken down into specifics.

2010/10/23 EXQUISITE LIFE: WHY CAMERON


LACKS CREDIBILITY ON GROWTH
In his podcast today, David Cameron explained that he wanted the country to move on from discussing
cuts to growth.

Here’s the examples he gave:

"We’re investing in our railways and roads and spreading broadband access across the country. We’re
creating more adult apprenticeships so we have the skills for the future. We’re making sure the UK remains
a world leader in research by protecting the science budget. And we’re investing in the new green
industries, which will be worth billions of pounds and thousands of jobs in the future."

245 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Let’s run through Cameron’s list.

Thanks to the CSR, spending on roads and railways is down significantly.

The new government cannot claim credit for broadband, something most voters have had access to for
years.

Thanks to the CSR, spending on further education is down significantly. Yes, there will be more
apprenticeships. But those aren’t the only way young people learn “skills for the future”. And all the other
stuff is being squeezed hard.

True, the science budget has been protected up to a point, but it’s still suffering real terms cuts. And if
you’re talking about growth, there’s more to it than that. There’s technology, commercial R&D and the
generality of innovation (which as we’ll see later seems to be what Cameron is really talking about). And
when you look at that bigger picture, the innovation agenda that Cameron wants to lay claim to, then
spending is down significantly again.

The green stuff is new investment. Well done sir.

But the claims in Cameron’s list are cautious compared to what follows. Here’s his conclusion:

“Across a whole range of areas – from skills to our infrastructure, innovation to trade, and competition
policy to bank lending - you’re going to see the most pro-business, pro-growth, pro-jobs agenda ever
unleashed by a government.”

These claims are truly, hot-headedly extravagant. I’m sure Cameron would like to lead the most pro-
growth government ever. But he’s not. In all the spending areas he cites - skills, infrasructure and
innovation - the CSR has just delivered large cuts.

If these are areas of spending that are key to growth - which is what I think and now what Cameron is
starting to say - then Cameron is leading a government that is demonstrably less pro-growth than the last
lot.

Instead of spending on these areas of investment, the Coalition is spending its money on consumption in
places like the NHS, overseas aid and social care for the elderly. There are reasons for maintaining
spending in these areas, and not just the promises made by Cameron before the election. But when you
combine spending like that with a sharp commitment to deficit reduction, the result - as we have seen in
the CSR - is that there isn’t enough money left to increase investments in growth.

So, with the current spending plans, Cameron’s claim to lead a pro-growth government ring hollow. Worst
of all, Gordon Brown was in Cameron's own terms demonstrably more pro-growth.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m delighted that Cameron is adopting some sensible rhetoric on growth. And I’m
delighted to the point of bouquets of flowers that some of the fundamental principles of what an advanced
state needs to do in the 21st century to stimulate growth in the long term have abeen adopted by the
government. But what this podcast from Cameron demonstrates is just what early days it is for the
Conservatives in this territory - and how far he has to go before he can credibly make the claims he wants
to.

Posted by William Cullerne Bown

246 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/23 JOBRODIE: BEYOND BLOGGING
- SCIENCE ENGAGEMENT ONLINE #IASBB
When I started writing this blog post a couple of days ago (procrastination!) I had just returned from a
really inspiring evening at the Wellcome Trust's Gibbs building thanks to @imascientist who kindly put my
name on the list for the evening roundup. Although I'd love to have gone along for the afternoon too as it
sounds really interesting, but I'm more of an evening event kind of person I suppose. This was the evening
reception for the 'Beyond Blogging' event.

While there we heard from a number of people - firstly there was feedback from each of the groups from
the afternoon session (which I didn't attend), they had each discussed an aspect of science engagement
online and were reporting back. I've made rather a lot of notes, and rather than completely fail to type
them up all in one go (and then never get around to finishing which is my current blogging tactic) I thought
I'd write it up in bits and pieces.

Then we heard from Jenny Rohn, Richard Grant and Shane McCracken with a fascinating day-by-day
account of how the #scienceisvital campaign developed from a blog, some volunteers and momentum
from Facebook, then Twitter and then - importantly - everyone else via email and word of mouth.

Finally we heard from one of the scientists and one of the teachers who'd been participants in I'm a
Scientist, Get Me Out of Here! a while back and Sophia summed up with some pithy thoughts on online
engagement.

The bit I wanted to talk about first was one of the five updates from the afternoon sessions. I think I should
impress again upon anyone reading that I wasn't at the afternoon discussion and this is my impression of a
brief reporting-back - so I might miss stuff.

I think the brief was that people would discuss several ways in which different communities / publics can
engage / be engaged with science and scientists while taking things a little further than blogs, ie a bit more
involvement and interactivity.

One example that intrigued me was from Jonathan (sorry, don't know his surname) whose group came up
with the idea for some sort of database in which would be placed information about funded research in
the UK. This would be open to the public, and people could monitor the progress of research and see
where their money was going.

There are similar things in place for clinical trials. Trials can be given a unique registration number, which is
used in published articles, and you can track its progress. I'm still always pleasantly surprised to see an NCT
number in an abstract or article.

About a year ago I collected together 7 databases, mostly for clinical trials (medical research in people) and
packaged them together into one URL via the Krunchd service.

Research databases and trials registers - A non-comprehensive list of research databases, trials databases
and other relevant websites.
247 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
rdb, research, database, trial, trials, clinical trials, register, registry, registries, registers, clinical, clinical
research,

I think a database of other basic research would be rather useful. My question at the allotted time was
'who would input the data?'. I wonder if this might be a bit of a sticking point. Funding bodies, eg charities,
have to provide some basic information about where they money's going - there's the requirement for an
annual report, but most charities take this a bit further and take the opportunity to talk in more depth
about the research they're funding.

This information will include the institution where the work is taking place, the names of the researchers,
the title of the project, how long it will last and the amount of money put towards it. That's probably what
would be needed (as a minimum) in any other database, but who would input that? The funders, the
researchers, volunteers scraping data from these reports, or by accessing institutions' research grants
databases (RDBs)?

Many charities, and I'm assuming other funding bodies, will use bespoke RDBs and it would probably help
if the contents of each record could be exported in more or less the same way... presumably people
wouldn't really want to enter the data into one database and then do the same again for the 'community
database'.

Hopefully these are minor issues as I think the idea's a really interesting one.

Here are the words and phrases I wrote down while Jonathan was speaking:
lack of a database for projects, academics, open data community, wider civil society, document progress of
a research project, link social media, deposit data sets, API for programmes to interface, 1,000 flowers
bloom :)

The database sounds like the sort of thing that gets thrashed out over one of those hack weekends -
fingers crossed it does.

2010/10/25 FT BLOG: THE £1.4BN COST OF


WINDING DOWN THE RDAS
by Jim Pickard

When Francis Maude said a few weeks ago that he was culling 192 quangos he couldn’t put a number on
how much money the coalition would save. And no wonder. The cost of any government reorganisation
can quickly mount in terms of redundancy payments, closing down offices and so on - before you get any
net benefits.

Regional Development Agencies will require a further £1.4bn-plus of state funding over the next four years
despite their abolition in the spending review, officials have just confirmed.

The nine regional quangos, which are to be replaced with a patchwork of “local enterprise partnerships” –
loose networks of councils and companies – cannot be axed immediately and instead will be wound down
gradually with heavy redundancy costs for staff.

248 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
The business department, which has provided a large share of the RDAs’ annual £1.4bn funding, will pay 30
per cent of the costs of winding down the nine bodies. It alone will pay £435m over the four years to meet
legal commitments, complete various projects and shut the bodies down.

The communities department, which made the largest contribution to their running costs, is also likely to
have to pay a large sum as they are wound down. Lesser contributions will be made by the departments of
environment, energy and transport.

The huge costs illustrate just how cumbersome, time-consuming and costly the wider process of shutting
down close to 200 quangos across Britain is likely to prove for the coalition.

However government sources pointed out that only part of the £1.4bn would be used for redundancies,
cancelling facilities contracts and closing down buildings. The “vast majority” of the money would be
required to see economic development projects through to conclusion – meaning it was an investment and
not “dead money”, said one Whitehall official.

A spokeswoman for the business department said it would pay £297m towards the package in 2011/12,
£69m in 2012/13, £37m in 2013/14 and £32m in 2014/15.But the point remains; the remnants of the RDAs
will still be absorbing large amounts of taxpayers’ money - even at the end of this Parliament.

UPDATE: I should clarify that it is only a co-incidence that the £1.4bn annual funding for RDAs in the past is
the same figure as the total £1.4bn which they will need to wind up over the next four years. An even
stranger co-incidence is that £1.4bn is also the figure for David Cameron’s new regional development fund,
designed to take the sting out of the scrapping of the RDAs. I hope that’s clear.

2010/10/25 DELLABEAN: SCIENCE IS VITAL


– MY JOURNEY
Posted by Della on October 25, 2010 · 8 Comments

In almost exactly one month (since Vince Cable gave his speech and the
subsequent call-to-arms from Dr Jenny Rohn) the Science Is Vital became a petition of over 24,000
signatures, a 2000-strong rally and it had dates in the diary for a lobby of Parliament and an official visit to
10 Downing Street to personally deliver the list of all petition signatories.

Still now I cannot believe I have been working at the core of this campaign and to be honest it hasn’t given
me the time to even think about it. I posted a comment on Jenny’s blogpost about applying for a protest
and that I was ready for action and that was it, I was sucked in. Thereafter it completely consumed every
spare minute I had but I would have given more if I had it. I have to admit, at the very first Science Is Vital
meeting in the Prince Arthur pub in Euston, sitting around the same table as Dr Jenny Rohn, Dr Richard
Grant, Dr Evan Harris, Imran Khan and Dr Hilary Leevers I did wonder how the hell I got there (save the
literal sense) and what on Earth I was expected to bring to the cause. Not everyone could make the initial
meeting, however, shortly afterwards the core team had become a larger stronghold of members

249 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
including Prof Stephen Curry, Dr Lewis Dartnell, Michelle Brook, Tom Whyntie, Dr Alice Bell, Dr Tom
Hartley, Grace Baynes and CaSE researcher Nick Hall.

Our final War Cabinet meeting before the rally

I was given the task to infiltrate the Universities up and down the country, to try to get the message to
science and engineering students who would be affected by the proposed funding cuts in the future. For
this, I required contact details of every sabbatical member of all student unions, together with each head
of department, their administrator and Dean of every Science and Engineering campus – that’s a lot of
email addresses. I began to collate the student union details and it was proving a lengthy and time-
consuming workload, so for the heads etc we used twitter to crowd-source for some help and we were
amazed with the response (although it does always help to have high profile twitterers such as CaSE, Evan
and Prof Brian Cox to retweet your request). Shane McCracken set up a public google document listing all
the universities so that the (wonderful) volunteers – too many to thank by name – could fill in the
necessary details. I still don’t believe I have thanked them enough for all the work they did on that, so if
you’re one of them – BIGGEST THANK YOU!! A special thanks, however, goes to Heather Stevens for her
infinite help in every way that was possible, it was greatly appreciated.

With every Science Is Vital team member having their own responsibilities, together with the cumulative
queries from all angles, it was proving awkward to keep track of threads via our conventional emails so
Shane assigned us all to a “Basecamp” program and that made life so much easier. Through Basecamp we
could raise questions and monitor our campaign’s progress by posting messages on the wall, creating to-do
lists, marking milestones and publishing documents on writeboards before sending them out officially.

250 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Me sawing the placard wood on my coffee table

In the meantime, the website was being coded by Matt Brealey in order to provide potential supporters
with an online petition to sign and a link to find out who their MP was so that they could write to them.
Little did we know just how successful the campaign would turn out to be. By midnight on 23rd
September, the day the petition went live, we had received over 1500 signatures and since then the
signatories have continued to rise at what almost feels like an exponential rate. I would, and still do, leave
the petition page on a tab and periodically refresh the screen to see the jump in number of signatories –
far more exciting than a bidding war on ebay, for me anyway, as it is proof of the fruits of our labour and is
very rewarding to see. What really hit home about the petition was reading the occupation of each
signatory because they were not limited to just science and engineering; we had house husbands,
solicitors, musicians, taxi drivers, people who are retired, postmen and also a carer for her husband who
has Motor Neurone Disease. This campaign has proven to me that science touches the lives of many, if not
all of us at some point and science really is vital.

So much hard work has been (and still is being) put into the campaign. Many letters were being drafted,
rally logistics were being calculated (with no thanks to the Metropolitan Police I hasten to add), liability
insurance was being investigated (the biggest headache of them all), 200 pieces of wood were being sawn
single-handedly with a poxy hand saw that gave nasty blisters *ahem*, the website was continually being
updated, interviews were given, blogs were posted; the list goes on. We had so much help through twitter
and facebook, not to mention friends and family who were so eager to help any way they possibly could
from designing posters and T-shirts to offering to steward at the rally. We were doing everything in our
manpower to get the message out there and what a rollercoaster ride it turned out to be, but a fun one all
the same. I particularly enjoyed collating slogans for our placards, which we achieved by tweeting out the
request for some ideas. We had such an amazing response and my particular favourite (aside from Jenny’s
original “No More Dr Nice Guy”) was byAlex Davenport : “Banks don’t cure diseases, we do”, which in the
final edit for print became “Banks don’t cure disease”.

251 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Jenny is No More Dr Nice Guy

oops

I really cannot even begin to imagine how Jenny must be feeling right now about the results of her knee-
jerk response blogpost, but I can begin to explain how it makes me feel. Never would I have imagined that
in just four weeks we could achieve so much support as over 36,000 signatures on the petition – wow!!

252 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Science is Vital for the future

So how did the rally go?

Quickly!! With Evan as our MC, Jenny and Imran with their gearing speeches and a list of truly inspirational
speakers the time just flew by and I believe it was a great experience for all who attended, all 2000 of us.
We feel so honoured to boast such a great list of speakers and comedians, with Dr. Mark
Miodownik, Simon Denegri, Vivenne Hill talking about the importance of finding a cure for Alzheimer’s
disease, Michael Brooks, Timandra Harkness, Paul Noon, Prof Colin Blakemore, Simon Singh, Dean Burnett,
cancer survivor Claire Daniels, Dr Petra Boynton andDr. Ben Goldacre. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the
crowd even enjoyed the musical interjections of Evan and the “Evanettes” giving their own renditions of
Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby” and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall”. Evan insisted for the latter song
that we helped display the revised lyrics on A3 paper and it proved more fidley than hoped but after I
dragged my work colleague, Tina Parusheva, in to help we managed it in the end.

Prof David Colquhoun looks on as we sing to Osborne

Amongst the enormous amount of fun that we all shared, we also had a serious message: to cut science
and engineering funding would be detrimental to the economy. The proposed cuts may provide a short-
term fix but would, in turn, provide long-term battles as we would lag behind our international
competitors such as USA and Germany who believe science is essential for boosting the economy and so
are investing further money into these sectors.

The rally received some great publicity including live morning interviews on both radio and TV, coverage
from the BBC, the Guardian, the Metro, the Pod Delusion and many websites, blogs, organisations and
student magazines. If George Osborne had not heard the 2000 voices loud and clear from our pitch right
outside HM Treasury, we at least had a good chance he would hear it through some form of media
channel. I felt like we all had enough energy to rally all day but, sadly, it came to an end after just two
hours. Then while Jenny, Richard and Imran headed back with the van and dropped all the remaining

253 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
placards and other rally paraphernalia off at CaSE HQ, the rest of us jubilant crowd headed for The Old
Shades pub down the road.

My two ID badges for the lobby

Next stop: The Houses of Parliament

There wasn’t much time reserved for rest because three days later came the lobby: at 3:30pm in
Committee Room 10 of The Houses of Parliament. I don’t get appointments like that everyday and this
was my first lobby so I had no idea what to expect.

