The R&D Scoreboard was a leading source of information and analysis on the UK’s private-sector R&D activity. CaSE had registered our concern with BIS and worked with a number of our members to try and convince the Government to change its mind. When we’re trying to increase private-sector investment it’s important that we can see whether the Government’s strategy is working or not.

We’d found BIS officials to be helpful and engaging in discussions over the Scoreboard, so we’re both surprised and disappointed that they have confirmed they won’t be reversing a hastily-taken and short-sighted decision.

Below you can see a summary of some of the arguments that we, along with our members, put to BIS. We intend to revisit this issue in future.

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Policy Evaluation & Benchmarking

• Many Government initiatives are aimed at increasing the level of R&D activity in the UK, often in specific sectors. It is important that the Government, with the aid of the wider science and engineering community, has a way to evaluate the success of such initiatives and decide where further action is required.

• The Scoreboard also allows the Government to benchmark UK R&D against activity elsewhere in the world and identify historical data trends, such as the share of R&D in different sectors taking place in different economies at different times. Without resources such as the R&D Scoreboard, such benchmarking and evaluation is much more difficult.
• Such evaluation and benchmarking would be consistent with the Government’s pledge to “constantly benchmark the UK against best practice around the world, while expecting to be judged against its own benchmarks“.

Sectoral support within industry

• We agree that difficult economic times call for more inventive and braver Government. However, without the benefit of metrics such as the R&D Scoreboard, the kind of policy-making becomes more hazardous.

• When Government is making decisions affecting a dynamic and changing environment, such as the UK innovation landscape, up-to-date information is important. R&D investment provides a surrogate for actual employment and innovation activity that is much closer to real-time than other measures such patents or publications. For instance, it would alert Government to undisclosed retrenchment in R&D by major UK companies.

Attracting investment

• Accurate and up-to-date data on sectoral strengths within the UK allow public bodies such as Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, the Technology Strategy Board, and UK Trade and Investment to not only guide their own activities, but to highlight the UK’s strengths when attracting investment from abroad. This is also true for private bodies, particularly when the UK arms of global companies are making the case for the importance of UK R&D investment. The value to UK plc of this kind of investment, although difficult to quantify, may well exceed the cost of producing the Scoreboard.

Quality and impartiality of data

• R&D Scoreboard data is based upon hard financial reporting data taken from company annual report and accounts, and has previously been delivered with a near-perfect target zero per cent error rate.

“It’s good to see Science for the Future mobilising researchers to have their say in the crucial debate over how research spending gets awarded, once again disproving the myth that scientists aren’t politically active.”

“However, there’s two important bits of context here. Firstly, the UK has a long-standing convention that politicians shouldn’t get involved in decisions about exactly how Research Council money is spent. It’s something that sets UK research apart from much of the rest of the world. If ministers came in from on-high and overtly instructed EPSRC to change their policy, as this campaign may be demanding, that would be a significant departure.”

“Secondly, the EPSRC, like other Research Councils, has seen a big cut to its funding from Government. Not only is it depressing in and of itself that we’re spending less money on science, but at a time when we’re trying to ‘rebalance the economy’ towards innovation and manufacturing, the Government is actually shooting itself in the foot by cutting research and development investment. This is despite everyone from industry, to academia, to other world leaders, saying that science and engineering are critical to future growth.”

“We’re not sure all avenues have been explored here, and we’d urge EPSRC and Science for the Future to engage constructively over these issues. Having lobbyists proclaim the ‘death of British science’ over a dispute involving one Research Council is distracting from the wider challenges facing publicly-funded research – challenges which we’ll need a united front in order to meet.”

Quality of Advice

CaSE has long argued that this is important, so that decisions are made in a properly informed and evidence-based manner, and equally important — are seen to be so. CaSE’s assessment was made in terms of criteria such as:

• Whether the department has a Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) who is appointed from outside the civil service
• Whether the CSA has regular meetings with the Secretary of State or relevant Minister
• Whether he or she has a reserved place on the management board of the department
• Whether they have a Scientific Advisory Committee to provide independent expert advice
• And whether the CSA has full control over the department’s science, research or evidence budget.

Several departments scored highly, showing that this importance is recognised and understood within Government, but others less so.

The Ministry of Defence was one of the higher-scoring departments. The Ministry of Defence has had a Chief Scientific Adviser since Professor Frederick Lindemann (Lord Cherwell) provided scientific advice to Churchill during the Second World War, and the post has been held by many eminent scientists and engineers since then. Professor Sir Mark Welland, the distinguished nanoscientist from Cambridge, has held the post since 2008 and is now stepping down. His successor has yet to be announced.

Downgrading

So we were very disappointed to hear that the post of Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence is being downgraded from a 4-star post to 3-star. By way of explanation, senior military ranks, and their civilian equivalents, are denoted by stars. Thus Commodore (in the Navy), Brigadier (in the Army) and Air Commodore (in the Air Force) are 1-star ranks, Rear-Admiral, Major-General and Air Vice Marshal are 2-stars, Vice-Admiral, Lieutenant-General and Air Marshal are 3-stars, and Admiral, General and Air Chief Marshal are 4-stars.

The reason why this decision is disappointing is that defence is a deeply technological business.  Modern defence equipment costs literally billions of pounds, so it is crucial that decisions on procurements and on the research and development that underpin them are based on the very best scientific thinking and advice.

This is especially true since rather few senior officers tend to have a scientific or engineering background — the view is taken that first and foremost they should be leaders of men.  But as well as this, the military is awfully conscious of rank. 2-stars get to speak with 2-stars, 3-stars with 3-stars, and so on. So a 3-star CSA simply will not have the ears of the people who make the most important decisions. Not only that, but when they travel to the USA, for example, they will not get to meet with Generals and Admirals and their civilian equivalents, but only with their subordinates.

In downgrading the status of the CSA post in this way, the Ministry of Defence is sending a very worrying message about the importance it attaches to science and technology.

As well as a round-up of CaSE’s ongoing work, CaSE News 70 includes analysis of the Budget 2012, the government’s new immigration rules, and our report on socioeconomic diversity in STEM.

The newsletter also features guest articles on the quality of scientific advice in the Ministry of Defence, and a summary of our recent ‘Scientists for Politics’ event.

CaSE News is our quarterly publication and is sent out to all CaSE members. For details of CaSE membership see here.

• Last week CaSE organised a panel discussion on the topic of House of Lords reform. The event, sponsored by the Biochemical Society, was chaired by our Assistant Director Beck Smith and the panellists were Lord Willis, Professor James Wilsdon and Baroness Finlay. We will shortly be publishing a report on the role of expertise in the House of Lords, which will be made available on our website.