After security checks and receiving our visitor ID badges we all congregated in the cafe and I emailed one
last plea to my MP, Jeremy Corbyn, to come and meet with me at the lobby. We had the unfortunate
timing of our lobby coinciding with Vince Cable’s speech on Education and the Browne Review. We knew a
lot of MPs would be tied up with this, but at least we knew we had a good chance our MPs would be in the
building. In light of that fact and in addition to my email I, along with others lobbyists who hadn’t heard
from their MP, wrote out a green request form to call on our MPs to come a talk with us – it was our last
chance. After handing in our requests and finding some time to admire the grandeur of Parliament’s
interior, we headed to our committee room and I can quite honestly say that I’ve never simultaneously felt
so confident, so proud and so determined about anything in my life as I did at that moment.

Jenny & Imran taking charge at the top

254 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Imran chaired the meeting and opened with a warm welcome and thanks to the brimming room of
attendees, together with brief background on what brought us all together there. At the top bench, Imran
was joined by Jenny, Prof Adrian Smith, Professor Colin Blakemore and, later, Julian Huppert MP. The
second speech from Jenny substantiated why science is not only vital for the economy, but it is a way of
life – from the safety of our drinking water to the smart phones we use on a daily basis and how science
creates a luxury that allows us to forget the dangers of the world. Jenny also reminded us of the success
that the campaign had achieved so far and how the rally and the petition were a celebration and an
underscoring of the support we had received. All facts to be immensely proud of.

Prof Colin Blakemore then spoke of the prestigious Medical Research Council and how science research
through this council alone had achieved 29 Nobel Prizes. He continued with staggering examples of how
innovation was achieved through fundamental curiosity research, the very research threatened by the
proposed cuts. These examples included magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the discovery of penicillin and
how the study of monoclonal antibodies resulted in a worth of multi-billion pounds. Prof Blakemore went
on to highlight the fact that even many people of a non-science background recognise that science is vital.
He also reminded us of the previous slow gradual decline in science funding during the 1980′s and 90′s that
affected research quality and how this presented difficulties in recruiting researchers, especially from
overseas – highlighting the topical “Brain Drain” issue in recent media coverage. Confidence in UK science
and engineering was soon restored as the funding increased and high quality education and research led to
the rise of UK excellence, averaging at producing 14% of the highest impact citations. Despite the great
shape of science, Prof Blakemore explained how the UK maintains the lowest level of investment
on OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) tables in the whole of the G7.

We were then fortunate to have a brief visit and speech from David Morris Conservative MP for Morcambe
and Lunesdale. David’s constituency is home to Heysham nuclear power station, one of the eight sites
recently confirmed by the government as suitable for future nuclear power stations. It was with no
surprise, therefore, that he announced his belief that science funding should be preserved and he echoed
the earlier opinion that too much is taken for granted. David also highlighted the importance of
encouraging the interests of younger generations into science and engineering because these sectors are
vital for the future economy.

Imran then read out a statement from Chi Onwurah Labour MP for Newcastle Central which initially made
apologies for not being able to attend due to supporting her BIS colleagues for the Browne Review. The
statement was powerfully encouraging for the campaign; explaining how science and engineering are of
the most important sources for fuelling our economy and growing our way out of the recession. Chi’s
statement also made good examples out of the large companies that heavily rely on science research, not
to mention how important an effect it has on the global reputation of the UK also.

Committee Room 10 filling up nicely

255 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
With a career foundation based around science research, Julian knows all to well the
difficultiesalready faced by post-docs searching for that next grant. Julian expressed his concerns with the
distinct lack of a chief science advisor in the Treasury and how a lot of talent was lost in the last election,
rendering only two MPs with PhDs in the House of Commons. At the time of the lobby the EDM 767 had
gained only 50 signatures and Julian was confident it would build up in the run up to the CSR; and he was
right – by the time of the CSR, 117 MPs had signed it. Julian believed science and engineering were very
likely to be facing some degree of funding cuts, however, anything less than 25% should be welcomed as
evidence of a successful campaign. His outlook for long-term security described how it funding could
follow two paths: it could decrease and then rise again or it could decrease and then decrease again and so
he stressed that there was more work for scientists to do, that we had to speak up.

With Vince Cable engaged in his speech a few doors down the hallway, Prof Adrian Smith communicated
his statement on his behalf. Apologise for his absence were made, then he began to explain how
investment was critical and he personally believed there has been a problem with the economy for many
years. He acknowledged the fact that the UK has the second strongest university system in the world but it
is constrained. His concerns with research lay with the inability to predict the individual benefits of each
piece of research, so they must be prioritised because the greater focus is to maximise economic growth
and international competitiveness through excellence. He concluded by saying he understood the
concerns that brought about the lobby and he did believe that science and engineering is vital for growth.

By the end of the read-out a number of MPs had gathered at the back of the committee room, all willing to
meet their constituents and discuss their concerns. The speeches were over by 4:30pm, however, we had
the room until 5:00pm so those who wanted to were able to wait around in anticipation that their MPs
would show. 5 o’clock arrived and sadly there was still no-show for my MP. Then, just as I was about to
leave, Hilary called out his name as he was just walking up the stairs to see if we were still there – I was
elated. He invited me down to the halfway house cafe located between the House of Commons and the
House of Lords, which is considered “neutral” grounds for the two sides; with red carpets representing the
Lords and green seats representing the Commons. Over a drink and a scone I expressed my concerns. The
meeting was encouraging as Jeremy confessed he came from a whole family of scientists and he
understood how important it was for the economy. He convinced me that he was completely supportive
of the campaign and it was great to see him being true to his word when, shortly afterwards, his signature
appeared on the EDM.

All in all, in my opinion, the lobby was a great move forward. We had a packed committee room, great
representations and speeches and many of the attendees got the opportunity to speak with their MPs. On
the advice of Julian, however, we still had a lot of work to do in reaching out to the MPs who had not yet
replied to their constituents so the next 48 hours were the most crucial. So, without further a do, we sent
requests out into the twittersphere to encourage people to contact their MPs and sign the
petition, guestblogs were written,audioboos were posted and videoblogs were posted.

The next step was to ensure we had as many signatories on the petition as possible before it went to print,
ready for delivery to 10 Downing Street – just two days away!!

Delivering the petition to 10 Downing Street

256 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Printed petition with 33,804 signature on it.

At the time the petition went to print it had achieved 33,804 signatures and at 11am on Thursday 14th
October, we could not wait to hand it in. With the added support from the Baron Willis of
Knaresborough and Prof Colin Blakemore we headed through security with our photographer Joe
Dunckley and walked up to the world-famous door.

We faffed around for a few minutes, staging a few photo moments holding the petition and soaking up
every proud moment just being there and reflecting on everything that the campaign had achieved in the
run up to that day. It was such a monumental occasion when the security guy opened the door and took
the weighty petition out of Jenny’s grasp. All those hours of hard work, all that support and everything
that the campaign had stood for and achieved was condensed to a few thousand pieces of paper and then
it was in the hands of the government.

After the petition was handed in there was nobody ushering us out to make way for the next visitors so we
pretty much just hung out on Downing Street for about half an hour in total. Prof Blakemore, Imran,
Richard, and Jenny we’re being interviewed on camera whereas Michelle and I stood there in complete
awe about what had just happened.

257 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Proud moment

Just when we thought that was it for the day, it seemed the campaign had caught the attention of a couple
of important figures:

258 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Comments posted online the same morning we handed in the petition

My visitor pass at BIS

and in response to the second comment, Imran had confirmed we had an appointment to meet with David
Willets at BIS. We had an hour to kill so we topped up with refreshments and then made our way over.

Julian Huppert also joined us for the meeting and this was a great opportunity to explain our concerns
about the funding cuts, face to face with David Willets. It was a real privilege because it is not common for
ministers to speak with the public in these situations, particularly real-life working scientists. This was the
first time I have spoken to a minister before and despite Michelle pointing out that I looked quite nervous,
I felt so confident and passionate about what my concerns. I knew I had one shot at what I wanted to say
and when my time came, I said it and I was so pleased to hear afterwards that it was just as coherent to
others as it had seemed to me but, most importantly, was exactly what I needed to say.

After leaving BIS that afternoon, it was then all out of our hands. Nobody could say we had not tried
everything and had not given it our all for the past 5 weeks of our lives. All that was left was the waiting
game: what would be the fate of science and engineering come the CSR?

The eve of the official CSR announcement

The night before the CSR results an apparent good source had leaked some information about the
outcome for science and engineering funding and it was reported here. Could this be true? Science
funding was spared. Cuts were frozen for the next three years. All I could hear was Julian Huppert’s
comment resonating in my mind: “anything less than 25% cuts means a successful campaign” so this was
great news. Despite such promising revelations, I just couldn’t commit myself to celebrating the news
because I had to be sure it was official and so I still had another night to sleep on it.

The CSR Result

CSR day arrived and I knew the announcements were due to begin at 12:30pm. As I was at work, I had to
rely on the power of twitter to provide me with the news and so I watched Julian Huppert’s tweets with
the greatest attention possible and then soon enough there it was:

259 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
How I received the official news while I was at work

WOW!! It was official. So no cuts at all (except of course for the 8.9% over the three years due to inflation)
must mean we really made a difference. Like Jenny said in her subsequent Guardian guestblog here, there
is no controlled experiment to see what would have happened without Science Is Vital, however, my MP
wrote in his letter to me that Science Is Vital “really hammered the message home to Government
Ministers”, which sounds to me like we had some effect.

I have heard some people suggesting that the original speech by Vince Cable that Wednesday morning was
the beginning of a whole conspiracy theory to ruffle the feathers of us scientists so that when frozen
funding was announced we would all be enormously grateful. Well, we are but I don’t believe in a
conspiracy theory. What I do believe is that if they really wanted to go to that trouble, why then did they
not tell the arts they were going to be cut by 60% so that they would be pleased with their massive 30%
cuts?

Every single supporter, donator, blogger and team member involved in Science Is Vital made a difference
to the CSR result for science and engineering funding, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!

260 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Thank you Jenny xx

For those who subscribe to The Times Online, you can also read my guestblog about why this campaign
was important to me here.

2010/10/25 EXQUISITE LIFE: CAMERON'S


HAUSER PROBLEM
The Technology and Innovation Centres (or Hauser Centres) that David Cameron is set to announce today
as part of the National Infrastructure Plan are a kind of intermediate institution. The idea is to fill a gap
between the basic research done in university departments and the concrete product R&D that companies
do.

The gap is quaquaversal. It extends in every direction into technologies, industries and scientific disciplines.
How a country effectively bridges it is an unending source of discussion to innovation theorists. You can
261 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
spend a lot of money on it but the impact is hard to measure. The Office of Budget Responsibility will not
be issuing any job forecasts to accompany Cameron's announcement.

Under Labour, spending on bridging the gap came through four routes: the Technology Strategy Board,
Regional Development Agencies, research councils and the Higher Education Innovation Fund run by the
Higher Education Funding Council for England. The RDAs have been spending £300m - £400m a year in this
area, the TSB about the same, the spending on these objectives by the research councils is difficult to add
up and HEIF's budget is £150m. In round terms, it's about £1 billion a year.

In addition, remember that the point of all this intermediate spending is ultimately to strengthen
commercial activity, in particular R&D by British businesses. So we also have to consider the tax credits for
R&D initiated by Labour. These cost the government around £700m a year.

What is happening to all this spending totalling around £1.7bn during the deepest cuts in public spending
for decades?

Bar the tax credits, all of it is inside the budget of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills. Here,
the science budget comprising the research councils, HEIF and QR research spending by HEFCE is flat cash -
ie small cuts each year after allowing for inflation. The rest we haven't been told about. But aside from the
science budget, we know the BIS budget is subject to large cuts. And the government has already
announced that regional spending is to be hacked back severely.

So HEIF looks all right. We have a moderate squeeze on the research councils that could turn into a bigger
squeeze on the tech end of their spending. The regional bit is due for a big - possibly huge - cut. The TSB is
a mystery. And the tax credits bit is a mystery.

I asked David Willetts about spending at the TSB, in the regions and on tax credits after the spending
review. He said he was a big fan of the TSB and left it at that. It doesn't inspire confidence.

So we are probably facing quite substantial cuts overall in that total of £1.7bn. I hope I'm wrong about
that. But at the end of the day, the Hauser Centres are just a test of a new mechanism that may or may not
work in the UK. To claim that the government is "pro-growth" as Cameron did on Sunday, the Coalition
needs to do a lot more than make showy announcements. It needs to tell us what the complete picture is
on innovation spending. Otherwise, why should we take it seriously?

The National Infrastructure Plan published by the Treasury this morning helpfully includes a section on
"Intellectual capital" and is the kind of place we should find a complete picture. Unfortunately, it is silent
on almost all the important questions.

See also Why Cameron lacks credibility on growth, and, for the good news about Coalition policy on
innovation, Today I gave David Willetts flowers. Have I gone mad?

2010/10/25 EXQUISITE LIFE: HOW TO READ


DAVID WILLETTS' SPEECH TO VICE CHANCELLORS
AT THE HEFCE CONFERENCE
David Willets gave a speech to vice chancellors on Thursday outlining the Coalition's current position vis-a-
vis the Browne Review of student fees. What follows below is an annotated version of the speech, with my

262 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
comments in red. I'm doing this with all the speeches from Willetts and Vince Cable, which are
indexed here. I'll be digesting all this and summarising my thoughts in the next issue of Research Fortnight.

In short, we're still in the post-Browne chaos I described last week. As you'll see below, ministers are
rushing through a series of concessions that cost money. We must presume that Lib Dem rebels are also
giving ground.

Meanwhile, one stunning detail from this speech is the difference between what Willetts said here in front
of the audience of vice chancellors and what he said in the press conference in the same building
immediately afterwards. Willetts knows that the universities, especially the most prestigious, keenly
support Browne’s recommendation that the cap on fees should be lifted. In front of the VCs, on the
question of a fees cap, he said, “We have not reached a final decision.” But in the press conference
afterwards he revealed that ministers have come to a conclusion, and not one the vice chancellors will
like. The Guardian and Times immediately rushed out reports that there is going to be a fees cap, a story
subsequently confirmed by Nick Clegg at the weekend.

Willetts could have said that directly to the vice chancellors. But he didn't. You can use the comments to
suggest which word you would use to describe that...
***

By David Willetts

Minister of State for Universities and Science (attending Cabinet)

21 Oct 2010, Royal College of Physicians, London

[Check against delivery]

Good afternoon.

It has been a crucial ten days for the development of higher education in our country.

How very, very true. HEFCE holds this conference every year, with a speech from the
relevant minister. Can there ever have been a time when the vice chancellors were more
worried or listened with more care?

I am very grateful to HEFCE for this opportunity to set out how the Coalition Government sees things now.
But my debt – our debt – to HEFCE goes much further than that. Alan Langlands brings sagacity and
stability – qualities we need in such a turbulent world. Tim Melville-Ross makes an excellent contribution
as chairman and I am delighted to announce that Tim has agreed to serve as Chair of the Board of HEFCE
for a further three years.

The Browne Report is up there with Lionel Robbins’ report of 1963 and Ron Dearing’s report of 1997 as a
serious, paradigm-shifting publication.

Really? In which case, how is it that the government is now rewriting huge chunks of it?

We will not necessarily accept all of it, but many experts have already recognised its quality – with praise
coming, among others, from the vice-chancellors of Leicester, Imperial and the Open University.

That list doesn’t actually sound that impressive. See HEPI’strashing of Browne here for
another opinion on the quality of the report.

It has also been praised by our leading papers. Perhaps I can quote their words as if on a billboard outside
a West End theatre: "genuinely radical", the Financial Times; "sophisticated” and "persuasive", Daily

263 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Telegraph; "attempting to uphold a core set of policy principles that should be broadly supported”, the
Guardian.

There are lessons we can take from those two great reports which preceded Browne. Robbins has gone
down in the history books as the report which drove university expansion. But the key driver of that
expansion was decisions already taken on student finance following the Anderson Report of 1960. It is right
that we should look at university reform and finance together, rather than separately – while of course
recognising that finance is only one aspect of a university’s mission, and that the social and moral purposes
of higher education are its bedrock.