• April saw CaSE hold a roundtable meeting on immigration policy with Home Office policy leads. Over twenty CaSE member organisations were represented, and the event was hosted by the Institution of Chemical Engineers. Fragomen LLP, who have kindly provided a breakdown of the recent immigration changes, note that no other sector has received this level of engagement.

• The latest issue of CaSE Newshas now been published. As well as a round-up of CaSE’s ongoing work, CaSE News 70 includes analysis of the Budget 2012, the government’s new immigration rules, and our report on socioeconomic diversity in STEM.

• CaSE Director Imran Khan has written an article in the Times Educational Supplement on the need for a kitemark in the teaching of science and maths education.

• CaSE is pleased to welcome Bayer Industries and the University of Essex as new members.

You can read the full E-Bulletin here.

The role of expertise in the House of Lords will be addressed in a report from CaSE, due to be published at the end of the month.  As part of this work CaSE held a meeting to discuss the proposed reforms with Lord Willis (member of the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee), James Wilsdon (Professor of Science and Democracy at SPRU, University of Sussex) and Baroness Finlay (clinical academic at the Cardiff University and the Velindre Cancer Centre) on the panel.

Discussing reform

In their opening remarks Lord Willis urged those working on the Reform Bill to prioritise function over form.  James offered a view of the expertise found in Lords as part of a wider information system which includes Committees, POST, and bodies outside Westminster such as the National Academies.  Baroness Finlay gave a compelling account of the role the expertise found in the Upper House has recently played e.g. in the Health and Social Care Bill.

The audience discussion raised some practical ways in which the use of expertise could be improved – even in the absence of reform e.g. members of both House could be encouraged to hire staff with science and engineering backgrounds.

Lord Willis remarked that, “We live in a world where almost every politician in the western world says that the major challenges we face will need to be solved by using science and technology.”  With this is mind, we need to ensure that science and engineering expertise is accessed and utilised as easily as possible by decision-makers.  It is unlikely that a reform of House of Lords of this scale will come around again soon, we mustn’t waste this opportunity.

A recording of the event will shortly be available on our website.

CaSE would like to thank Lord Wills for sponsoring this event which allowed us to hold it in the House of Commons and also the Biochemical Society for its financial support.

CaSE Director Imran Khan has written in the ‘Times Educational Supplement’ on the need for a kitemark in the teaching of science and maths education. We’ve re-published it below.

For a full summary of CaSE’s work on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education see here.

“IN BRITAIN we’re okay at teaching science and maths. Not bad, but certainly not great. This should worry you. Our school-leavers deserve and need to understand the modern world around them, and as a nation we need to be able to compete in a global high-skills economy.

If this is to change, our science establishment should take it upon itself to do even more to promote and celebrate best practice in education.

Challenges Ahead

Despite the UK’s reputation as a beacon of excellence, with only the US possessing a longer list of Nobel laureates or Fields medallists, we really are mediocre at educating the next generation. The Programme for International Student Assessment’s (Pisa) 2009 survey of 65 nations ranked us 28th for maths and 16th for science – behind countries such as Estonia, Poland and Slovenia. A recent comparison of 24 advanced economies showed that England, Wales and Northern Ireland were the only ones in which fewer than one-fifth of students studied maths post-16.

To give the sector its due, we have seen some improvements. The number of pupils obtaining good GCSEs and A levels in science has risen, as has the number of those going on to study science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) at degree level. But these improvements may be more fragile than many would like to admit.

Independent schools account for just 13 per cent of all A levels taken, but supply only slightly less than a fifth of chemistry, maths and physics A levels sat, and well over a quarter of further maths A levels.

Comprehensive school pupils, by contrast, are over-represented in arts and humanities subjects. It is a similar story at GCSE level, but one of the recent bright spots has been a rise in state-sector pupils studying “triple science” (biology, chemistry and physics as separate GCSEs). This is good: we know that not only does taking triple science correlate with a pupil’s likelihood of further study in STEM, but that this effect is more pronounced among less privileged pupils.

Sustained effort from the teaching and science sectors has been a big part of that success. Another factor was the rise of the science and maths specialist schools, whereby ring-fenced funding for teaching these subjects was unlocked in return for meeting specific targets in science or maths. The specialist school model is not without its detractors, but the Kitemarking principle of rewarding and recognising good practice is one with proven success.

It has been used in everything from electrical safety to employment standards, and we have seen it give schools a real incentive to give their pupils an advantage in pursuing further science and maths training. You might therefore expect that we would be reinforcing this incentive. Instead, the ring-fenced funding for specialisms has been removed.

Getting the best teachers

The English Baccalaureate, which requires maths and two sciences, should help ensure minimum standards. New teacher-training bursaries for top science and maths graduates, brought in to replace the now-scrapped “golden hellos”, are intended to boost the supply of specialist teachers. All this is valuable, but as well as encouraging supply, we need to consider demand.

The financial climate for schools is tough, and the costs of teaching subjects such as physics and chemistry aren’t exactly among the lowest. Also, despite recommendations by the Science Community Representing Education (SCORE), we still have no clear definition or map of specialist teaching provision, so it is hard to see how far we have to go.

It’s not all bad news, of course. We have passionate teachers and excellent schools pushing for the best possible education for pupils. By recognising and promoting that excellence, the science and engineering sector could help to encourage more of it.

A little respect

The hardest thing for any Kitemarking scheme, new or old, is having a respected brand. Why should employers or governing bodies aspire to a Kitemark’s arbitrary standard? Where is the authority for that standard coming from? Well, the UK just happens to be blessed with globally exalted institutions such as our National Academies as learned societies, along with charities such as the Wellcome Trust and the Gatsby foundation which have a fantastic record of funding education interventions.

The sector already does much to support education, not least in working with government to set curriculum standards and organising fantastic events like the Big Bang Fair, and via education policy partnerships such as SCORE and Education for Engineering (E4E).

However, we could go further. It’s easy to imagine, for instance, the Royal Society or Royal Academy of Engineering using their brands to promote a new Kitemark. This could be awarded to schools that had an appropriate roster of specialist teachers and enrichment programmes, offered triple science to all pupils and promoted professional development to all staff. There would be no need to reinvent the wheel. Yes, it would be harder in practice than in theory, but if it raised aspirations in a handful of schools, we would have succeeded in improving science and maths education for thousands of pupils.

From the heights of Victorian engineering to the complexity of today’s bioscience revolution, the history of British science and engineering is characterised by ‘okay’ never being good enough. It’s time we made sure the same was true of the support we provide to the next generation.

Summary of Home Office (HO) introductory presentations

There is a Government mandate to reduce net migration down from approximately 240,000 to tens of thousands. The recent changes reflect the Government’s aim of reducing the numbers but also being more selective about the migrants the UK needs. These demonstrate that Britain is open for business. It was emphasised that the HO is keen to protect and encourage the UK as a science hub and that is why the changes encourage scientists to come to work and study in the UK.