That’s right.

I was actually my Party’s higher education spokesman when Dearing came out. And I remember the shock
we all felt when David Blunkett effectively tore up Ron's report the day before it was released; instead of
considering Ron’s proposals, he announced an alternative package. That crucial mistake is one reason for
the turbulent and messy history of university policy ever since.

Actually, I’m surprised the BIS press officers left that paragraph in the website version. Aren’t
they supposed to cut out the political knockabout stuff? Too busy probably.

We are not going to repeat that mistake. There will be a very careful process of deliberation in light of the
Browne Report. So my reactions today on some of the broad outlines of John Browne’s report are
necessarily provisional, as we consult in the weeks and months ahead.

There are some decisions, however, that can’t wait. We do need to set out in the next few weeks the way
forward for graduate contributions and student support if we are going to have any chance of
implementing changes for the Autumn of 2012. Many prospective students will visit universities and decide
on their applications in the Summer of 2011, and so they need to know the likely costs by then, and how
the Government will help them to meet those costs. In turn, universities have explained to me that their
prospectuses – with information on graduate contributions – will go to print in April 2011. It is rather like
A. J. P. Taylor’s thesis that train timetables determined the outbreak of the First World War: once the
presses begin rolling, everything is fixed.

This means that amendments to regulations governing the current fees structure and student support
need to happen sooner rather than later.

Or, alternatively, it means the Coalition should have allowed longer to consult on the
reforms and carefully plan their implementation, putting things back by a year. Oh, but
then the cuts in spending would have had to be delayed.

Prompt decisions will mean we can then implement in regulations the commitments we make. We hope to
bring proposals on regulation of graduate contribution levels to Parliament before Christmas. Following
Lord Browne's proposal to introduce a real rate of interest on contributions, we will also need to seek an
early opportunity to make the limited changes to primary legislation on that specific issue, and also update
repayment regulations to enable a more progressive system.

We are keen to hear the views of the sector on the wider issues that Browne considered, such as
governance and regulation, private providers, and student number controls. In fact, we are already
listening, and more lengthy consultation here will tease out the ramifications. We aim to publish a White
Paper in the Winter and then – Parliamentary time permitting – hope to introduce a broader higher
education bill perhaps later on in this current, extended session.

So the Coalition wants to move fast. This is a three step legislative process. 1. Get the cap
on fees raised. 2. Get a narrow Bill through to allow the charging of real interest rates. 3.

264 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Get a general HE bill through at leisure. There are two reasons for the speed. One - the
sooner the financial arrangements are completed, the sooner the Treasury and universities
can relax. Two - political momentum. By keeping the pace up, ministers can try to stay a
step ahead of opposition and use the lingering honeymoon with voters to complete their
deals with a minimum of damaging media coverage. But potential Lib Dem rebels may see
it differently. Once the cap on fees is raised, they will have given up their greatest leverage.
And, my worry, the stitched together compromise may not be properly thought through
and turn out to be very damaging.

The central proposition in Browne is this – that the bulk of the teaching grant which is currently distributed
to universities via HEFCE should be replaced by spending power placed directly in the hands of students,
who will be lent money to pay for their university education. Students will not, of course, have to find any
money of their own for tuition during their time at university, but they will make contributions
subsequently as graduates. That is the big shift in the funding of higher education put forward by the
Browne report and endorsed by the Coalition. Vince and I both believe it is the right way forward. It both
delivers a big saving in public spending – reflected in yesterday's spending review – and reforms the
financing system so that it is shaped by the preferences of students. This new model is what lies behind the
Chancellor's statement yesterday.

And this is what I advocated back in February. Hardly the most original thought, but you
can blame me if you don’t like it.

We have said in the spending review that the overall resource budget for HE, excluding research funding,
will reduce from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion – a 40 per cent, or £2.9 billion, reduction – by 2014-15. By far
the greatest part of that reduction flows from our acceptance of the approach presented by Lord Browne –
that, starting from the 2012/13 academic year, we will start to reduce HEFCE teaching funding, and
institutions will be able to replace it, if they can attract students to their courses, with funding flowing via
the graduate contribution scheme. Obviously, the details of this will vary between different institutions,
and will be affected by the decisions we quickly need to make about the fee regime.

In other words, it’s largely unresolved.

The spending review also contained several assumptions about efficiency, both within the public sector,
and for bodies to which the public sector contributes significant funding. My own department is facing a 40
per cent headline cut in its administration costs. It is not for us to say precisely what efficiency savings a
university should make, but crucial areas to look at will be pay and pensions, procurement and shared
services. I know most of you already have plans in train here.

I know that you will have many detailed questions about higher education funding for 2011-12 and
beyond, which, you will understand, we are not yet in a position to answer. As usual, we will send a grant
letter to HEFCE, with more details, around the turn of the year.

In other words, it’s largely unresolved.

I know too that people in this room will have anxieties about the shift in spending, but I have to ask what
the alternative is. Given the fiscal crisis and the pressure that we are under, there is no option of carrying
on as we are. We would have had to do something – even the previous Labour Government had set out
£600 million of cuts over a shorter time scale, albeit with no indication of how they were to be delivered.
One possibility would have been a big reduction in the unit of resource per student, threatening the quality
of the student experience. Alternatively there could have been a big reduction in student numbers,
depriving thousands of young people of a crucial step on the ladder of opportunity. A third option was a
pure graduate tax, which would risk a brain drain with its incentives for people to study or work abroad.
The graduate tax also breaks the link between student and university. There is an excellent guide to these

265 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
problems and more: a report from December 2003 called "Why not a pure graduate tax?", published by
the last Labour Government.

These options, therefore, all have enormous disadvantages. Lord Browne's considered approach, which we
endorse, actually shows a pathway towards a positive and viable future for higher education – a way
through the "valley of death" to which Steve Smith has often referred.

I wish I knew what this endorsement really meant. I have no doubt it’s real, up to a point.
On the other hand, what bits of Browne are endorsed and what bits aren’t is very hard to
pin down at the moment.

The HE system that we develop between us must be as fair and as progressive as possible. In the current
economic climate, therefore, we simply cannot afford a fiscal subsidy to the wealthiest families. Looking at
the Browne proposals, the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that the poorest 30 per cent of graduates
would be better off than now, while only the richest 30 per cent of graduates would have to pay off their
loans in full.

Great! Let’s make sure wealthy families pay the full open market rate for their tuition. Just to
be clear, that’s something over £30,000 a year at Oxford or Cambridge.

The figures we end up with may not be quite those. But broadly, that is the right approach. In fact, we in
the Coalition have set ourselves the task of improving on Browne and coming up with proposals that offer
even more help for students from the poorest backgrounds but without unfair penalties on success. I have
to say to the strongest universities that they have not been successful enough in improving access to young
people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Back in April, Sir Martin Harris duly noted that, collectively, universities have made clear progress on
widening participation. But he concluded that the participation rate among the least advantaged 40 per
cent of young people at the top third of most selective universities "has remained almost flat" since the
mid-1990s. The Government is committed to good universities, but it is equally serious about social
mobility. The two must go hand in hand. And I hope you will recognise the strength of feeling within the
Coalition that one of the non-negotiables in all this is that universities must deliver on broadening access.
The challenge is to achieve this with imaginative and equitable policy – not with clunky quotas or crude
social engineering. I believe we can do it.

Browne is an improvement on now on access. I’m pleased the Coalition is pushing to go


further. I wish the Russell Group would say something concrete about how it would like to
go forward on this now.

We can do it by focussing on three key groups: young people at school and college, students with modest
incomes at university, and graduates with low earnings. We will offer them a fairer deal which applies at all
three stages: routes for people to get into university, from school, college and through other avenues;
increased support for students from poorer backgrounds while they're at university; and better support for
people on low incomes once they have graduated.

In his important speech last Friday, Nick Clegg pledged £150 million of government money for a national
scholarship scheme to improve access for students from families of modest means. It will be fair,
affordable, and make a real difference to some of the poorest students. At the same time, it will not add to
the burden of regulation on institutions or duplicate arrangements under the more generous and coherent
student support system that's being developed as Browne recommended. I will be inviting the National
Union of Students, Universities UK, the Office for Fair Access, the Sutton Trust and other interested parties
to help us design a scheme for both young and mature students.

266 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Scholarships? Thats a bit clearer than what Clegg said. By going into the pre-university
period, this is broader than Browne. I think it’s good. But it’s costing money.

The second stage involves a more generous maintenance package for students from poorer backgrounds,
details of which we hope to announce shortly. We are looking closely at the Browne recommendations for
a more generous maintenance grant, supplemented by a more generous loans package. It would be a great
achievement to increase maintenance levels on a progressive basis, with more generous grant than now,
even in these austere times. If the Coalition Government can deliver this as proposed by Browne, then the
obligation on universities to deliver their side of the bargain on access will be even greater.

Good again. But more money again.

Improving the deal for part-timers is a key part of broadening access. For the first time, part-time students
will – as Browne proposes – be eligible for loans to cover the full cost of their tuition, on the same basis as
full timers. I see this as a genuine milestone – something that neither Robbins nor Dearing tackled. It is a
vital part of creating a more responsive and diverse HE sector.

Interestingly, both HEPI and Terence Kealey have queried this bit of Browne. The point is,
fees for part time students are currently relatively low. If there are loans, fees are likely to go
up. Is that actually going to lead to smaller numbers of part time students? And more debt
for them?

The third stage is fairness for graduates. We will reform graduate contributions, by increasing the
threshold at which people begin to repay loans, and by introducing a positive interest rate. It is crucial for
the Coalition that contributions should be related to ability to pay without making the mistake of the pure
graduate tax and losing the link with the actual cost of a university education. We specifically asked Lord
Browne to address the issue of progressivity and he has come up with ingenious and practical proposals
which we intend to work with. We can see the case for setting the income threshold for repayments at
£21,000, as Browne suggests – way above the present £15,000 – with nine per cent of salary payable
above that threshold.

Raising the threshold is good. But expensive again.

As for terms on early repayment, the arguments have become rather muddled thanks to a misleading
report in the Guardian and some rather sloppy work by the Social Market Foundation which does not
appear to understand that money in the future is worth less than money now. We are examining this issue
carefully. There is a feeling that it would be unfair if the better-off could reduce their payments by paying
early. But for many people with modest earnings, the delay in repayments at a less than commercial
interest rate is an advantage, not a disadvantage.

The attack on rich people paying off fees early is just unbelievably silly.

This, then, is the direction in which the Coalition Government is heading. Even while public spending is
being reduced, we are seeking more progressive outcomes than at present. As the Institute of Fiscal
Studies commented, “The proposed reforms to student support and graduate repayments would be a
welcome development if they were to be adopted. By continuing to provide up-front cash support for the
full amount of fees and for living costs, the system should preserve access to higher education regardless
of family background."

Like Browne, the IFS has no evidence to support this assertion (as HEPI has pointed out). It
would be quite weird if some poor students weren’t deterred by much higher fees.

There are, of course, some very difficult issues around fee caps and the levy. For Lord Browne, there is – in
theory – no upper limit to fees. He would argue that, provided admissions are needs blind and provided

267 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
that the Exchequer doesn’t take on any of the risk of high loans, the problem is resolved. But we
understand the very strong concern about the level of graduate contributions.

Lord Browne’s proposed levy to avoid any Exchequer subsidy for loans has also aroused quite a lot of
concern across the sector. It means that as soon as universities raise their fee above the threshold level,
they face a rapidly rising levy which can drive their fees up even higher in order to reach a given level of
income. Another objection, for example, is that a levy could become an obstacle to philanthropy if the
upfront payment of fees via donors were to attract it. If you didn’t have a levy, however, there would be a
need for some sort of upper cap. We recognise there are arguments for a lower rate for the levy, or for not
having a levy at all and sticking with a fee cap instead.

Willetts is wobbling on unlimited fees, just as Cable did last week [but see comment at top].

We have not reached a final decision on the levy and the fee cap, but there is an interesting feature within
the current arrangements for higher education funding, which consist of a basic cap of £1,310 and a higher
rate cap of £3,290. It would be possible to set new levels for each, with stringent conditions on access
which any institution would have to meet before setting a graduate contribution at the higher rate.

Again, I think this is about fixing things now with a simple vote in the House of Commons.

The key legal condition, of course, is access and progression – enforceable by OFFA. There is still a
dangerous temptation for universities to blame failings in the widening participation and fair access
agendas on schools – instead of dealing with the world as it is. We can’t just sit on our hands and wait for
schools to be reformed – although that must happen. Universities must act now, and we would look
carefully at the conditions that OFFA demands.

Good again. Didn’t he say this before?

There is also an important question around teaching quality. This is where I think the sector is most in
danger of losing contact with its supporters. On the one hand, we should naturally expect high standards of
teaching in all publicly-funded institutions. On the other, universities who wish to charge more for
undergraduate courses need to produce compelling evidence as to what the extra money would buy in
terms of better teaching, contact time and services for students. And it is legitimate for students to ask
why the finance reforms introduced under the previous government failed – in some cases – to deliver
improvements to their educational experience.

In a reformed system, students will expect a better experience in return for higher contributions as
graduates. If we are to win the argument for reform, universities must demonstrably respond to the
perception that some students are being short-changed. We must do better and we will.

Sorry, but I don’t believe it. I just don’t see any reason to believe the student experience is
going to improve, especially as universities are going to be financially squeezed one way or
the other.

This is one of the reasons why I attach so much importance to supply side reform. Competition is a great
driver of improvement. We want to see innovation and a diverse range of choices for students – two-year
courses, for instance, and more vocational degrees. In speeches we have made in recent months, both
Vince Cable and I have challenged the traditional model of three-year degree courses for 18-year-olds
away at college, and especially championed part-time learning. It is for you rather than us to carry through
reform, but now is the time to identify anything in the arrangements for public financing or regulations
which would stifle these options.

Interesting.

268 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
I am also aware of substantial concerns within the sector about Lord Browne's proposal on controlling
student numbers via UCAS tariff points. This is an especially thorny problem: maintaining macro control
over student numbers while leaving micro freedom to individual institutions. John Browne's is an
imaginative solution, but has raised questions about practicalities. And it is important that we do not deter
mature students, for example, who may have not achieved academic success at school – which is why he
suggests a second admissions route separate from UCAS points. But running two separate systems creates
a new set of problems. Meanwhile UCAS is doing important work looking at how their points system could
be reformed. There is a lot more work to do in this whole area before any changes are implemented.

Why didn’t Browne sort this stuff out?

Some people have also raised doubts about the idea of a single council which incorporates HEFCE, OFFA,
the QAA and the OIA. The Coalition is instinctively attracted to any proposals which reduce the number of
such bodies, but we need to tread carefully. The OIA's special role as an alternative way of resolving
disputes without going through the courts does require independence. The QAA, of course, is not a
Government quango – it is jointly owned and sponsored by the HE sector with HEFCE, and any changes
need to be discussed with the sector. Clearly, we need to think through all this carefully. We won't rush
into any decisions. But Lord Browne, as so often, does have a powerful logic behind his central argument.
HEFCE has, in effect, operated as the regulator of the sector through its power to make grants. As the
relative size of these grants falls, so the regulatory role comes out into the open more. This must be must
be used with care and discretion. But clearly, a key role is going to be in broadening access. What we're
also seeking to do, of course, is reduce regulation and external intrusion into higher education, in favour of
greater freedom and autonomy.

My own current thinking is that merging HEFCE and OFFA would be sensible once funding to universities is
channelled through students rather than through HEFCE. I assure you, though, that the institutional
landscape will not change before the academic year 2012/13; it would require legislation, and therefore
Parliamentary approval. In the meantime, I can announce that I have reappointed Sir Martin Harris as
Director of the Office for Fair Access for a further 12 months. His experience will be invaluable as we work
more on improving access.

Why didn’t Browne sort this stuff out?

I can also announce the appointment of Ed Smith – a HEFCE board member – as the new Chair of the
Student Loans Company. The processing of student loan applications has gone well this year. Figures
published today show that 94 per cent of approved applicants had their full entitlement available to them
when they arrived on campus. We owe Deian Hopkin, Ed Lester and their team a substantial vote of
thanks. This is a transformation, compared with last year’s appalling performance.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the National Student Forum – and its chair, Maeve Sherlock –
for its contribution to improving the student experience over the past three years. The Forum has
published its final report today, which again provides some excellent material for universities to consider
together with their student bodies. It is this active partnership, often at a detailed course level, which can
vastly improve the knowledge and skills of undergraduates, as well as helping institutions to fulfil their
missions. We will continue to listen to students and make sure that we understand their varied concerns
and priorities.

The other main news from the Chancellor yesterday concerned funding for science and research. It is good
news for HEFCE's QR funding and Higher Education Innovation Fund, and good news for the Research
Councils and National Academies.

It is proof that this Government recognises the fundamental role of science and research in rebalancing the
economy and restoring economic growth. Despite enormous pressure on public spending, the overall level
269 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
of funding for science and research programmes has been protected in cash terms. And as we implement
the efficiency savings identified by Bill Wakeham, we should be able to offset the effects of inflation – thus
maintaining research funding in real terms.

There has also been a great deal of pressure to maintain flexibility in government spending. A stable
investment climate for science and research – as we all know – allows universities and research institutes
to plan strategically, and gives businesses, public services and charities the confidence to invest in the
research base. I am delighted to confirm, therefore, that the ring-fence for science and research
programmes has therefore been maintained.

Across the country, we have excellent departments with the critical mass to compete globally and the
expertise to work closely with business, charities and public services. This £4.6 billion settlement for
science and research should mean that we can continue to support them.

The news on science and HEIF is very welcome. See here for a fuller analysis.

We must, though, continue to develop an assessment framework that combines recognition of the highest
levels of research excellence with reward for the impact it has on the economy and society. HEFCE is
making good progress with the Research Excellence Framework, in partnership with many academics from
across the spectrum of disciplines. I too have had lively discussions with academics on this, and look
forward to seeing the results of the pilot exercise later this year.

Mildly supportive of impact assessment in REF, which is interesting. He seems to be getting


reassured that impact can be measured in a way that isn’t “clunky”.

We are also continuing to support capital investment where it is a high priority. We have allocated £69
million over the spending review period, in partnership with the Wellcome Trust, to the next phase of the
Diamond synchrotron in Oxfordshire to support ground-breaking research in the life, physical and
environmental sciences. And the Department of Health is joining my department, University College
London and medical charities to fund the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation. The Department
of Health will put £220m into this important venture that will accelerate the translation of basic research
into care for patients.

The Government is committed to getting business and universities working more closely together. I am
therefore working with HEFCE to reform Higher Education Innovation Funding (HEIF) to increase the
rewards for universities that are most effective in business engagement. Some exciting ideas have
emerged from the community about how to improve the effectiveness of university IP management. We
will explore with HEFCE the opportunities to release this potential.

To conclude, let me make three final points.

The first is to repeat that we are determined to manage the process of transition carefully – avoiding
disruption unless it is a necessary aspect of reform. That is why the spending review savings will be focused
towards the second half of the spending period. Indeed, I believe that higher education, as well as
research, should be able to maintain overall levels of activity throughout this time of austerity.

The more important point, though, is that, despite the risks associated with any change, the reforms we
undertake will improve higher education in the long run. Those institutions which attract more students
and pull in businesses seeking to boost the skills of their employees will be able to grow. They will reap the
rewards of good teaching that students and employers recognise and value. They will be able to innovate,
to make the most of greater autonomy, to pursue their institutional missions, including research.

And thirdly, although this speech has inevitably had to focus on finance and organisation, Vince and I never
lose sight of the sheer inherent value of the intellectual activity that happens within our universities. Any
270 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
structure and any government department is just there to serve this greater good. Our changes have to fit
with and reinforce the core values of higher education, that motivate those who devote their lives to it.

Posted by William Cullerne Bown

TrackBack URL for this entry:

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e54ee8dd978833013488706a4d970c
Comments
What makes you think implementing Browne would save money?
See http://2me2you.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/the-browne-report-makes-little-economic-sense/
Posted by: Tehdai | October 25, 2010 at 12:53 PM
Very interesting blog post. When I've got a minute I'll sit down and work through your numbers.
Meanwhile, I'm slightly perplexed by your comment. I don't think I am (or have been) assuming Browne will save
money. But it does depend on how you look at it.
Certainly, all the student debt will (until paid off, if it is) sit on the government's books. So it does not help
with deficit reduction in the next 10 years or so. And this is why the Treasury wants to be able to ration the
availability of loans (which according to Browne should be done by denying them to students with low grades).
Eventually though the students will start paying back and then the deficit savings will start to accrue. Maybe
the Treasury has a more long term view of things than is generally accepted.
Posted by: William Cullerne Bown | October 25, 2010 at 01:17 PM
You make some interesting comments, but I want to pick you up on one:
"Great! Let‘s make sure wealthy families pay the full open market rate for their tuition. Just to be clear, that‘s
something over £30,000 a year at Oxford or Cambridge."
The paragraph on which you comment talks about the financial state of "graduates". This section is not dealing
with families' ability to pay, this is addressed further in the speech. What Willetts is saying here is that if you
earned enough to pay off your loan then you would, and that there would be more graduates doing so; conversely
more graduates would have the gross cost reduced at the end of their career when they have not earned
enough to repay it (and therefore the value of their degree was not high).
I read that as: The cost of your education will be reassessed when your loan matures, and should your degree
prove to have been less valuable than anticipated, then the Government will retrospectively pay your fees.
Now this then means that either the University charged too much, the student underachieved, or the subject
studied is one where the value is likely to be higher than the cost.
Posted by: Matthew Reeve | October 25, 2010 at 01:30 PM
@Matthew Reeve Actually, that's kind of my (badly expressed) point. Willetts - and everyone else - has
dropped into using the terms "wealthy" and "poor" to denote groups of graduates according to income 20 years
after graduating. This language is not very accurate and is obscuring something else - the wealth and poverty of
families when kids are making the decision on whether to go to university. That's a different division of people
and raises different issues. It's the division that, for example, US financial aid is focused on. But this issue of
the wealth of students' families was completely overlooked by Browne, and is being completely overlooked in
the subsequent debate. Not, in fact, that there is really any relevant debate post-Browne. There's just a deal
being cut in Westminster.
Posted by: William Cullerne Bown | October 25, 2010 at 01:44 PM
"Like Browne, the IFS has no evidence to support this assertion (as HEPI has pointed out). It would be quite
weird if some poor students weren‘t deterred by much higher fees."
The IFS research was quite hard to track down - typical of the Review there was no reference. It can be found
at:-
www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/corporate/docs/i/10-1188-impact-finance-on-university-participation.pdf
A key statement,
"Our results indicate that a £1000 increase in loans or grants is not sufficient to counteract the impact of a
£1000 increase in fees – the coefficient on fees is
significantly higher than both loans and grants." IFS paper page 24
Posted by: John Thompson | October 26, 2010 at 11:44 AM
@John Thomson That is a startling statement. I'm struggling to understand what the ramifications are. Looking
at the paper, a £1,000 increase in fees leads to a fall in participation of 4.4% while an increase in loans of
£1,000 leads to an increase in participation of 3.2%. So the difference is 1.2%, implying that a £4,000 increase
in fees and loans (roughly what is being signalled) would lead to a 4.8% drop in participation. BUT I'm not sure

271 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
the IFS people would accept that Browne-style loans are comparable with the old-style loans, in that they are a
bit more like a tax hike.
BTW Thanks for pointing me at the stack of background documents on Browne
athttp://www.bis.gov.uk/policies/economics-statistics/economics/research%20papers
Posted by: William Cullerne Bown

2010/10/25 GUARDIAN: DAVID CAMERON TO


UNVEIL GROWTH PLAN AMID CITY JITTERS OVER
ECONOMY
PM claims pro-business plan will 'transform our fortunes' as fears grow that cuts could allow double dip
recession in UK

Polly Curtis, Whitehall correspondent

Bent on cutting: PM confident


about recovery but City remains sceptical. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

David Cameron will today address the nation's business leaders setting out his strategy to secure the
economic recovery, after criticism that suggested the government's cuts alone would cause the UK to slide
into a "double dip"recession.

With figures expected to show tomorrow that GDP is slowing, Cameron, the deputy prime minister, Nick
Clegg, and the business secretary, Vince Cable, will each address the Confederation of British Industry,
presenting a growth strategy to calm nerves. They will counter the argument from the opposition that the
coalition has not explained how it will encourage the economy to grow.

Cameron will unveil a national infrastructure plan that will set out the nation's requirements for growth,
backed by investment of £200bn already set out in the spending review but also brought in through new
private-sector channels.

Overall, the strategy will "transform our fortunes" after the recession, Cameron will say.

The GDP figures are expected to show that growth has slowed from 1.2% in the second quarter of this year
to as low as 0.4% in July, August and September, the months after the coalition made its first big
announcements on the economy in June's emergency budget.
272 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, is also due to address the conference today and will warn against a
"laissez-faire" approach when the economy is still weak.

The CBI last night challenged the government to provide more support for business. Richard Lambert, the
CBI's director-general, said: "Having acted fast to tackle the deficit, the government must now focus on
how to attract more investment to the UK if we are to create new jobs and grow the economy. The UK
needs to improve in the areas that really matter, otherwise other nations will steal a march on the UK as a
place to invest."

The prime minister is expected to say: "There is one question I want to answer today: where is the growth
going to come from? Where are the jobs going to come from? Today, I want to set out what our strategy
for growth will mean for Britain. I want to tell you how we can create a new economic dynamism in our
country – so we can build real confidence in our future. To build that new dynamism in our economy, to
create the growth, jobs and opportunities Britain needs, we've got to back the big businesses of tomorrow,
not just the big businesses of today.

"That means opening up access to finance, creating an attractive environment for venture capital funding,
getting banks lending to small businesses again. And in the days and months ahead we will be setting out
our plans in all these areas."

Cameron will unveil plans for a £200m network of technology and innovation centres over the next four
years, which would link universities to businesses, to exploit discoveries. The idea is based upon German
Fraunhofer institutes, which have been championed by the inventor James Dyson.

Also today Cable will announce plans for the merged competition functions of the Office of Fair Trading
and the Competition Commission, and introduce a range of other changes to "create a much tougher and
more streamlined competition regime". The national infrastructure plan will be unveiled later today.

The announcements amount to a co-ordinated attempt by the coalition to counter allegations from
business and Labour that it has focused so much on cutting public spending it has failed to design policies
to improve the economy.

There are particular concerns about where the private sector jobs will come from for the 490,000 public-
sector workers who are expected to lose their jobs.

The chancellor, George Osborne, was yesterday accused by Britain's new Nobel Prize-winning economist,
Christopher Pissarides, of exaggerating the risk of a Greek-style economic crisis affecting the UK economy.

In an article for the Sunday Mirror, the professor warned that Osborne's swingeing cuts package was taking
"unnecessary risks" with the economy. "It is important to avoid this 'sovereign risk'. But in my view Britain
is a long way from such a threat, and the chancellor has exaggerated the sovereign risks threatening the
country. Unemployment is high and job vacancies few. By taking the action that the chancellor outlined in
his statement, this situation might well become worse."

Miliband, in his first speech to business leaders, is expected to mount a forensic critique of the coalition's
economy policies, claiming that the government has not learned from the recession, and that supporting
business does not have to mean adopting a laissez-faire approach. He will argue that the banking crisis
should have taught the government the importance of regulation, that the economy needs to become
more balanced. The banking system should do more to support small companies, he will say. "As much as I
am worried about the job cuts and pace of retrenchment in the government's deficit reduction plan, I am
equally worried about its failure to provide any sort of wider economic policy."

273 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
A source close to Miliband said: "It's great [the coalition is] starting to talk about it and come round to Ed's
way of thinking – that you need a plan. But as always with the Tories the headline says one thing but the
fact of the matters say another thing."

Clegg yesterday defended the coalition, saying he was sure "you can't create the most important thing of
all – which is growth, jobs, prosperity for the *UK+ … without first dealing with deficit. There's nothing pro-
growth about having this dead weight of debt around our necks."

2010/10/25 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG


MARTIN: WHERE ARE THE WOMEN IN THE
'POPULATION CONTROL' DEBATE?

Stabilisation of the global population to allow for truly sustainable development cannot be done by
ignoring or impoverishing women. Guest post by '@naomimc'.

Charles Coven wrote recently in the Sunday Times of the green dividend to the child benefit cut. Put
simply, less benefits will result in fewer children and therefore less consumption and while this is not the
aim of the cuts it is unintentionally "greening" the benefits system. While there has been much written
about the disproportionate impact on women of benefits cuts, particularly child benefit, the 'population
control' debate is remarkably devoid of women. You know, the ones that are having the babies.

The green movement is often, wrongfully, accused of misanthropy. "They care more about trees than
people", screech the professional oppositionists. But the obsession with population control by a minority
of greens opens them up to very legitimate accusations of authoritarianism, 'classism' (i.e. it's the poor we
want to stop having babies) and gender-blindness. It is a paradigm dominated by elite men which
spectacularly misses the point and ignores the evidence that actually protecting sexual and reproductive
rights and empowering women to control their own fertility results in lower birth rates and importantly,
lower death rates.

No one who works in maternal and reproductive health talks of 'population control'. For historical and
contemporary reasons it is associated with eugenics, China's one-child policy, forced sterilisation and
forced abortion. These morally abhorrent examples might be dismissed as extremes but they are simply
the results of a way of thinking about reproduction which is coercive and rejects individual rights as
fundamental to public policy.

Respecting, protecting and fulfilling women's sexual and reproductive rights, such as the right to sexual
health education, access to contraception and safe and legal abortion, as well as gender equality which
enables women to refuse sex and insist on contraception, is what drives down birth rates. An approach
that is focused on reducing maternal mortality and morbidity seeks to enable women to decide on the

274 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
number and spacing of their pregnancies and when they can do that – lo and behold – they have fewer of
them.

This is a long-established approach in international public health policy. The International Conference on
Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994 was a significant milestone in population and development
and produced a Programme of Action that had reproductive rights at its core. It didn't all start in 1994 but
built on the international population conferences dating back to the 1970s.

The Programme of Action addresses issues relating to population, the environment and consumption
patterns but states categorically that:

"...advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women, and the elimination of all kinds of violence
against women, and ensuring women's ability to control their own fertility, are cornerstones of population
and development-related programmes."

So why are population control advocates so silent on women's rights?

Charles Coven cites the Big Men of the environmental movement including Sir David Attenborough,
Jonathon Porritt, James Lovelock and The Prince of Wales, as proponents of population decline in the UK.
He doesn't mention those who work in international healthcare such Dr Gill Greer, head of International
Planned Parenthood International, who in a speech to the UN General Assembly earlier this year said:

"When the poorest and most marginalised people are able to access comprehensive family planning
services, the impact on their families' lives is even more noticeable. The health benefits are also
compelling, particularly in high fertility countries, where investment in family planning can reduce hunger
and prevent nearly a third of all maternal and ten percent of child deaths. When children's deaths decrease
their parents are likely to choose to have fewer children –if they have the means to do so. Furthermore,
meeting the unmet need for voluntary family planning will help to enable many of the world's poorest
people and communities to be more resilient as climate change further erodes scarce resources."

Nor is there mention of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of Liberia who launched Africa's Women's Health
Commission, which calls for healthcare to be based on equity and human rights.

Climate change is undeniably the biggest threat we have to deal with as a global population. Indeed, the
impacts of climate change are, and will continue to be, most greatly felt by the world's poor, the majority
of whom are women. But the urgency of the situation must not result in authoritarian solutions or debates.
Regardless of the moral argument, we lack an evidence base that shows that economic penalties or the
marginalisation of women's rights will restrict population growth, in fact quite the opposite.