It was noted that the previous system had seen high levels of abuse in the student route.

Four key areas of change were highlighted where HO has worked closely to ensure that the changes will help the UK Science Hub to develop and grow:

1. The new exceptional talent route under Tier 1 allows for up to 1000 individuals. To date the numbers have been relatively low, but they still represent high calibre individuals. It’s the first time decision making power has been handed over to the sector (the Academies and Arts Council) to assess who is exceptionally talented. The route is being reviewed; the fee will be looked at as well as considering whether to extend this to other bodies such as the Fashion Council. HO is also looking at how to better promote and raise awareness of the route.

2. The cap on Tier 2 has been set at 20,700 for the next two years to allow for forward planning. The minimum skill level will be raised to NQF level 6. Resident Labour Market test has been relaxed for advertising high‐level jobs, including PhD level jobs. A review by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) of the Codes of Practice for occupations under Tier 2 is forthcoming with particular reference to salary requirements.

3. Certain Tier 5 Government Authorised Exchange schemes have been kept at 24 months, notably those for research, fellowship & training schemes in the field of science and medicine.

4. A new visitor route for “permitted paid engagements” opened on the 6 April, allowing a defined list of professionals to come in for up to 1 month to carry out a specific prearranged
engagement and receive a fee payment for this. Specific activities include experts coming to give a paid lecture, examine students and/or participate in or chair selection panels. It also extends to other categories of professionals. An internal review of the visitor routes will be taking place soon to ensure the rules are as clear as they can be. It is unconfirmed as to whether this will lead to a public consultation.

HO explained that provision had been made for the sector with regards to Tier 4. The rules on permission to work and work placements have not been changed for university
students. Students are able to switch to Tier 2 from Tier 4 with a job offer with a salary of £20,000.

Postgraduate and Government‐sponsored students can bring their dependants with them. The funds required to switch from Tier 4 to the entrepreneurial route have been reduced from
£200,000 to £50,000.

An extended student visitor route of eleven months has been introduced allowing students to come and improve their English skills, return home and then apply again once they meet the required standards.

Summary of discussion

Specific Case studies

The example was given of a person from China who had received a bursary of £24,000 to do research at the University of Southampton. This person was refused a visa on the basis that the University of Southampton wouldn’t underwrite the mandatory £800 that needed to be in a bank account in the UK – despite the bursary. Direct communication with decision‐makers in this situation was difficult due to the use of new intermediary visa‐processing bodies. This is not an isolated incident and people have turned these fellowships down as a result of difficulties like this. Are there ways in which bursary‐providing bodies can quickly validate that a person is genuine?

HO: It’s important both that rules are designed to work in an appropriate way and that the rules are being applied correctly. If necessary an administrative review provides the means required to check if the latter is true. The rules are drafted to be clear and transparent, to ensure they allow the UK Border Agency to conduct the right checks, but with such a system
there will be inevitably be a small number of cases that do not quite fit, and we’re happy to look at those cases.

A person who had won a prestigious fellowship was forced to return home to Israel whilst switching between Tiers 5 and 2 ‐ this incurred costs of approximately £4000.

HO: Tier 5 is a temporary route, and there is no limit on the numbers coming in that way. The government has implemented a limit on the numbers coming through the longer term Tier 2. It is important to maintain the distinction and not allow migrants to switch in the UK, otherwise that would completely undermine the limit on Tier 2 numbers.

Impact of reforms

The UK’s Higher Education sector lost a million pounds worth of students last year as a result of changes to language requirements and bad PR. Some students had offers withdrawn as a result of these changes. What can UKBA do to change the message and are any more changes planned?

HO: Bad PR was the somewhat inevitable result of the scale of reform, a tightening to tackle abuse will still be seen as a tightening. Home Office and other ministers have made considerable efforts to stress that the UK is open for business. It is hoped that there will be a forthcoming period of stability that should make this easier. No Government will publicly say that there were will be no further changes but it is hoped that by working with the education sector, should there need to be further changes, a mutually convenient time for these to happen can be identified.

It’s important that current uncertainties about the how net migration decrease will be fully achieved are removed. It’s very difficult for universities to work on the basis of dramatic
landscape changes while they’re making 25‐year plans.

HO: It is difficult to know whether the changes that have been made will achieve the targets that have been set. It is possible that further changes will be made and it’s not possible to remove student numbers from these discussions. Damien Green is on record that the UK will allow the brightest and best students to come and study in the UK. The prospect of changes
which specifically exempt STEM students are unlikely, but as we have said we have gone to great lengths to prioritise university students.

How are UKBA, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and UK Trade and Investments addressing the negative perceptions?

HO: The role of the UKBA is to ensure that the migration system works, that information is clear and easy to use, and that users have a good experience. Promoting the UK as a
destination for study is for the sector and other Government departments but it is not the role of the Home Office or the UKBA.

Post‐study work visas

What is current thinking around the post‐study work and sandwich courses?

The Government view is that the high quality education available in the UK should attract students and not the ability to work. On post‐study work the ability for graduates with a job
offer to move into Tier 2 has been retained.

The requirement to move people after six years doesn’t lend itself easily to retaining the brightest and best student. In addition, indefinite leave to remain requiring a cooling off period is also problematic in this aim.

HO: Individuals are able to stay beyond six years but they need to meet the salary threshold.

Switching between tiers

Which tiers can you switch between? Is it possible to stay here whilst switching?

HO: The rules are complex and warrant a separate discussion. As a general rule you can’t switch out of Tier 5 because this is a temporary employment route.

Short‐term visit visas

The new visitor route for “permitted paid engagements” is welcome but it still doesn’t address all problems. Some funders require the people they are funding to give a presentation to a committee (prior to funding) and this is problematic as they are non‐paid engagements. This seems to be a particular problem for those people coming from Africa.

HO: The new routes should help in allowing experts/academics to come in for paid lectures (talks) as long as the individual is invited by an HEI, arts or research organisation. Non‐paid
engagements are not covered by the visitor route for “permitted paid engagements”.

Premium service

Will enhanced UKBA support be part of the premium service?

HO: Premium sponsors will have a named point of contact. UKBA would be happy to speak to colleagues about this. HO colleagues explained that the possibility of fast‐tracking applications as part of this service is being looked at. The fees for this service (£25,000 or £8,000 for SMEs) reflect the cost to the agency in providing this service.

Working together

What can the sector do to help the Home Office?

HO: The science and engineering community can play a role in messaging, particularly in countering negative perceptions that Britain is ‘closed for business’ as our recent changes
show that we are very much open.

As for control of Intellectual Property – well, there was none. Research discoveries were reported on an ad hoc basis to a senior administrator. He and his committee would decide what, if anything, to do with an invention.