Population control is the wrong framing of this debate and only serves to further disenfranchise women,
socially and economically. Cutting child benefit may or may not reduce the numbers of births in the UK, but
it will impact on women's economic status. Give women greater control over their fertility and on a
population level they will choose to have fewer pregnancies.

By refusing to analyse the impacts of population control measures on the poor and on women, those
environmentalists who advocate population control and financial penalties for those with children, open
themselves up to accusations of a callous disregard for the lives of women.

Our end goal is the same – a stabilisation of the global population to allow for truly sustainable
development. This cannot be done by ignoring or impoverishing women.

This is a guest post by @naomimc, who can be found on Twitter here.

Posted byMartin Robbins Monday 25 October 201013.23 BSTguardian.co.uk

275 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Comments in chronological order (Total 10 comments)
jonniestewpot 25 October 2010 1:54PM
You still see them now men and women born in to families pre welfare state who were born in to families of 10
12 and I know one man born in to a family of 16.
The way to reduce overall populations is exactly as you describe raise living standards while women make their
own choices about their families.
I's right because we should value human rights and it is right because it's the most effective way of having
stable populations.
akshatrathi 25 October 2010 2:05PM
Naomi,
Your arguments are well-placed from a developing countries perspective. From a UK perspective, I wouldn't
disagree with Charles Coven's comment on 'greening' the benefits system.
I think you will agree that most women in the UK have a 'greater control over their fertility' and access to the
necessary services aka the problem is mostly for developing nations.
Nichol 25 October 2010 2:28PM
I agree with all of this: it is important to see this from the perspective of women, and people in developing
countries, where most children are born.
However, it is not the full story. Why are arab countries producing such inordinate numbers of babies that
their demographic pyramid is completely distorted? Is it right that an influential catholic church still
propagates the idea of producing as many babies as humanly possible? Sometimes ideologies and religions stand
in the way of giving women the freedom to plan their families.
It is also a mistake to force talking about overpopulation into a contorted taboo, where nothing may be said
about birth control, while silently hoping it will be sorted out automatically when women are empowered.
Overpopulation is indeed a problem, causing overuse of land and resources, desertification, hunger, and mass
migration to those countries that already figured out how to stop growing their populations.
fishsnorkel 25 October 2010 3:00PM
I'm beginning to suspect that cause and effect have been confused when it comes to the relationship between
affluence and birth rate, in the same way as Ronald Fischer in 1930:
―The various theories which have sought to discover in wealth a cause of infertility, have missed the point that
infertility is an important cause of wealth.‖ R. A. Fisher, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection
Indeed, I have even submitted evidence to the Royal Society's People and the Planet outlining why I think
infertility related to high-consumption affluence (effectively, a transition from r-strategy to K-startegy) may
be a result of population growth, rather than the solution to it: What are the Principles of Population?
dunord 25 October 2010 3:09PM
women should be given all kind of guarantees and support to have children whenever they want and with
whomever they fancy. only so we can restore full sexual selection in our species. humans became what they are
only because of sexual selection and of selection for warfare. let's keep the sexual selection. no more
"morally"-based societal advantages for backstabbing intrigant creepy suavos who force their reproduction by
appropriating what others produce and using it to bribe their sexual partners.
faerieelizabeth 25 October 2010 3:51PM
The article seems correct to me and think the Times' premise is a load of rubbish.
The Child Benefit cuts are aimed at middle-class women who a) probably have less children anyway and b) are
wealthy enough not to reproduce in order to get benefits.
If you needed to "green" the benefits system, it certainly isn't the target audience to aim for i.e. better
families who will in turn produce better children.
Besides, don't we need more children in the UK? Isn't this why we're having pensions raised? It would surely be
better to see our natural population grow and to be less reliant on immigration.
JeffoY
25 October 2010 4:06PM
We are not overpopulated. A German survey showed if natural resources in Africa were fully exploited, it could
support 9 billion people permanently. 9 billion
It is conflict and wealth-inequality that causes problems, not overpopulation. Go back in time fifty years. Half
the planet still lived in poverty. Go back a hundered years. same thing.
Go back to the Egyptians. A huge percentage of society could barely support themselves, and lived in poverty.
Was that because they were overpopulated? NO! It was because the super-powerful were taking more than
their fair share. That is exactly what is happening now. I dont want to sound like a broken record, but wealth-
inequality and conflict is what is causing the worlds problems, not overpopulation.

276 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Even more so, the poorest only have the most kids because thats the best way to make money. As people get
more educated, and have a better standard of living, they have less kids. That applies here in the UK aswell.
Make society more equal, and this problem will resolve itself. Stopping population growth by force only keeps
the number of people living in misery constant.
yobudget
26 October 2010 3:33AM
Here we go again!When will you freaks stop interfering with other people's wombs.Women are not for
population control because they know it control;s itself as standards of living rise and there is pressure to
maintain it.Even in Africa the rates are declining rapidly with development.
Population has been in free fall for years now,http://bigthink.com/ideas/24638.
Some of you guys just say it,'We don't want to be overpopulated by non European, non white people in the
world'. Stop coining it 'developing countries' because Britain used to have slums and dirty water like all these
countries you see and no one cam and told them to have less Kids!This has been a debate for years and it's
getting as boring as the climate change fraud which has now collapsed and rightfully so.
People in Africa will have children as long as they feel that they won't live long and will need replacing.But as
economies are picking up there you see places like Botswana South Africa with plummeting rates similar to
here.The empire died longtime ago when you tried miserably to control the way people lived around the world
and this is a blow back.Endure it as others endured your oppression, witness their population boom just as they
witnessed yours.It's a natural cycle and natural selection is taking cause right?Darwin anyone/Or it's only
Darwin when Europeans win the birth rate/military/economic race?
When it happens in Euro countries it's called a boom,when it happens elsewhere it's called overpopulation.
Seriously you are starting to sound like reproductive, euthanasia freaks and it's not a good look .Civilizations
have come and vanished without trace and this one will do the same naturally so do us a favor and leave other
people's wombs alone.If you don't want children then don't have them. Whatever happened to freedom of
choice that you guys claim to promote?The women have chosen to give birth so let it be.Hypocrites!
Mouzone 28 October 2010 12:27AM
Hmm, some bizarre ideas expressed above. The world has limited resources, yet you breeders want to put even
more pressure on an already overpopulated world by having more babies. Not a good idea, we need far fewer
people if we're to keep the earth in a habitable state. We should certainly look at encouraging the poor to stop
having babies through withdrawing benefits after one, max 2 children, the better off seem to have fairly
stable reproduction habits, and even declining birth-rates should be welcome as eventually these fewer babies
will need less support in their old age. Let's not get bogged down in the women angle, the issue's bigger than
this, i.e a sustainable population for our habitat.
jonniestewpot 30 October 2010 3:03PM
@Mouzone
The world has limited resources,
What if it has, it's possible that we can tap in to new clean resources. You simply don't know the potential of
new scientific breakthroughs.
We should certainly look at encouraging the poor to stop having babies
Crass conservatism at it's most asinine. If you're concerned about the planet then we should actually encourage
the rich not to have babies.
An example here..............
Total energy consumption per capita per annum (2003)
United States 7794.8
United Kingdom 3918.1
Vietnam 539.4
Sounds a little shocking doesn't it stop the rich from having babies. Even though we can see it's they who are
using all the energy. Of course that will never happen there will be an outcry of statism or communism but it
never stops people like you demanding it. The article is right what the world needs as much as anything else is
bullying authoritarianism.

277 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/26 THE GREAT BEYOND: DESPITE
DECENT SHOWING IN R&D SPEND, EUROPE WARNS
OF „INNOVATION EMERGENCY‟
The world’s recent financial meltdown did not hit research spending as hard as might have been expected,
according to the EU’s latest investment scoreboard.

R&D investment from the world’s largest spenders on research dropped 1.9% in 2009, the annual
publication shows. This ends four years of upwards growth but, given the 1,400 companies in the
scoreboard saw sales drop 10.1% and profits drop 21.0%, it looks like research spending was pretty well
protected.

American investment dropped 5.1% compared to the EU’s 2.6%. But Research Commissioner Maire
Geoghegan-Quinn is using the scoreboard release to prod member states to back her recently announced
‘Innovation Union’ proposals.

She warns that lagging behind US companies in software and biotech investments and the growth of Asian
spending mean that Europe faces an “innovation emergency”.

Only three of the top ten companies in the scoreboard are from the EU, although another two are in
Europe, as both Roche and Novartis call Switzerland home. Japan and South Korea have only one company
each in the top ten, with the US taking three spots. Only 16 of the top 50 are in the EU.

278 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Graph – EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard

2010/10/26 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG:


SKEPTICS: IT'S TIME TO STOP PREACHING TO THE
CONVERTED

Why waste your time at gatherings of like-minded skeptics when you could be engaging with people who
might actually benefit from what you have to say, asks Alom Shaha

High Priest of skepticism Stephen


Fry: Followers gather in pubs and hotels to hear famous skeptics reinforce their own sense of superior
rationality. Photograph: PA

If you're reading this, you probably know that homeopathy is an entirely made-up pretend medicine that
has somehow become accepted by millions of people as "real" medicine. You probably know that no one
actually has psychic powers and that no aliens have ever landed on this planet, but humans have certainly
landed on the moon. I can confidently assert these things about you because you're reading this on the
Guardian Science Blog and, let's be honest, that makes you a Guardian Reader.

Don't like that label but want to show off that you're super smart and rational? You might want to call
yourself a "skeptic" (and make sure you spell it with a "k"). Then you can meet up with other skeptics and
nod along with them as someone lectures you in a pub (yes, a pub!) about these things that you already
know. You can enjoy a few pints and can go home having had your belief in how smart and rational you are
confirmed.

279 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
There'll sometimes be "celebrities" at these events, you know – people with more followers than you on
Twitter, maybe even someone who is followed by Stephen Fry. There might even be a Guardian science
blogger if you're lucky.

Once a year, you might get to go to a big conference (no, of course it's not a pilgrimage) and hear really
famous people talk about these same things, maybe even Stephen Fry himself. And all the while you're
there you'll tweet about it, so that everybody knows that you agree with everyone else about just how
brilliant the brilliant minds assembled before you are. If only the rest of the world thought the same way
you and your friends do. Wouldn't it be wonderful? And you'll tell yourself this isn't really like church. After
all,religion is all about believing in God, isn't it? And you don't believe in God. You're far too rational for
that.

Ok, I'm going to own up – I am deliberately "skeptic baiting". Some people have accused me of doing this
on Twitter, simply because I raised a few questions about what I see as a failure of the UK skeptic
movement to fully engage with audiences which might really benefit from being exposed to the kind of
ideas about critical thinking that skeptics espouse.

I'm not alone in thinking that people from ethnic minorities are under-represented in skeptic groups. I had
to bite my tongue when told by a skeptic in a pub that "they're not interested in these things" because
otherwise I would have had to point out that they were perilously close to saying "you're not like the rest
of them", that favourite get-out clause for my racist childhood friends. Recent experiences in my own life,
since "coming out" as an ex-Muslim atheist, have led me to believe that there is a pressing need to create
opportunities for people from Muslim backgrounds to engage with skeptic and atheist movements.

There are cultural issues that make it difficult for people from certain backgrounds to engage with other
skeptics or to be openly sceptical about things like religion or "alternative" medicine. The mainstream
skeptic community should be aware of this and do what they can to help support those less fortunate than
themselves. It's not good enough to tell people with concerns like mine that "no one can prevent you from
setting up a forum for black atheists".

But that's not the only aspect of the UK skeptic movement that I think needs challenging. To me, it looks
like skeptics spend a large part of their efforts "preaching to the choir" or trying to change the minds of
people who are just never going to change their minds. I see little evidence of the UK skeptic movement
targeting that group of people who are still in the process of deciding what to believe and how to think
about the world: children.

There is a genuine need to help young people improve their critical thinking skills. It seems to me that
campaigning to make the teaching of critical thinking more important in schools, or creating resources to
help schools teach it, might be useful things for skeptics to do. Tim Minchin's Pope Songis a work of genius,
but it's hardly appropriate for use in schools. How about putting some of that imagination and creativity to
work producing stuff that might get used in school religious education or science lessons?

If you're poor or if you're from a strictly religious family, like many of my students are, then it's likely that
school is the only place you might ever get to listen to and engage with someone like Richard Dawkins in
person. So, instead of getting these brilliant people to go and talk in pubs or at conferences, where
everybody already knows what they're going to say, why not get them into schools where they might
inspire a new generation of skeptics?

Sure, there are practical hurdles and you'll need to find out a little about the rules and regulations that
schools have about these things, but a lot of schools already have external speaker programmes and many
would welcome the calibre of speaker that Skeptics in the Pub attracts. Children are natural skeptics, they
want to challenge authority and doctrine – help them do so.

280 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Let me be clear: I know of, and hugely admire, the good work that many skeptics do, for example when
they challenge the false advertising of "alternative" medicine and the inappropriate use of NHS funds, and
expose the charlatans who make money by lying to the bereaved and desperate.

I'm glad there is a skeptic movement in the UK. I'm glad that skeptics have a sense of community and find
ways to hang out together and celebrate their common beliefs. These things are important – ask any
churchgoer. But if skeptics are going to live up to some of the crusading hype that often accompanies their
rhetoric, they're going to have to step out of the pub far more often.

2010/10/27 GUARDIAN SCIENCE NEWS: NHS


FUNDING FOR HOMEOPATHY RISKS MISLEADING
PATIENTS, SAYS CHIEF SCIENTIST
Sir John Beddington says NHS funding may harm patients' health if they choose homeopathy over
conventional medicine

Ian Sample, science correspondent

The pharmacy of the Royal London


Hospital for Integrated Medicine. Homeopathy costs the NHS between £4m and £10m a year. Photograph:
Martin Godwin

Patients are at risk of being misled over the benefits of homeopathy by the government's decision to fund
the remedies on the NHS, the country's most senior scientist warned today.

Sir John Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, said patients might believe homeopathic
treatments could protect them against serious illnesses, or treat existing conditions, because GPs and
hospitals are allowed to prescribe them on the NHS.

Tens of thousands of people are given homeopathic pills and other preparations by their GPs or at Britain's
four homeopathic hospitals, at an estimated cost to the NHS of between £4m and £10m a year. Most
homeopathic remedies are diluted multiple times to the point that only water is left, while others are
essentially sugar pills.

281 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Professor Beddington said ministers agreed to fund homeopathy on the grounds of "public choice", despite
there being "no real evidence" that the remedies work.

"I have made it completely clear that there is no scientific basis for homeopathy beyond the placebo effect
and that there are serious concerns about its efficacy," Professor Beddington told the Commons science
and technology committee today.

He went on to warn that government funding for homeopathy risked legitimising unproven treatments and
that patients could harm their health by choosing these over conventional vaccines and medicines.

"There is a danger that the public will think that there is real efficacy for some serious conditions and I
believe we have to work on that and make clear that this is not correct," he told the committee.

In June, doctors at the British Medical Association's annual conference voted three to one to halt NHS
funding for homeopathic hospitals and ban homeopathic remedies on prescription. A report by the
Commons science and technology committee published in February also called for an end to NHS funding
for homeopathic medicine.

Professor Beddington cited the case of a man who caught malaria after being advised to take a
homeopathic preparation to protect against the disease.

Graham Stringer, a member of the science and technology committee, challenged the government's claim
that its policies are based on sound evidence.

"Giving people water or tablets with nothing in them except sugar is in itself harmless, but there is real
evidence that homeopaths are prescribing these so-called medicines for things like malaria and other
diseases, and in that sense this is very serious. In high street chemists, like Boots, these products are next
to serious medicines," Stringer said.

"If the government is paying out millions for homeopathy, people will think there's something in it. The
only reason for funding them is that ministers in the last government and in this government have not had
the bottle to stop the funding."

This article was amended on 27 October 2010. The caption gave the hospital's former title, the Royal
London Homeopathic Hospital. This has been corrected.

2010/10/27 KIERON FLANAGAN BLOG: IS THE


UK BAD AT TURNING SCIENCE INTO
TECHNOLOGY?
At yesterday’s “Science Question Time” event at the Royal Institution in London, the chief executive of
the Royal Academy of Engineering, Philip Greenish, is reported to have complained that the UK is not as
good as it should be at translating science into wealth (you can read a detailed discussion of the event by
the Biochemical Society’s Beck Smith here). This is often repeated, but how true is it? All the evidence
shows that the direct translation of scientific findings into technological advances that lead to new or
improved products, processes or services is comparatively rare. If there is a direct driving force behind
technological development, it is… earlier technological developments. Science provides a number of vital
indirect inputs – leading edge science provides the nation with a supply of highly skilled people, it provides
a supporting knowledge base which can be vital even if it is not generally the direct driver, and finally it
282 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
often provides a significant “pull” on technological development as scientists develop innovative new
techniques and technologies to support their research.

So, what Greenish is really saying is that the UK is not as good at ‘technology’ as it is at ’science’, or at least
not as good as it used to be, and as our competitors are. This does seem to be the case and, as the chief
executive of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Greenish certainly ought to know. To a great extent this
may reflect the transformation of the UK economy and the relative decline in manufacturing sectors and
the growth of private and public services. In service sectors, technology need not be the main driver of
innovation.

Even allowing for this shift though, many believe that both the public and the private sector in the UK seem
to under-invest in technological development relative to other countries. Assuming that a ‘rebalanced’
economy would involve a shift in emphasis away from services back towards high-value-added
manufacturing, the UK should certainly rectify this and with the creation of the Technology Strategy
Board it has already made a modest start. The proposed Fraunhofer-style Technology & Innovation Centres
could be an opportunity to build on that, and on the excellent applied research and technological
development that does go on in the UK university research base. But the model will need to be clear – and
at the moment the messages that ministers are giving out about these new centres are very muddled.

What is worrying is that Greenish and other commentators (such as former Government chief
scientist David King) seem to see this as a zero sum game. Of course the post-Spending Review angst about
the allocation of funding, and especially capital funding, between the various research councils (and
separately to the TSB) will tend to reinforce this view. But I think it is a mistake to concede this point, even
at this late stage. Improving the UK’s record on applied research and technological development is
essential but it would be perverse to do this at the expense of the one component of the UK research and
innovation ’system’ which is by any account world-class, namely the science base. We currently have an
imbalanced system in which the technology base is less well developed than the science base across a
range of sectors. If we boost the former at the expense of the latter we may simply reverse, rather than
correct, that imbalance.

More worrying still is that the parts of the science base which are most at risk from zero-sum thinking are
precisely those parts which could exert the biggest “pull” on technological development, namely the
instrument-intensive disciplines of astronomy and particle physics. These disciplines actually demonstrate
some of the best of British engineering. And new or improved technologies developed in the course of
particle physics and astronomy research are arguably more likely to be generically applicable across a
range of sectors than are ones developed out of, say, defence systems R&D (certainly the kind that the UK
tends to invest in).

Image of the European Southern Observatory facility used used under CC license fromCruz_fr’s Flickr
photostream.
And is UK technology always based on UK graduate output? Our strength would historically seem to be in
recognising and nurturing the ‗Born Elsewhere‘ brains, as well as home grown 2nd and 3rd generation
talent.
The recent Nobel Prizes underpin that amazing nurturing environment, especially in Manchester for ‗The
big ideas‘.
But to take that output and apply it to create business capital in UK Plc is the issue. Perhaps a new class
system has emerged with a ‘snobbish view‘ that we are meant to be reliant on the financial sector for our
living.
Its ‗old money‘ and clean fingernails that dominate the smart cafes and trendy bars. A skewed outlook
that almost perfectly reflects the North South divide of old. Seeing manufacturing and technology as off
shore activities or outsourced eastern bloc activities, and only good to buy shares in rather than actually
‗do it‘.

283 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
We lose the new technology of manufacturing at our peril, for capital funding adheres to the adage ‗where
thar‘s muck thar‘s brass‘. And a balanced scorecard applied to UK Plc clearly demonstrates that holistic
views of the many arms of science will embrace the spin off‘s that generate wealth.
That will ultimately protect and develop our society to reach the potential that we clearly have. We just
need to accept our destiny, to lead not follow!
Posted by Ken Usman-Smith, October 28, 2010 at 7:46 pm

2010/10/27 EXQUISITE LIFE: THREE TECH


QUESTIONS THE REGIONAL GROWTH WHITE PAPER
NEEDS TO ANSWER
Tomorrow we're going to fing out more about how the new Regional Growth Fund is going to be spent
when the government publishes a new white paper. It will have important consequences for universities
and the aspiration to rebalance the UK economy towards manufacturing and the regions. And there are
some important questions we need answered.

Until this year, the RDAs were spending £300m-£400m a year on high-tech activity. It was about 50:50
capital and projects. Much of it was partnering stuff with the Technology Strategy Board.

So here's the questions that we need the Department of Business Innovation and Skills to answer.

Q1. How much of the RGF will be spent on hi-tech activity? (eg specifically, in partnership with the TSB?)

Q2. How much of a contribution is the RGF making to the £200m budgeted for the Technology and
Innovation Centres announced by Cameron earlier this week?

Q3. On a national basis, most TICs would be located in the South and East due to the existing hi-tech
networks there. Will ministers let that happen?

2010/10/27 NATURE WORLD VIEW: SPENDING


REVIEW LEAVES RESEARCH IN THE LURCH

A revised research spending plan won't meet the challenges Britain faces from its international
competitors or from climate change, argues David King.

David King

284 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Last week, the UK government announced its plans for cutting an astonishing £81 billion (US$128 billion)
from the country's budget over the next four years. Although other departments saw an average of 19%
shorn off their annual funding, science got off relatively lightly. The United Kingdom's research budget was
frozen but not cut, meaning an effective reduction of some 10–12%.

That sounds like good news, but there are two main problems. First, we do not yet know the indirect effect
that the cuts to university teaching budgets will have on research, nor how much they can be offset by
increased student fees. Second, and perhaps more important for the research community, because the
funding for large international collaborations such as CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near
Geneva, Switzerland, has to be ring-fenced, most of the cuts will fall on shorter-term, more timely pieces of
research.

This means that certain research councils face a far larger percentage cut. The Engineering and Physical
Sciences Research Council, for example, has few long-term commitments, so only a small part of its budget
is ring-fenced. The rest will be fair game to meet not just its own share of the overall target, but also that
of councils with larger ring-fenced allocations. There could even be funding rounds in which it is unable to
allocate any grants at all. This in turn means that timely ideas could fall by the wayside, or be taken up by
international competitors.

“The cuts threaten the country's ability to use the power of science to retain its international
competitiveness.”

This matters, to Britain at least, because I believe that research funding lies at the heart of the country's
economic recovery and future prosperity. In 2000, the UK government that I advised realized that, in the
following decades, science and technology — and the innovation and wealth creation that follows —
would be more in demand than ever before. Humanity faces unprecedented challenges: the deterioration
of ecosystems; resource mismanagement and shortages; and decarbonizing the economy, which is the
biggest single innovation challenge since the Industrial Revolution.

For these reasons and more, the ten-year strategy setting out the previous government's science and
investment framework for 2004–14 pledged to continue to increase the science budget each year by twice
the rate of growth in gross domestic product (GDP) (but not to reduce the budget if GDP contracted, as it
has done recently).

This made waves around the world — notably in the emerging markets that are providing Europe and the
United States with an increasing (and I would say, welcome) economic challenge. In 2003, the Chinese
premier Wen Jiabao asked to meet me during a state visit. Why? Because the prime minister's 2002 speech
'Science Matters' had been translated into Chinese and he wanted to know more. When I went to China
the following year, the Chinese government declared that it had decided to match the UK pledge of
increasing science funding by twice the level of GDP growth. But China committed to doing this over 20
years, not 10, and as its GDP growth was 10%, it has been boosting its science budget accordingly — with a
30% increase from 2008 to 2009. Even this year it has continued the increase, with an 8% rise in the
science budget. This is underpinning the nation's continuing remarkable economic growth and the
increased competitiveness of its manufacturing industry.

The United States, too, has seen the need for change. The administration of President Barack Obama has
revitalized US research through public funding over the past year, substantially increasing research funding
across the board, as well as giving a large boost to alternative-energy research
(see Nature doi:10.1038/news.2009.457; 2009).

Europe is also focusing on research funding. In May, leaders in European research, industry and policy met
under the aegis of the European Research Area Board, of which I am a member, to consider the European
Union's research, development and innovation policy. Its report calls for radical action, including the
285 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
establishment of a single market for research and development. And in the past few months, both France
and Germany have published national strategies showing their commitment to investing in research.

So, although the cut in the UK science budget is lighter than I had feared, I still believe that it threatens the
country's ability to use the power of science research to retain its international competitiveness. Just as
importantly, it threatens the country's ability to decarbonize the economy. Most of the funding for Britain's
energy research comes through the research councils, and it is deeply worrying that this will be cut just
when a radical increase in activity is needed. Admittedly, there was some good news in this regard, as the
government reinforced its funding for energy and the environment in the Department of Energy and
Climate Change and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. This will be crucial if Britain
is to stick to its commitment of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 34% by 2020.

However, the agenda set out by the UK government in 2004 in its ten-year strategy for research was
always intended to be a long-term investment. The danger of the freeze proposed by the present
government is that it could stall the whole process just as it is taking off. In the meantime, watch out for a
bloodbath as scarce resources are divided between the research councils this winter.

David King was chief scientific adviser to the UK government from 2000 to 2007, and is now director of
the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford. e-
mail:director@smithschool.ox.ac.uk

2010/10/27 INCREASED STUDENT FEES ARE


NOT THE EROSION OF A WELFARE STATE
But rather an opportunity..

fee increases can be beneficial to both students AND universities if done the right way

Student fees are set to increase from around £3,290 to, maybe, as the Browne report recommended, up to
£14,000….

So many people find this appalling, especially those who were educated in Britain for no personal expense
(or even paid something by the state) back in the day. But that was then and this is now.

There are several arguments as to why the state SHOULD pay for higher education. One of them is that
state funded education leads to a more equal social model, where access across all social classes,
regardless of familial income, is dependent only on ability, without any bias towards the rich. There is a
fear that introducing higher student fees will basically screw the poor, e.g. less well-off students will be
able to afford a higher education regardless of their ability.

However, even in the current supposedly more equal higher education model, poorer students are still at a
relative disadvantage. Even though there has been a recent increase in the number of poor students who
attend university in the UK, there is still disproportionate number of wealthier students at UK Universities.
Such as Oxford and Cambridge, who, according to the Guardian only accepts about 1% of the poorest
students. This is due in a large part to the fact that those from poorer backgrounds don’t have the same
secondary school opportunities as richer public school students. Able students don’t always have the
opportunity to be educated in an appropriate manner to allow them to even get into university.

In the 1970′s a much smaller percentage of students even attended university than do today, a much
smaller percentage. The increase in student numbers reflects an increase in opportunity across socio-

286 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
economic classes but also reflects the lack of opportunity in other available employment. But the bottom
line is that with increasing student numbers in higher education, someone has to pay for it and there is a
limit to what any government can pay, however socially minded.

But I think that rather than being an entirely negative thing, student fees could mean hope for the future, if
done correctly, increase the educational opportunities for poorer students

1 – higher student fees University could increase the money available to make secondary schools better
leading to a better chance for students from poor backgrounds (who tend to live in poor compulsory
school districts) to be competitive to attend university.

2 – a fee increase means that Universities have MORE money, and MORE money means (if managed
correctly) more places for students. I recently attended a talk in Parliament by Ben Wildavsky of the
Kauffman Foundation and author of the book The Great Brain Race who noted that the increase in student
fees at University of California, LA (UCLA) has actually led to an increase in the number of students from
poor background not a decrease.

As a side note increased ‘private’ money for Universities leads to a decrease of state control, so that on a
whim the state can’t decide, as this current government has, to only fund STEM subjects and not the arts.
Giving Universities more control of this decision, might redress the problem.

3 – If universities implement a smart financial model NOW, such as using microfinance model similar to
Kiva, like the Vittana foundation or using scholarship programs that help those who can’t afford
Universities easily, there could be more money available for those who need it the most.

I think rather than focusing on the negative effect for the money that the government is definitely NOT
going to give to the Universities, we may – if we are careful about our financial models, create hope for the
future with a better balance for the most able students attending the best Universities, regardless of their
socioeconomic status.
Comments (3)
3 Comments »

Thanks GI, well thought out and positive. Crisis are literally turning points and are often the start of something
better not worse. This economic crisis can be a way of making things better if we respond to it with optimism
rather than rant and cant. With the poor especially in the West, having got poorer over the last 40 years and
the working population working longer and harder for less, what we do now can make that change – and for the
better.
Comment by Kevin Dontenville — October 27, 2010 @ 1:47 pm | Reply

I get it.
But it soudns pretty misguided…
1 – higher student fees University could increase the money available to make secondary schools better leading
to a better chance for students from poor backgrounds (who tend to live in poor compulsory school districts) to
be competitive to attend university.
– You surely don‘t really believe this? The departments are very seperate now, and have their own budgets. And
as we can see with BSF I don‘t really believe it has had any effect…
2 – a fee increase means that Universities have MORE money
– Nope. Not at all. Alot will have less.
and MORE money means (if managed correctly) more places for students. I recently attended a talk in
Parliament by Ben Wildavsky of the Kauffman Foundation and author of the book The Great Brain Race who
noted that the increase in student fees at University of California, LA (UCLA) has actually led to an increase in
the number of students from poor background not a decrease.
– I don‘t think they were talking about that kind of jump or culture shift…

287 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
3 – If universities implement a smart financial model NOW, such as using microfinance model similar to Kiva,
like the Vittana foundation or using scholarship programs that help those who can‘t afford Universities easily,
there could be more money available for those who need it the most.
– I‘ll admit I don‘t know enough here to comment.
But pause for a moment…
Comment by Alex — October 28, 2010 @ 10:43 am | Reply

1 – I do realize that the budgets are entirely separate – I used the word ‗could‘ because it well ‗could‘ by a
government that does things right –
2 – if the uni‘s manage their money right, yes it can! if there are more fee paying students (now there is a cap in
each subject at each university) the Uni‘s can take in MORE students. however you look at it the Uni‘s will have
money that is not connected directly to the government telling them how to spend it. The flaw in this reasoning
I think is that it is dependent on Universities managing the money intake and student intake appropriately, this
is the difficult part. And you can see easily how it might fail
– I don‘t think they were talking about that kind of jump or culture shift…
A culture shift is what we need – I don‘t understand your comment here actually, who is ‗they‘
3 – As per my caveat above, if the Uni‘s manage the money correctly, they may well come out on top and may
well be able to keep subjects alive that wouldn‘t otherwise be so. If poorer students recieve loans (or more
ideally grants) through either a 3rd party source or the uni itself, this might work…
A change in the way uni‘s are funded is needed! Why, because right now they are dependent on Gov‘t funding
and cannot easily weather the storm of budget cuts. A culture change could (emphasis on could) lead to more
resiliant uni‘s and greater access to uni‘s. Uni‘s have to start developing different financial models, or they will
die a slow and painful death, benefitting no one.
Comment by sylviamclain — October 28, 2010 @ 10:57 am | Reply

2010/10/27 NATURE: UK SCIENTISTS


CELEBRATE BUDGET REPRIEVE
Core science funding has escaped cuts, but capital budgets will feel the squeeze.

Geoff Brumfiel

288 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
An unexpected bouquet of white lilies and roses greeted David Willetts, Britain's minister for science, when
he arrived at a press conference on 20 October to announce the government's plans for research spending
over the next four years.