The ‘innovation’ process was foreign and, I suspect, somewhat distasteful to the academics in my department – if not throughout academia. For example, I and a colleague invented the ‘Backfriend’ orthopaedic support. We funded the start of a company (Medesign) ourselves without any support from the university.

The diabetes gold-standard

My biochemical research resulted in my being asked to consult for a number of commercial companies as well as Her Majesty’s Government. One of these companies, based in Montreal, asked me to research ideas for a possible test to monitor glycated haemoglobin in diabetic patients.

If I could discover such a test then the company would protect any discovery by applying for patents at their expense, and we would decide about innovation if and when the invention was filed. After about three months we struck gold – I discovered that immobilised boronate did successfully bind glycosylated haemoglobin.

Moreover, Prof Sir Alistair Bellingham and I showed that diabetic patients could be more rapidly and accurately assessed using my procedure than the existing electrophoretic methods. We even showed that one of my own students was not diabetic at all, but beta-thalassaemic – Alistair observed ‘fast’ haemoglobin in her blood, which was easily confused with diabetes.

The patents were filed with more than nine months to run before completion.  The company then informed me that their research objectives had changed – but they were happy for me to take over the patents as inventor. That said, there would have been plenty of time to find another sponsor to commercialise the research.

Academic failure

So I then approached the University development officer – and was told very firmly that it was my invention, and the University was not interested in pursuing or supporting the patent. Bear in mind that a UK patent filing could easily cost £20,000 per year for foreign filing costs at the time, which was about the same as my annual salary.

I then approached Amicon, for whom I had been doing some consultancy, and they agreed to take on the product. Without any help from the University towards the negotiations, I agreed to sell the patent to the Americans for a token sum with the understanding that they paid my lab 5% of sales, and 40% if the company was taken over.

Two years later, W. R. Grace acquired Amicon and vigorously defended the US patent – but Amicon had failed to file outside the USA. So whilst my lab and I did accrue some reward from US sales, we had absolutely nothing from worldwide royalties. Although the method was very widely exploited and still is the basis for the HbA1c test, what irks is the complete failure of the establishment to recognise a major worldwide contribution to diabetic health. There are 285 million diabetics worldwide.

No self interest?

Back then, the University could not innovate even if you paid them to do so. For example, my research group were the first to construct steroid hormone assays for oestriol, oestradiol, cortisol, and many others. The University failed to set up a system to protect or commercialise these discoveries. And when the Finnish Sugar Company (of all people!) offered to fund a personal chair for me with a large research grant, the Vice Chancellor decided that 40% of the grant must be given to the University without discussion. I immediately applied to work elsewhere.

In 1987 I founded my company Cambio in Cambridge. Soon after, Professor (now Sir) Martin Evans brought the design of the UK’s first Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) machine to me – and whilst the University did not stand in our way, the technical assistance we received from the University of Cambridge was… rather out of date, shall we say. Cambio ended up going to a local electronics firm to develop the PCR machine rather than stay ‘in house’.

We were later approached by the Professor of Pathology at Cambridge with a novel series of chromosome paints. We successfully commercialised these worldwide and were happily paying the Pathology laboratory around £200,000 per year for the privilege, which was a large proportion of product’s sales. Then the technology transfer group (Cambridge University Technical Services, with the rather unfortunate acronym of ‘CUTS’) decided to get involved.

CUTS tried to force an increase in the contribution made to the University. Their approach to negotiation meant that we had to withdraw completely from the market, which lost both us and the university’s pathology lab considerable amounts of money. The lab itself ended up being unsustainable as a result.

Cultural divides

These examples are from decades ago, but they illustrate the cultural divide which arguably still hasn’t been properly bridged. UK universities are very slow to innovate because the academic mindset is to explore every possibility, and discuss the pros and cons ad libitum – whereas the commercial need is to make decisions quickly, even if the process has flaws.”

After the recent budget it’s clear (if it were ever in doubt) that the government is casting its lot with ‘business as usual’, rather than science and engineering, to stimulate an economic recovery. The “biggest sustained reduction in business tax rates for a generation”, announced in Osborne’s address, far overshadows the £160m for new research investment.

But the status of science and business in UK appropriations is hardly a product of just this Government – or even just this decade. To demonstrate, let’s examine the most recent BIS science, engineering and technology statistics – specifically, the bits on how the UK’s research spending has changed over the years, and how that spending stacks up against other G7 countries (and the UK’s main research competitors).

The primary way governments evaluate R&D is gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD). It’s the sum of R&D spent in business, university, government and not-for-profit sectors, expressed as a percentage of GDP. According to a recent survey of OECD members (pdf), GERD is considered one of the most important indicators among member nations.

On inspecting the graph, you can see that although science’s ‘frozen budget’  in the UK garnered lots of attention in the last couple years, R&D in the UK has actually been declining, as a percentage of GDP, for decades. In fact the UK is the only one of the G7 countries to be spending less of its GDP on research and development now than in 1986.

The caveat, of course, is that GDP has changed over the decades. It’s been generally rising over the years, but has seen a big fall since 2007. So, while expressing figures as a percentage of GDP is helpful for comparison between countries, it’s limited in historical explanatory power.

That said, let’s break down these figures a bit more, and then at the end briefly explore a different approach to analysing R&D spend.

Different kinds of R&D

To break down GERD, we can look at the various contributing sectors of R&D. Higher-education expenditure on R&D looks like this:

By that measure, then, the UK has been steadily increasing, keeping pace with most of the other G7 countries – which perhaps isn’t surprising, since elsewhere in the BIS data we learn that almost 28 per cent of the UK’s R&D (by expenditure) is performed by universities.

Most of these universities would be receiving government funding for research – and the government funds a disproportionate amount, relative to industry, of Britain’s R&D. Here are R&D statistics by source of funding, in 2009:

In business, then, we might expect the UK to compare less favourably, and indeed that’s what the data show. In business enterprise expenditure on R&D, the UK again shows one of the most marked declines in the G7:

That indicator has interesting implications for the Government’s current push to bring more industry funding to university research, most recently in the Catalyst Fund as part of the Life Sciences Strategy. If business spending on R&D is declining relative to GDP, it suggests that the private sector can’t simply ‘fill the gap’ that has been left by the state.

Which brings us, finally, to the most beleaguered indicator of them all: government expenditure on R&D. Here the UK comes out last among G7 nations:

Others have fallen far – notably France and the US. Germany and Japan have actually managed to increase governmental spending on R&D, even post-recession.

The UK’s R&D spend here has dropped by 0.16 percentage points since 1986, but has been holding steady in recent years. We can expect it to decline in the years ahead, though, since the frozen science budget will mean a cut in real terms to agencies such as the Department of Health and Defra, according to CaSE’s analysis.

The problem with GDP

Comparing R&D spend with GDP alone can be a bit misleading, as previously discussed. If GDP grows faster than R&D spending, it can appear that R&D spending is falling when, in real terms, it’s actually rising.

And in fact, that’s what you see happening in these figures. When you analyse the data slightly differently – mashing up the percentages with Britain’s inflation-adjusted GDP for each year – you get this inflation-adjusted annual spend:

In real terms, then, some (though not all) categories of R&D have been rising. They just haven’t kept pace with the rising GDP. In other words, even though we’re spending more on R&D today than we did in 1986, R&D is now making up a significantly smaller proportion of our economy than it did back then.

And the primary driver of the rise in GDP – beginning in 1986, the same year these statistics begin, with the “Big Bang” – is Britain’s extraordinary growth in the financial services sector. Policymakers took a strategic decision in the ’80s to shift from manufacturing to services as the cornerstone of the economy.  As David Willetts noted in a speech earlier this year, “The Jubilee line extension has been great for London but I well remember how its original impetus in the 1980s came from the need to provide access to Canary Wharf: if it had been a link to a manufacturing centre not office blocks for financial services it might have been seen as a much more controversial example of industrial policy.”

That concerted push to bolster financial services was an economic boon – one that  the UK reaped the rewards of for over two decades. Although we’ve subsequently seen the downside of over-reliance on the financial sector, it does show how a sector can flourish if it has investment and regulatory support from the state. CaSE is proposing that the government learn from this, and reinvest the multibillion-pound windfall from its 4G auction later this year into UK science and engineering.

And who knows – maybe someday research will have its own Canary Wharf…

New Immigration Rules took effect on 6 April that will change the way that research centres, universities and other employers recruit workers from outside of Europe.  More changes are due on 14 June 2012.

The extensive set of changes touched on every area of policy for Tier 2 migrants, the ‘skilled worker’ category.  There has been a lot of change, and staff in HR, the individual employees and their recruiting managers could be forgiven for losing track.

Some of the changes will reduce the flexibility that employers have to recruit and retain top talent.  There have however been some notable wins and concessions for the scientific community, due in no small part to collaborative and informed lobbying by the Campaign for Science and Engineering.  These are:

• From 14 June the Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT) will be liberalised for PhD level jobs[1].  Employers will:
  • no longer need to advertise a post in JobCentre Plus;
  • be able to select the best candidate, regardless of nationality; and
  • be able to rely on advertising that began up to one year earlier, as opposed to six months earlier as at present.

• The RLMT will be removed for graduates (Tier 4 Students) who have been awarded their qualification by a Higher Education Institution licenced by the UK Border Agency.  PhD students will not need to have completed their doctorate and will instead be able to move into Tier 2 after studying for 12 months.

• Those who enter the UK in Tier 2 after 6 April 2012 will need to be paid at least £35,000 to qualify for settlement.  Employees in PhD level jobs will be exempt from this requirement, as will anybody who has worked in a job on the Shortage Occupation List (which includes a number of engineering jobs);
• A new visitor category has been introduced that will allow some a small number of workers, including academics and examiners, to work in the UK for up to a month without sponsorship.

No other sector has been provided with this many policy concessions.

What follows is a summary of the new policies relating to employers and employees.  As there is a lot here we have grouped the changes together according to visa categories.

We hope that you will find it useful.

Tier 1 – High value migrants

• There has been one significant change to Tier 1 policy.  The Post Study Work (PSW) category has been closed.  The route had been used by students looking to extend their stay in Tier 1 for two years after graduation.

• Closure of the route is a matter of regret for many employers.  It was a useful category for businesses and increased the attractiveness of the UK as a place to study, on top of our excellent academic offering.

• New arrangements for graduate hires are set out below.

Tier 2 – Skilled workers

The Tier 2 limit

• Tier 2 limit on Restricted Certificates of Sponsorship (CoS) will remain at 20,700 places for each of the next two years (running from 6 April to 5 April).  This is the level at which it was set in 2011/12.  Supply has consistently outstripped demand over the last twelve months and 12,300 of last year’s 20,700 CoS were still available at the end of February.

• The limit applies to:
  • non-EU workers who will be paid less than £150,000 and are applying for a Tier 2 General visa from outside of the UK; and
  • dependants of Tier 4 visa holders who are switching in to Tier 2 from within the UK.

• The limit does not apply to Intra-Company Transfers (ICT), in country Tier 2 applicants (save for the Tier 4 dependants already mentioned) or those earning over £150,000.

The Resident Labour Market Test

• The Home Office has announced that from 14 June 2012 the RLMT:
  • will not require advertisements in JobCentre Plus if a vacancy is paying over £70,000 per year or is deemed to be PhD level; and
  • additionally, those recruiting scientists and academics for PhD level jobs will now be able to choose the best candidate, regardless of whether there is a suitable resident worker.

• Until April an employer could only issue a Certificate of Sponsorship if an RLMT had began no more than six months earlier.  For PhD level jobs the RLMT can now have began up to a year earlier.

Increased skill level

• The minimum skill level in Tier 2 will increase from NQF4 to NQF6 level.  These levels are rather technical but essentially correlate to diploma level and bachelors degree level respectively.

• However, this increase will not apply to shortage occupations or creative jobs.  The change in policy will take effect in 14 June 2012

• I have attached a list of the jobs deemed to be at NQF4 level.  The attachment also sets out the NQF4 jobs that are currently on the shortage occupation list and new creative occupation list.  The rest of the jobs will not qualify through Tier 2 unless they are added to the Shortage Occupation List.

Tier 2 and graduate hires

• Tier 4 students will only be able to switch to Tier 2 if:
  • they have completed and passed a UK degree (Bachelors and Masters) or a prescribed  teacher training qualification; or
  • have completed 12 months towards a PhD; and
  • the courses were studied at a Tier 4 registered institution.

• There will be RLMT for this group.

• Previously the RLMT did not apply to Tier 1 PSW migrants if they had worked for a firm for six months. Since 6 April there does not need to be any RLMT at all.

• Employers still need to have conducted an RLMT for graduate hires that are not switching from Tier 4 to Tier 2, for instance those who studied:
  • outside of the UK;
  • in the UK but are applying for Tier 2 leave from abroad; or
  • studied in the UK with a visa that was not Tier 4.

Tier 2 and Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR)

• Workers who entered through Tier 2 after 6 April 2011 will now be granted three years leave to enter followed by a further three years leave to remain.

• They will be able to apply for ILR after five years.  ILR will only be available to those who:
  • pass the Knowledge of Life in the UK Test;
  • have a clean criminal record;
  • have not been out of the UK for more than 180 days in the five years immediately prior to the application (there is limited discretion available for longer absences); and
  • are paid at least the going rate for the job.

• Those who enter the UK in Tier 2 after 6 April 2012 will additionally need to be paid at least £35,000 in order to settle.  However, this requirement will not apply to those in PhD level jobs or those who worked in a shortage occupation at any point during their stay.