In better times, he might have been met with a barrage of rotten fruit. The research base will continue to
be funded at its current level, £4.6 billion (US$7.2 billion), for the four-year review period — which
amounts to an effective cut of 10% if inflation projections are factored in. In addition, an essential funding
stream for large projects will probably be substantially cut, along with research in many government
departments.

But these are not better times. Faced with a record deficit of £109 billion, the British government is
slashing expenditure by an average of 19% across its departments. In the face of such austerity, Willetts
called the science budget a "fantastic deal", and many agreed. "I'm genuinely relieved," says William
Cullerne Bown, founder of the science-policy newsletter Research Fortnight, who presented Willetts with
the flowers. John Beddington, the government's chief scientific adviser, says that officials such as George
Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, were won over by arguments from high-profile scientists and
industrialists that cuts could hinder long-term growth of the British economy.

“The outcome is better than most of us had hoped for.”

The £4.6-billion sum includes funding for the nation's research councils, which dole out grants to scientists,
and money for 'quality related' research funds, which universities can prioritize as they choose. Money for
health research — channelled through the Department of Health, and the Medical Research Council (MRC)
— will remain flat in real terms (once inflation is factored in), amounting to a modest increase in cash
terms. Other research councils will have to bear a greater burden of cuts to compensate for the MRC's
good fortune. All funding has been assured for the four-year period, according to Willetts.

The budget also provides £220 million for the research councils' highest future priority — a medical
research centre to be located in the heart of London. Documents obtained by Nature under freedom of
information legislation show that the councils deemed the UK Centre for Medical Research & Innovation
such a high priority that they declined to even rank it against other projects when submitting budget
documents earlier this year. An upgrade to the Diamond synchrotron in Oxfordshire is also assured. "The
outcome is better than most of us had hoped for," says Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society,
Britain's national science academy.

But money for infrastructure and subscriptions to large international projects is not protected, according to
Willetts. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which funds the councils, will see its overall
'capital' budget fall by 44% to £1 billion in 2014–15 (see'Capital crash').

That money pays for everything from radio telescopes to Antarctic research stations. In particular, the cuts
will hit the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which funds particle physics and astronomy. The
council, which has struggled financially for years, has been told to prepare for its capital funding to fall by a
third, according to documents seen by Nature. That could jeopardize Britain's participation in organizations
such as the European Southern Observatory.

Research funding in government departments will also be under pressure. The annual £650-million basic-
research budget of the Ministry of Defence will probably face a "modest" cut, says Willets. The Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which conducts animal health and environmental research, will
face "substantial but manageable" cuts to its £95-million annual core research budget, according to Chris
Gaskell, who heads the department's independent scientific advisory council. Beddington says that he will
be consulted before any departmental cuts are made final. "It doesn't mean I can veto them, but it does
mean that it will be discussed," he says.

289 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
The final details of what is cut, and how, will emerge in the weeks and months to come (see Nature 467 ,
894; 2010), but for now, the mood is buoyant. After handing his flowers to an aide, Willetts turned to the
assembled reporters and policy-makers with a broad smile. "We'll have the hugs and kisses later on," he
joked.

See World View p.1007

Clarification: Prior to the spending review, the STFC was told to prepare for a scenario in which funding
would remain flat and capital would be cut by 33%. The council's final capital budget will be determined
through negotiations, which are currently ongoing.

2010/10/28 IASGMOH: THE ARGUMENTS


FOR YOUNG PEOPLE‟S INVOLVEMENT IN DECISIONS
ABOUT SCIENCE FUNDING
The following is a version of an article I wrote for the British Science Association’s magazine in May 2009. It
puts forward some arguments for why I think young people should be involved in decisions about science
funding. I’m posting it now because it’s relevant to conversations we were having on twitter yesterday.

There are further arguments, not covered here, which are that having to explain their work and its
implications to teenagers helps scientists think them through. And that kids are good bullshit detectors. I
might get round to writing a post on those aspects one day.

“Interesting but badly paid work on offer” said the email. As an out-of-work TV researcher, paid work
sounded good and interesting was even better. I signed up for two weeks as an online moderator for a
youth engagement project called I’m a Councillor, Get me out of Here!

The event got young people talking to and voting for their councillors and the way it grabbed me took me
by surprise.

The young people were honest, earnest, sparky, warm – and so frustrated. I began to see that our society
scapegoats and marginalises young people, and that this wasn’t the way to help them grow up happy, sane
and integrated into society.

During the event I saw councillors and teenagers making connections. I saw young people blossom as we
gave them a voice that was listened to. “Why don’t we do this for science?” I thought.

Several years later we have now run two I’m a Scientist events and they’ve worked even better than I’d
hoped. I firmly believe we should go further and use events like this to give young people some real input
into funding decisions in science. I think there are several moral arguments for this:-

1. They are the adults of the future.

Young people will be affected by the decisions made now far more than most adults, because they will live
with the results for longer. Shouldn’t they have some say in the world we make for them.

2. They are the young people of now.

290 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Even when today’s teenagers are grown up, there will still be new teenagers. If there are ways that
teenagers are particularly affected by science and technology then isn’t it only democratic to have some
input from actual teenagers?

3. Engagement just has to be two-way.

If we want people to engage with science, then it can’t be a one-way street. People aren’t just an audience
for our clever science, nor just a chequebook to pay for it. If we want their attention and their money then
we need to give them a say too. This argument applies to young people as much as the rest of the
population.

I think there’s a pragmatic argument too: people engage much better if they are included, not lectured at.
They take more of an interest in things they can affect, they feel ownership over things they’ve been
involved with and they learn by doing more than they learn by rote.

So are there risks of giving young people some input into funding decisions? Well, some would suggest
young people might make the ‘wrong’ decisions. I’m not sure how we know what the ‘right’ decisions are
though. If wrong means ‘not the same as the experts’, then surely all arguments for public participartion
fall at the same hurdle?

Another objection I’ve heard is that it would trivialise the funding process (and by extension, science). It’s
the people who haven’t taken part in the event who think this.

I’ve stood in a classroom observing an I’m a Scientist lesson, eavesdropping on a group of young people
fiercely disagreeing about which scientist to vote for. One scientist was trying to reduce road deaths,
another developing anti-cancer drugs. The students earnestly argued back and forth about the numbers
killed on the roads or by cancer, whether that was all cancers or just specific ones, how many a given
treatment might save, how to factor in people not killed but maimed.

Most young people take the responsibility they’ve been given very seriously – the more so because they
appreciate that they’ve been trusted with something, which is not the way they are normally treated by
the adult world. It is my experience that, given the chance, young people are very capable of making
informed and considered decisions. So let’s give them the chance.
Ellie Chambers on October 29, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I just wanted to update everyone that the CREST Awards, run by the British Science Association, now has a
Youth Panel (since early 2010) that is dedicated to letting young people have a voice in our activities.
There are about 20+ students on the panel register and 10-15 of them meet every 6 months to discuss areas
that affect the CREST Awards, or other schemes and projects we and our partner organisations are involved in.
We cram as much as we can into about 5 hours and learn so much that influences decision we make and helps us
understand what it is like to be a young person at the moment. We always try and hold it at a great STEM event
to give something back to the students for their time.
We offer the panel members other opportunities to engage with our projects such as volunteering positions and
attending high level project meetings to feedback their experiences. We also produce a report every meeting
stating their views and our learning‘s and what we hope to do with them.
We see this as a valuable resource and hope we will be able to sustain this for many years to come.
Personally it is great working with these young people and a highlight of my working calendar so i whole
heartedly encourage others to take this kind of project on.
To see what we have been up to you can view our meeting summaries online
athttp://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/ccaf/CREST/CRESTYouthPanel.htm

291 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/28 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG:
WHO'S THE GEEK?

Icons of nerdishness tell Alice Bell what 'geek' means to them

Geeks on geeks. Video: Greg Foot/The Geek Calendar. Link to this video

I was on a date a couple of months back, and our conversation somehow got on to the topic of hobbies.
My date looked at his feet: "I can't possibly tell you, it's way too geeky." There was an uncomfortable
silence. My mind boggled as to what this embarrassing hobby could be. Eventually, he admitted it: he had
a thing for Warhammer.

I'm not really a Games Workshop kind of girl myself, but what put me off seeing him again wasn't so much
this interest in Orcs, but that he was ashamed by it. So what if he liked painting small models of Goblins?
Clearly it gave him some joy. Moreover, I respect the desire to get into anything in detail, to get to know a
community and world of people (even if some of those people are make-believe).

As Simon Pegg told the BBC last week, words like nerd and geek have been "reclaimed" in recent years. It
used to be an insult, now "it just means you're into your stuff. That you're proud of what you love, it's
about being enthusiastic. It's a liberation."

Celebrating this feeling, the Geek Calendar project, put together some icons of British nerdom – people like
Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Brian Cox, Aleks Krotoski and Evan Harris – and photographed them for a
charity calendar (buy it here – all profits to the Libel Reform campaign).

During the photoshoots, we asked the subjects what "geek" meant to them, and who their geek heroes
are. As Professor Brian Cox put it, a geek is "being able to be serially obsessed with things. I'm a geek and
proud – I used to spot buses." Jonathan Ross told us, "Geek used to mean people who collected Star Wars
figures, but now it means anyone who's got an interesting slant to them." (You might not think of Ross as a
geek but we've visited his office and trust us, he really is). Most astutely, perhaps, was the definition from
Sydney Padua: "Geekery is being passionate about something, without caring how it might look to other
people or social norms." This from a woman who spends her spare time writing a web comic about Charles
Babbage and Ada Lovelace.

From this perspective, my date's love of Warhammer is nothing to be ashamed of. It's what makes us
individuals. Moreover, such geeky admissions reflect developed skills, experiences and knowledge. They
are worth celebrating. Me, I like to publish knitting patterns on my blog, and I've been known to spend my
lunch break at the back of the Science Museum's library, reading 1950s editions of New Scientist. It doesn't
make me better than anyone else, but it's nothing to hide either. Such interests may be a bit niche, but
that's precisely why they are interesting and, on occasion, even useful and important. In a way that's the
point: today's world is made up of lots of small ways of knowing and dealing with the world, in detail.

292 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
The Geek Calendar team also asked people to admit to "the geekiest thing" they'd ever done. Guardian
blogger and ex-MP Evan Harris admitted he'd broken into his school as a child, to get hold of sample
chemistry exam papers because he was desperate to do some extra revision. "Stand-up mathematician"
Matt Parker, went hiking in the Australian outback to find an integer intersection of latitude and longitude
and photograph it in all four orthogonal directions. ("We nearly died, but it was worth it for the geek
cred.") But perhaps the most eye-opening admission came frompsychologist Dr Petra Boynton. She once
bugged an anaesthetist to give a seminar for disadvantaged kids while she was in labour. She never stops,
that Petra.

So go on, own up: tell us your nerdish little secret. What's the geekiest thing you've ever done?

2010/10/28 TIMES HE: THE APPLIANCE OF


SCIENCE LOBBYING
By Paul Jump

Community campaigning wins plaudits for helping research dodge CSR bullet. Paul Jump reports

The government's apparently last-minute decision to guarantee a flat-cash research budget has been
widely hailed as a victory for a coordinated lobbying effort by the science community.

In last week's Comprehensive Spending Review, Chancellor George Osborne announced that he would
maintain and ring-fence the UK's annual research spend of £4.6 billion, largely split between the research
and funding councils, until 2014-15.

Although this amounts to a real-terms cut of about 9 per cent, it came as a pleasant surprise to many
researchers who had been expecting cash-term cuts of up to 15 per cent.

A well-placed source told Times Higher Education that initial plans for a 20 per cent real-terms cut had
been abandoned some time ago, but a 13 per cent real-terms reduction was still on the cards until the
weekend before the CSR. It was only then that senior ministers made the decision to plough extra funds
into research found through a recalculation of Treasury figures.

Many attributed the reprieve to the success of the science community's lobbying efforts. David Willetts,
the universities and science minister, said that the "fantastic deal" was achieved partly thanks to the hard
evidence it had provided to back up its claims about the productivity, excellence and economic value of UK
research.

Julian Huppert, Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge, applauded scientists for "coming together from top to
bottom" to make the case for investment. He also speculated that Mr Osborne's remark about scientific
research being "vital to our future economic success" was a reference to the Science is Vital campaign,
which saw hundreds of scientists take to the streets to protest against cuts.

However, Mr Willetts said that he and business secretary Vince Cable had decided from the beginning of
CSR negotiations that cutting the teaching budget and increasing graduate contributions was the "least
bad" option. This has fuelled suspicions among some observers that large cuts to research were never
seriously contemplated, and that the apparent last-minute reprieve - one of several across the government
- was planned to generate some good-news stories.

Mr Willetts said that any efficiency savings deriving from the implementation of the Wakeham Review,
which suggests that savings of 5 per cent are possible through greater research concentration, would be
293 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
ploughed back into the research budget. He hoped this would mean that the funding maintained its value
in real terms.

However, the research capital budget has not been protected and although some large projects have been
shielded, others are likely to be dropped.

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said that this could hit the Science and
Technology Facilities Council particularly hard, since 17 per cent of its budget relates to capital
expenditure. He also highlighted the government's pledge to protect the budget of the Medical Research
Council in real terms, which was "likely to mean that all the other research councils face falling budgets in
cash and real terms".

paul.jump@tsleducation.com.

2010/10/28 NEW SCIENTIST S WORD: UK


RESEARCH SPEND: CUTS COULD REACH 17 PER
CENT
Bob Ward, policy and communications director, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the
Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science.

The gushing responses from the some members of the British science community over the past week may
have led you to believe that the government's comprehensive spending review has done an enormous
favour for researchers and showered them with generous funding for the next four years.

The truth is rather different. While science and research fared better than expected, the size of its
settlement may still undermine the international competitiveness of the UK and the nation's prospects for
future economic growth.

The headline decision was to ring-fence together and freeze at 2010-11 levels until 2014-15 the near-cash
allocation from the science budget and the research grant from the Higher Education Funding Council for
England.

According to the spending review document, the settlement for the Department for Business, Innovation
and Skills includes "ensuring the UK remains a world leader in science and research by continuing support
for the highest value scientific research, maintaining the science budget in cash terms over the spending
review period with resource spending of £4.6 billion a year" (see page 51 of this document).

Using the projections of annual rate of inflation projected for the next four years by the Office for Budget
Responsibility, the £4.6 billion sum is expected to be worth about 10 per cent less in real terms in 2014-15
than today. But it still appears to compare very favourably against the larger real terms cuts in many other
areas that were announced in the spending review.

However, the government's actual expenditure on the research base in 2010-11 consists of £3.970 billion
from the science budget in the strict sense (see page 29 of this document) and £1.603 billion from the
recurrent grants for research provided by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (see page 4
of this document).

294 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
So it appears that the £4.6 billion ring-fenced in the spending review excludes £0.229 billion of non-cash
and £0.827 billion of capital allocations from the 2010-11 science budget (see pages 62-63 of this
document)

The expenditure limit on capital for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which distributes
government money to the research councils and higher education funding council, is due to decrease from
£1.8 billion to £1.0 billion during this period (see page 51 of this document).

If capital expenditure for science and research is cut by the same proportion, about 44 per cent in cash
terms, this will mean that total funding for science and research will be about 17 per cent lower in real
terms in 2014-15 compared with 2010-11.

I asked the likeable science minister, David Willetts, about this during a 'Science Question Time' at the
Royal Institution on tuesday evening, pointing out that to get the best out of world-class researchers over
the next four years, the government will need to provide them with world-class infrastructure and
facilities.

He indicated that capital expenditure by his department had not yet been decided, but said that the
situation had been made easier by the spending review announcement that "£220 million of capital
funding from the Department of Health has been allocated for the UK Centre for Medical Research and
Innovation, subject to approval of the final business case".

It remains to be seen whether the government makes swingeing cuts in the funding for research
infrastructure, and returns us to the dark days of the 1980s and 1990s when UK scientists were forced to
cope with shabby laboratories and obsolete equipment.