• If they have not been granted settlement after six years they will need to leave the UK and a cooling off period will prevent re-entry in any Tier 2 category for a period of 12 months. This includes where they have failed the absence requirements.

• There are only two exceptions to the cooling off period:
  • Where a former Short Term ICT wishes to return as a Long Term ICT; and
  • Where a migrant had last been granted leave as an ICT under the Rules in place before 6 April 2011and wishes to return as a Long Term ICT.

• There will continue to be a bar on switching between the Tier 2 General and ICT whilst in the UK.  The only exception to this is where an ICT entered under the Rules in place before 6 April 2011 and is changing employer.

• This means that you will not be able to move between Tier 2 General and ICT without first spending 12 months out of the UK.

• This cooling off period will be applied very strictly and could have serious consequences for Tier 2 sponsors and their employers:
  • If you have an ICT working for you in the UK and their job becomes permanent they will not be able to switch to Tier 2 General.  Instead they would have to leave the UK and apply for Tier 2 General leave.  That leave will not be granted unless they have completed the cooling off period i.e. spent 12 months outside of the UK.  However, you will note that ICTs who entered before 6 April 2011 do not need to leave after five years.  This removes the need to switch categories although they cannot qualify for settlement if they applied for  entry clearance after 6 April 2010.
  • If you wish to recruit an ICT from another company you will only be able to do so if they entered with leave granted under the Rules in place before 6 April 2011.  Those who have entered since that date will be barred from switching employer and will only be able to enter with a Tier 2 visa after completing the cooling off period.
  • Frequent travellers who spend far more than an average of 36 days a year outside of the UK will not normally qualify for ILR and have to leave the UK.  They will again be prevented from re-entering until they have completed the cooling off period.

• These impacts could cause real difficulties.  We are working closely with the Home Office and other influencers to help them understand impacts and to press for a more flexible policy.

Tier 5 and Overseas Domestic Workers (ODW)

• Tier 5 Interns have been be restricted to 12 months leave.  Other Tier 5 migrants on medical or research programmes will be able to stay for up to two years.

• The ODW category in Tier 5 will be removed for private households but remains open for diplomatic households.  Instead, an ODW will only be granted entry clearance if they are accompanying a visitor.  They will be given a maximum of 12 months leave to enter.

Visitors and permitted paid engagements

• The Home Office has introduced a new category of visitor undertaking paid engagements.  Some academics, lawyers, air pilot examiners and entertainers will be able to enter for up to one month and work without sponsorship.

• This route is welcome even though it is very narrowly defined.  Fragomen will continue to lobby for a wider review of very temporary work and visitor status.

The forthcoming REF’s increased emphasis on demonstrable ‘impact’ is a source of some concern and confusion for many academics. It is, however, more of an opportunity than a threat in the sense that the Politics and International Relations Panel has clearly signalled its intention to adopt a broad and creative approach to the definition and assessment of ‘impact’. The Panel Criteria and Working Methods that were published in January 2012 also suggest that a softer approach to impact has been adopted than might have previously been expected from some of the initial REF documentation.

The impact ‘case studies’ submitted by most departments of politics – and indeed, most social science departments – are unlikely to focus on a specific piece of research which can be clearly and unequivocally proven to have led to a change in policy or law but is more likely to knit together a range of research-driven impact-activities that, taken together, provide a compelling case that a given research team or strand has had a significant social impact. It is in exactly this latter vein that the ‘stimulation of public debate’ and ‘contributions to public understanding’ are explicitly given as examples of impact within the REF2014 guidance documentation.

As such one valuable element of an ‘impact case study’ might be an appearance before a select committee or, at the very least, the inclusion of a submitted memorandum of evidence as part of the published evidence surrounding a report. ‘Documented evidence of policy debate (for example, at a parliamentary select committee)’ is therefore included as a central example of ‘Evidence and Indicators of Impact’ within the latest REF2014 panel criteria.

It is in exactly this climate that appearances before parliamentary select committees, in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, provide an incredibly valuable opportunity for social scientists to influence government and policy-makers, while also disseminating their research more broadly.

The problem is, however, that select committee clerks frequently find it hard to: (firstly) identify academics with the expertise to help inform a specific inquiry; (secondly) identify academics with the relevant expertise who are also willing to engage with an inquiry; and (thirdly) find academics with the expertise and willingness who are also able to talk about their research in a concise and accessible manner.

The aim of this article is therefore to outline how and why more political and social scientists can and should make parliamentary engagement part of their ‘research impact plans’ and also to provide some advice about what to expect if called to appear in person before a select committee.

Identifying Select Committees

The first step in the journey towards engaging with a select committee obviously involves monitoring the inquiries of the committees that deal with the areas of research you are working on. There are twenty-two select committees that are basically charged with monitoring and scrutinising a specific ministerial department. In addition to this there are a number of cross-governmental committees (Public Accounts, Public Administration, etc.) and specialist committees in the Lords (Constitution, Science and Technology, etc.).

The Campaign for Social Sciences publishes a monthly Policy Monitor that lists all the current inquiries, reviews and consultations across Whitehall, Westminster and even within the institutions of the European Union and is an invaluable resource for anyone wishing to develop their research profile in relation to policy-relevance and impact.

[Note from editor: There are a number of science and engineering-specific committees across these areas, for example:

House of Commons Science & Technology Select Committee
House of Lords Science & Technology Select Committee
House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee
House of Commons Health Select Committee
House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee

Details of upcoming consultations and enquiries are compiled by CaSE and listed on our monthly e-bulletin. You can receive the e-bulletin by signing up here.]

Submitting evidence

Most committee inquiries will begin with the publication of an ‘Issues and Questions’ paper on a specific topic. The aim of this document is to explain why the committee feels this topic warrants an inquiry and also to set out the themes and issues around which it would welcome responses (formally referred to as ‘Submissions of Evidence’) from interested experts, groups and sections of the public. This is the main gateway through which information (including summaries of recent academic research) will be collected by the clerks and fed into the inquiry process. Responses to select committee calls for evidence should be short, sharp and concise.

There is no need to address questions and issues about which you know little and the emphasis is very much on quality and not quantity. Set out in a series of numbered paragraphs I would not expect a submission to ever be longer than three sides of A4.

One of the commonest complaints of committee clerks is that academics tend to bombard the committee with long esoteric research papers but fail to provide a relatively short statement about why their research relates to the topic of the inquiry. Committees are particularly looking for responses that raise significant issues and debates that have not been raised in the initial committee scoping document. The convention is that all submissions of evidence will be made public on the parliamentary website and some particularly useful submissions may be published as an appendix to the main report.

Most select committees are staffed by just one clerk and one assistant clerk and to a greater or lesser extent these are the individuals that, under the guidance of their chairman, will select who should be called to appear in person before the committee and which questions deserve to be asked by members.

Giving evidence in person

The vast majority of respondents to the initial call for submissions of evidence will not be called to appear in person before the committee but all the evidence will be read, reviewed and published in an auditable form (i.e. the ‘impact audit trail’) on the committee’s website. For those who are called to appear a rather nerve-wracking, sometimes slightly odd but always incredibly rewarding experience lies before them. Appearances before a select committee generally take place on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday morning and most sessions last around ninety minutes and may involve three or four witnesses appearing together.

The aim of an appearance is not for the witnesses to justify their invitation or compete with each other in terms of contributions but is really an opportunity for members of the committee to focus on very specific issues and themes that may have been raised in your specific submission or by other witnesses.

The general approach is that each of the MPs on the committee has a number of pre-arranged questions that they have been allocated and there are usually, after some generic introductory questions by the Chairman, specific questions for specific witnesses. The Palace of Westminster, and even Portcullis House, are intimidating buildings and for many academics having a panel of well-known politicians and former ministers in front of them and a host of clerks, officials, journalists and other observers taking notes behind them can be a daunting experience.

One way of making this experience slightly less stressful is to stay in close contact with the committee clerk in the days before your appearance. It is quite normal to be given a list, or at the very least a fairly detailed account, in advance of your appearance of the questions you are likely to be asked by the committee.

It is also well worth spending a little time reading around any previous reports by the committee on (or related to) the topic of your appearance (the clerk will be able to send you these documents) and also very quickly familiarising yourself with the biographies of the MPs on the committee. All select committees work around a set of eight ‘core tasks’ and produce an annual report at the end of each parliamentary session to explain how they have fulfilled each of the tasks. These annual reports (available on the committee’s website) are an incredibly quick and easy way of getting up to speed with the work of a committee.

Political world

That said, select committees are curious beasts and one of the most frequent frustrations for witnesses is the manner in which MPs tend to constantly walk in and out of hearings. This reflects the fact that MPs are often expected to be on several committees (select, standing, all-party, etc.) at the same time and will therefore sometimes need to jump in-and-out of sessions. It is also not unusual for some evidence sessions to be held with a fairly small number of MPs present due to the pressure of overlapping commitments.

There is also the unfortunate fact that on some occasions and depending on the topic, context and timing of the hearing, some MPs will use select committee hearings to try and either boost their own media profile or to draw witnesses into party-political debates.

If faced with a rather aggressive line of questioning – or a question that you feel is for one reason or another inappropriate – the best response is generally to suggest that the question is possibly one for the committee rather than witnesses. In reality, however, the professionalization of select committees has increased significantly in recent years and committee chairmen (the term used to describe both male and female incumbents) are generally grateful to and protective of academics who appear before their committees.

It would, however, be naïve to suggest that an appearance before a select committee does not involve at least a little risk on behalf of those called to appear – they can be dangerous liaisons. Not least for the simple fact that evidence sessions take place within a highly charged political context and sometimes witnesses can become lightning rods for broader tensions. One experienced committee clerk recently admitted how remarkable he still found it when the atmosphere of an evidence session suddenly ‘turned’ almost without warning. The aim of making this point is not to deter academics from engaging with Parliament because the benefits of doing so far outweigh the risks but there is much to be said for ‘playing it safe’ in terms of following some of the tips outlined below.

In summary – Ten Tips for Engaging with Parliament

1. Review the landscape – Monitor the work of the select committees regularly and build it into all stages of the research process. Building some means of continuous engagement with a committee throughout a research process can be an incredibly attractive feature for funders.

2. Be Creative – Select committees are constantly looking for new pools of expertise, fresh ways of looking at perennial topics and innovative ways of engaging with new audiences. Political theorists have much to offer Parliament.

3. Be Proactive – If you feel an important topic is being overlooked then write to the chairman or clerk of the relevant committee and explain why the topic warrants investigation. Horizon scanning is a critical element of any committee’s work.

4. Build Relationships – A lot of parliamentary communication and engagement takes place through informal channels so do spend time talking to members of the committee, liaising with the clerks or even offering to hold informal evidence sessions (or to host committee visits).

5. Hold Realistic Expectations – Parliamentary engagement is very much a slow-burn activity that very rarely delivers direct results. It is about feeding into a broader consultative process and being willing to liaise with a range of bodies.

6. Expect Momentum – The great thing about engaging with select committees is that it very often leads to completely unexpected opportunities simply due to the fact that your name, research or department has ‘bleeped’ on the Whitehall/Westminster radar. This might involve media requests, invitations to participate in departmental reviews or simply calls to work with other select committees.

7. Do Your Research – Read around the topic of the inquiry and try to ensure that your evidence reveals an awareness of the bigger picture. It is also worth knowing if the committee has investigated the same topic before, whether the government has made any recent announcements or commitments and which members of the committee are driving the inquiry.

8. Stay Close to the Clerks – If it is the role of the chairman to ‘steer’ their committee then it is most certainly the role of the clerks to do the day-to-day ‘rowing’ in terms of research and administration. Parliamentary clerks tend to possess not only the strongest intellectual minds in Whitehall and Westminster but also the sharpest political antennae. Stay close to your clerk.

9. Thick Skins Helps – A small number of MPs do take the adversarial and combative style of questioning that is customary in the Chamber up onto the Committee Corridor. If you feel that at an MP is deliberately twisting your answers, is being overly-aggressive in style or is clearly intent on using your appearance to make a party political point simply stay calm, look to the Chairman for support and don’t take it too personally.

10. Enjoy the Experience – Give yourself plenty of time to get through security, make sure you know exactly where you are going but then simply enjoy the experience. Parliamentary engagement can be one of the most rewarding and worthwhile elements of an academic’s job.

The first is that the Government will be keeping the overall limit on work-related non-EU immigration static at 20,700 per year. There had been some concern that it would be reduced, given the relatively low levels of visas actually taken up last year.

By keeping it the same, the Government means there is some slack in the system for the UK to bring in more talented workers as we recover from the recession. Thanks to campaigning by CaSE and others, if the limit is reached then scientists and engineers will still be prioritised in the visa queue.

The second is that the Government is loosening the restrictions around the Resident Labour Market Test (RLMT). The RLMT means that employers have to prove that there are no appropriately qualified candidates in the ‘resident labour market’ before they can employ someone from outside the EU. In practice this has meant  scientific institutions having to advertise for extremely specialist posts in their local JobCentre Plus before they’re able to get the candidate they actually need.

Today’s announcement says:

“From 14 June 2012 there will be some relaxations in the operation of the Resident Labour Market Test:-

– those jobs paid more than £70k, and specified PhD level occupations, will have to be advertised but not in Jobcentre Plus.