Mr Willetts has impressed many within the research community with the thoughtful and enthusiastic way
in which he has championed UK science. Few doubt that he presented a strong case to the Treasury about
the need to continue funding for science and research in order to promote sustainable economic growth,
and so secured a better settlement from the spending review than might otherwise have been the case.

But some senior figures in the science establishment have reacted as if the government has done them an
enormous favour. One group wrote to The Times shortly after the review to warmly welcome the
settlement, claiming that it will "boost the confidence of researchers and investors alike".

The fact remains that this a standstill budget, at best, for UK science which threatens to undermine its
international standing. The UK may gain more citations per unit of spending on science than any other
country, but our competitors are investing proportionally more than us in research and development.
According to the OECD's latest figures, government-financed gross domestic expenditure on research and
development by the UK was 0.54 per cent of GDP in 2008. This was less than the OECD average of 0.64 per
cent, and markedly lower than the corresponding figures for Canada, France, Germany and the US. It was
also less than the 0.63 per cent recorded for the UK in 1995.

Mr Willetts will need a lot of help over the next four years to convince the treasury that more should be
invested in science and research. The research community must assist him by demonstrating clearly that
such an investment will improve our international competitiveness, and increase the nation's long-term
prosperity and well-being.

295 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
2010/10/28 ALICE BELL BLOG: ANTI-
QUACKERY UNDERPANTS
Something ticked off the lifetime to-do list: I have managed to get the words “anti-quackery underpants”
into a scholarly publication. An encyclopedia. This encyclopedia. It’s page 586 of volume two, if you’re
interested, part of the entry on Popular Science Media.

It’s these underpants I’m referring to; the ones sold via badscience.net. I noticed recently that SciCurious
has just gone into merchandise too, including underwear. This is just a funny and recent example, my
broader point is that the popularisation of science exists across a range of platforms and is something (at
least some) people like to buy.

The term “popular science” is a bit weird. We might take it quite strictly as a category of contemporary
bookselling (i.e. the sign above Dawkins and Hawkin at Waterstone’s), but historically the term means a lot
more than that. It has a sometimes uncomfortable relationship with both scholarly and popular media, and
in a way, is quite explicitly neither. As such, it can be quite slippery to pin down, but as I attempt to define
it in the encyclopedia entry, popular science is:

science to be consumed in our free time, largely for personal rather than professional reasons. It is science
for fun: to experience the wonders of nature, learn more about an issue which is important to you, on a
friend’s recommendation, or simply because a piece of promotional material caught your eye.

The underpants example help demonstrate the way in which popular science may exist on a range of
media platforms, but also how inter-connected popular science media is. It spins-off from one format to
another (and has done for centuries): blog to book, magazine to blog, museum to magazine, book to toy,
live show to toy, toy to museum, museum to book, documentary to live show, book to documentary,
documentary to book, live show to book, book to blog, blog to underpants.

296 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
I also wanted to use the underpants to emphasise that popular science as something audiences
enthusiastically buy into. People queue round the block for science, they sell out the Royal Albert Hall, they
sign petitions because of it. Ok, so we might argue that it’s still a very limited group that do such queuing/
buying/ signing, but science has its fans. Again, this has been going on for centuries. I think this is
important to remember this. Scholars in the field often conceive of popular science as if it exists largely to
let science show off; that it only invites non-scientists to play so as to reinforce a boundary between those
clever professional scientists and everyone else. Read thus, one would wonder why the audiences of
popular science would bother. And they clearly do bother. And they come back, again and again. And they
buy branded pants (and calendars – the weridos). We might argue that popular science does still patronise
it’s audience through it’s very existence, but audiences seem to feel they are getting something out of it
too

(For the academically minded, I’m referring to the slight difference between Hilgartner’s take on the
subject and Fyfe and Lightman‘s. Personally I both apply and take some scepticism to each of those
approaches, and in addition like to fold in Bourdieu’s approach to cultural consumption).

My encyclopedia entry is nothing especially profound. It’s a basic primer. If you are interested in the topic,
the entry’s list of recommended readings includes:

Fyfe, A. & Lightman, B. (eds) (2007) Science in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century Sites and Experiences.
Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press.

Gregory, J. & Miller, S. (1998) Science in Public: Communication, Culture and Credibility. New York &
London: Plenum. Chapter six.

Hilgartner, S. (1990) ‘The Dominant View of Popularization: Conceptual Problems, Political Uses“, Social
Studies of Science, vol. 20(3): 519-539.

Leane, E. (2007) Reading Popular Physics: Disciplinary Skirmishes and Textual Strategies. Hampshire:
Ashgate.

I also wrote the Communicating Science to Children entry. Obviously, everyone should read that too
because <irony> it’s seminal stuff </irony> but I’m aware this encyclopedia is a couple of hundred quid (it’s
very much a publication for libraries). I have a paper from 2008 on a similar topic you can download for
free (pdf).

The piece on children doesn’t mention underpants, though you can read my blogpost on poo and kids’
books, purchase pro-MMR bibs along with the anti-quack pants from the Bad Science store.

2010/10/28 CASE: SCIENCE MINISTER ISSUES


STATEMENT ON HALDANE PRINCIPLE…
By IMRAN KHAN

David Willetts issued a statement on the Haldane Principle this morning, saying that … he would issue a
statement on the Haldane Principle later in the year.

The Haldane Principle (broadly) states that the micromanaging of research expenditure by politicians is
inefficient, and it should be up to scientists to decide how they spend their budgets. This principle
inevitably clashes with politics at some point; for instance, where in the country do you decide to build a
big new lab that could attract jobs and investment?
297 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
The BIS Structural Reform Plan, first issued back in June, stated that the department should “Develop a
clear policy statement on the Haldane Principle to ensure that publicly funded research projects are
selected through effective peer review” by October 2010.

And now the end of October has rolled in, the department has duly issued astatement calling the Principle
an “important cornerstone”, which will be clarified “in a statement which will be released alongside the
Science & Research Budget Allocations towards the end of this year”, after consultation with the science
and research community.

From this we learn two things.

First, the science budget allocations should be complete before the end of the year.

Second, David Willetts seems more keen to make sure his department gets its statement on Haldane right,
and that it consults properly with the community, than he is keen to stick to seemingly arbitrary deadlines.

I think these are both good things.

2010/10/29 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG


MARTIN: THE MYSTERY OF THE DISAPPEARING
PLANET

As humans peer into the galaxy in search of interstellar friends, media narratives fail to give a realistic
picture of scientific progress.

Loneliness is the small twinge of pain that drives us to seek out companionship. It is a primal urge so
powerful, so central to our nature, that as a species we have an astonishing capacity to make connections
not just with others of our kind, but many of the other creatures who walk, swim, scuttle and soar through
our environment.

So it's not surprising that as we curious apes gaze up into the overwhelming darkness that surrounds the
tiny and precarious blue dot we call home, we're driven to ask: are we alone, or are alien eyes peering back
at us, hidden in the infinite night? And will they be our friends?

The truth is that we don't know, but our ability to find out is growing almost daily now. Delicately crafted
instruments can detect the minutest flickers and shimmers in the quantity or quality of light reaching us
from stars hundreds of trillions of miles distant. Thanks to this incredible data, scientists in recent times
have been able to see the tell-tale signs of planets around distant stars as they spin in their orbits, their
bodies casting faint shadows into space, their gravity tugging gently at their own Suns to cause the slightest
of wobbles.

298 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Some of the very largest have even been imaged directly, like the three planets orbiting 'HR 8799' below.

Three exoplanets orbiting HR 8799,


a young star 129 light years from Earth. Capture by the Keck Observatory.

Detecting these alien dots at such extreme distances isn't always an exact science though. Finding them
takes us to the bleeding edge of what human technology can currently achieve. We are squinting at objects
right at the very limits of our vision, and so we have to be a little cautious about what we can see.

The very first exoplanet discovered is perhaps the best illustration of this. The Canadian astronomers
Campbell, Walker and Yang suggested in 1988that a large planet might be orbiting the star Gamma Cephei
A (part of a binary system some 45 light years distant). The claim was retracted by the authors in the early
1990s due to a lack of evidence, but then dramaticallyconfirmed by newer, better data in 2002, 14 years
after the original 'discovery'.

Since then, over five hundred extra-solar planets have been found, and the discoveries are so routine that
they've ceased to be seen as news by the mainstream media - at least until a particularly interesting one
turns up. Like Gliese 581 g, for example.

Gliese 581 is a red dwarf about 20 light years from Earth, and has roughly a third of the mass of the sun.
Four planets were confirmed to be orbiting the star as of 2009 (labeled Gliese 581 b-e according to naming
conventions), but in September this year astronomers led by Dr Stephen Vogt, working on the Lick-
Carnegie Exoplanet Survey at Keck Observatory, announced the discovery of a further two planets - Gliese
581 f and Gliese 581 g.

The latter of these - predicted to be a small planet slightly largely than Earth - would be a particularly
exciting find as it appears to sit in the habitable zone of its star, orbiting at the right distance from its sun to
be able to support liquid water, and life. If the discovery can be confirmed by further research, it would be
the mostly likely home for life found outside our solar system so far.

Vogt himself pointed out in the paper describing his team's findings that,"caution is warranted as most of
the signals are small." As with all science, results need to be independently replicated before they can be
confirmed. Science is a lengthy process of re-evaluation and consensus-forming over months and years, it's
not quite the discrete series of events you might believe from reading the newspapers.

But the preliminary nature of the finding was utterly lost in the media coverage that followed Keck
Observatory's announcement. In fairness to the media, some of the blame for this lies with Keck's own PR
people. Theirpress release from September 29th starts as follows:

Keck Observatory discovers the first Goldilocks exoplanet

Kamuela, HI, Sept. 29, 2010 - A team of planet-hunting astronomers, utilizing the HIRES spectrometer on
the W.M. Keck Observatory's Keck I Telescope, has announced the discovery of an Earth-sized planet
orbiting a nearby star. The new planet, known as Gliese 581g, is at a distance that places it squarely in the
299 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
middle of the star's "habitable zone" where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. If confirmed,
this would be the most Earth-like exoplanet and the first bona fide potentially habitable one yet
discovered.

There's nothing factually wrong with this statement at all, but the caveats are largely absent. The phrase "if
confirmed" crops up, but that's the only point in the entire press release that the preliminary nature of
their results are made clear. The rest reads like a pretty definite discovery of a new planet, and so it's no
surprise that the media coverage takes on quite an absolutist tone.

The Telegraph repeat the "if confirmed" caveat (largely because the start of their article is a bit of a cut-
paste-and-change-a-few-words job) but articles from the BBC and The Guardian both ignore it completely.
If you read those articles, you would assume that this was a concrete, uncontested discovery.

But it wasn't. Within two weeks, Francesco Pepe at the Geneva Observatory declared that his team had
failed to see any trace of the two new planets in a new (unpublished) analysis of 6.5 years' worth of data,
reporting that "we do not see any evidence for a fifth planet," but, "we can't prove there is no fifth
planet." The truth of the matter is that the question of Gliese 581 g's existence is very much up in the air,
and it will probably take more observations for a consensus to be reached, a process likely to take at least
a couple of years.

In any case, journalists who had previously reported with certainty that the planet had been discovered
were now suddenly reporting on "devastating claims" and "flawed research." The Daily Mail's headline on
October 15th declared that the planet 'may not exist', as if before it was certain that it did - in fact the
original findings accepted that it might not.

If preliminary results aren't properly distinguished from concrete findings, then what ends up being
presented to the public from stories like this isn't a coherent description of how science works, but an
unholy mess of apparently contradictory results and conflicted experts that leaves some people fed up
with the whole thing, and distrustful of future scientific findings. As the following cavalcade of depressing
comments on Gliese 581g shows:

"How much do these people get paid, an exactly what do they achieve?"

"I've no doubt it formed the basis of SOMEONE's research funding, and I don't suppose for a moment
they'll be required to refund the public money involved."

"Oh really I read a few weeks ago in this newspaper that it did exist, will you be issuing an apology or at
least putting a bit more research into your articles before publication. Otherwise, you just look stupid."

"Ah yes scientists. Today they Know everything. Tomorrow they know nothing. And we get taxed on their
"evidence" in between."

"There seems to be one story after another about scientists getting things wrong. Is it my imagination, or
did I once respect what they had to say. Have they gone the way of the politicians. Young and naive and
just trying to make a mark."

And so on.

The hunt for earth-like planets is an epic endeavour that strains the limits of what we as a species can
achieve. It is the ultimate expression of the curiosity and inquisitiveness that has driven us to this point.
And it provides a perfect case study for the way that science at the bleeding-edge operates. It's a shame
the media aren't doing a better job of conveying this to public.

300 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
Correction: The Guardian article on Gliese 581 g actually did include the "needs confirmation" caveat, in
the 5th paragraph, but I missed it due to general slowness of the brain.

2010/10/29 NEW SCIENTIST S WORD: THE


RENAISSANCE OF ARABIC SCIENCE

Roger Highfield, editor, New Scientist magazine

From the empire of Islam came the astrolabe, algebra and the collective wisdom of the likes of Ptolemy
and Aristotle, ideas that would pave the way to the Renaissance and shape the modern world.

This golden age of Arabic science faltered centuries ago but what is notable is the magnitude of the current
efforts to rekindle the flame of this influential scientific tradition.

In Saudi Arabia, a £20 billion endowment aims to turn the King Abdullah University of Science and
Technology into a powerhouse to rival the California Institute of Technology within just two decades.

A few days ago, the UAE's efforts to foster innovation were made clear at World High Tech Forum in
London, organised by the British Institute of Technology and E-commerce.

There we heard, for example, how Abu Dhabi is attempting to establish the world's first fully sustainable
city and innovation hub, with 50,000 people and 1500 businesses.

Qatar now aims to spend 2.8 per cent of its GDP on research (in a region where figures typically range from
0.02 to 0.07 per cent) and this week more details emerged of its efforts during the visit to London of the
Emir of Qatar and his scientific 'ambassador', his wife Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned.

In her capacity as chairperson of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development,
she attended a meeting yesterday in the Royal Society, with former government minister Peter Mandelson
along with heavyweights from the British science establishment - including Ara Darzi, John Walton and
Richard Sykes - and Qatari officials, notably Fathy Saoud, president of QF, the Supreme Council of Health.

Officials from Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development said an agreement
had been signed between QF and Imperial College London to set up a bank of genetic and biological
samples for research in QF's Biomedical Research Institute.

The project starts next year and will run from 2014 until 2017, collecting and storing data on 100,000 Qatar
residents' biometric measurements, lifestyles, environmental exposures as well as biochemical analysis of
their blood samples.

The BioBank will focus on common threats to Qatari and GCC populations, namely diabetes, obesity,
cardiovascular diseases and cancer, according to Keith O'Nions, Rector of Imperial.

The meeting was also told about other features of QF's science and research strategy, including Education
City, a 2500 acre campus outside Doha where seven leading US universities now have bases, the thirty plus

301 | P a g e
VOLUME 14
companies in the Qatar Science & Technology Park, Sidra Research and Medical Centre, endowed with $7.9
billion, the Qatar National Research Fund and Qatar Cardiovascular Research Centre.

The latter, based in Doha, aims to establish Qatar as a pre-eminent leader in the field of cardiovascular
research in the Middle East with the help of the heart transplant surgeon Magdi Yacoub, who described
the high incidence in the Middle East and Gulf regions and bemoaned the lack of reliable, clinical,
epidemiological and genetic data from the region.

For me, what was most remarkable was that the person who has proselytised at home and abroad about
the fundamental importance of education and science in the Arabic world is a woman.

As the UK science minister waited outside the meeting to greet her, Sheikha Mozah talked warmly about
the Royal Society's Atlas of Islamic-World Science and Innovation Project.

No wonder. The atlas has revealed the potentially huge impact that a renaissance for science across the
Islamic world could have in coming decades.

302 | P a g e
VOLUME 14

You might also like