– Sponsors may select the best candidate, regardless of whether they are a resident worker, for vacancies in ‘PhD-level’ occupations. This is a change from the current Resident Labour Market Test requirement where a suitably skilled settled worker must be selected.

– For PhD-level jobs only, the period for which the Resident Labour Market Test is deemed to have been satisfied (other than under the milkround provisions) will be extended from 6 months to 12 months.”

 … with ‘PhD-level occupations’ being defined as:

1137 – Research and Development Managers
2111 – Chemists
2112 – Biological Scientists and BioChemists
2113 – Physicists, Geologists and Meteoroligists
2311 – Higher Education Teaching Professionals
2321 – Scientific Researchers
2322 – Social Science Researchers
2329 – Researchers not elsewhere classified

Further to that, anyone on the ‘Shortage Occupations List‘ gets to skip this particular bit of red-tape too – engineers feature heavily there.

Many of these changes wouldn’t have happened without consistent dialogue between the Home Office and organisations like CaSE. We’ve worked closely with our members, including everyone from the Wellcome Trust and IChemE, to ensure the Government is aware of our concerns. We’re continuing this dialogue, so if you know of any outstanding roadblocks or problems with current regulations, do let us know.

Click here for an archive of our previous work on immigration.

• The Government has announced £100m of new investment into science and engineering research in UK universities, along with other measures to improve research commercialisation. Although we welcome this announcement, CaSE has warned that the Government must be more ambitious to achieve its goal of rebalancing the economy.

• CaSE has published a new briefing examining the socioeconomic diversity of UK students taking STEM degrees. The report reveals there has been a promising rise in the social diversity of young students entering Higher Education as a whole, as well as in STEM, between 2004 and 2010.

• Last month saw us team up with the British Library to host the latest in their TalkScience events, exploring the relationship between science and politics.

• Meanwhile CaSE Director Imran Khan has written a guest article in Research Fortnight, calling on the scientific community to provide better scientific advice to Parliament.

You can read the full E-Bulletin here.

Joined by three experts, CaSE director Imran Khan and the audience discussed how we can help take the people, ideas, and ways of thinking of science into politics and policy. You can read a summary or listen to a recording of the event here.

As part of the discussion, the audience were invited to submit questions or points related to the topic. We’ve picked some of the most interesting ones and published them below. If you recognise your comments and would like your name added, please get in touch.

___________

“Could the dismissive attitude towards scientific evidence that politicians often hold be as a result of their lack of scientific education, and should policy makers be actively encouraged to improve their scientific literacy? For example, the creation of a non-partisan Minister for Science. Also, should politicians be made to justify their reasons for not following scientific advice?”

___________

“A lot of politicians don’t seem to have the respect for evidence which scientists expect. Do you think it would be more feasible and/or useful to have compulsory education of MPs on the scientific method and how to understand and use evidence.

I’m aware some voluntary sessions have been run, but are presumable mainly attended by MPs interested in/sympathetic to science and we end up preaching to the converted.”

___________

“For scientists in universities – there really is not much time to get involved with politics too much. Though I know within my office the PhD students quite often like to discuss politics. I think it needs to be incorporated into the course. We have weekly seminars about general science of our field, physical, inorganic chemistry etc. We should have monthly debates on science policy.

Also in schools/colleges  – to do assignments related to science policy. I think getting people to think about science policy from a young age and realising that they have a ‘say’ on science policy will help (be part of the curriculum in science).”

___________

“What is the panel’s opinion of the increased emphasis on the ‘impact’ of research in determining research funding allocation? How much should politicians or politics be involved in determining which research to fund? Is the reason that scientists don’t become politicians partly that the former requires deep knowledge of one topic, while the latter a superficial knowledge of many subjects?”

___________

“I work in science at the moment, doing evaluation that is also in some respect linked to politics. I feel that impartiality/neutrality of scientists can be under threat in collaboration, as there is a lot of pressure involved, especially when we scientists depend on being financed by the projects we evaluate, and when our findings might conflict with the agenda of people/institutions who might have (financial) power over us.”

___________

“Until the House of Commons isn’t dominated by an Executive that can whip their MPS as they wish – wherever they’re from – does the panel not agree that maintaining expertise in the House of Lords, which hitherto has been forgotten in this discussion, is more important than ever?

Plus – politics doesn’t just go on in Westminster. What about influencing the devolved nations?”

___________

“As a scientist I don’t see direct rewards from policy involvement – why bother? The political contact I’ve had suggests that politicians decide and then seek evidence to justify. How can we persuade politicians/voters to put evidence before ideology?”

___________

“What would you say to the opinion that scientists can make more of a difference to the world in general focussing on their research, rather than committing their time to life in politics? Especially considering most scientists knowingly commit themselves to their research on a pay scale significantly inferior than what their work is worth?”

___________

“Whitehall is hugely influential but how can scientists target it to get their voices heard? It’s hard to have coffee with a civil servant when you don’t know any.”

The £5.3 billion will be allocated as follows:

• £3.2 billion for teaching
• £1.6 billion for research (excludes activity rated 2* in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise)
• £150 million for knowledge exchange (through Higher Education Innovation Fund – HEIF)
• £265 million in capital grants
• £125 million in special funding

In their priorities for funding, HEFCE recognises the need for them to ‘increasingly invest on behalf of students to meet the costs incurred by universities which cannot be covered by tuition fees alone’.  This includes high-cost subjects and strategically important and vulnerable subjects, two areas which contain a number of science and engineering disciplines.

Laboratory-based science, engineering and technology subjects have been placed in high-cost subjects price group (group B).  High-costs subjects are defined as those where it has been shown that average costs for providers exceed £7,500.  In addition, in a recent consultation document, HEFCE proposes to provide an extra allocation for undergraduate and postgraduate provision in four subjects – chemistry, physics, chemical engineering; and mineral, metallurgy and materials engineering) which are seen to be particularly expensive.

CaSE highlighted this issue in our recent response to the House of Lords Call for Evidence on Higher Education in STEM subjects.  Prior to the introduction of higher fees, Higher Education Institutions received 70% more funding from HEFCE with which to teach lab-based subjects (primarily STEM), as compared to less resource-intensive subjects.  HEIs can now expect £1,500 per student for resource-intensive subjects such as science and engineering.  This is equivalent to a 17% subsidy for HEIs which charge £9,000 per annum or 20% for those charging £7,500 per annum.

After an uncomfortable period of radio silence, there is some good news for postgraduate students.  An additional £39 million will be provided in support of students undertaking postgraduate taught programmes from 2012-13 and support for postgraduate research students through the research degree programme supervision fund will increase from £205 million to £240 million.  Despite this announcement, there remains many unanswered questions about broader financial support for postgraduate students.

CaSE’s Assistant Director Beck Smith said:

“The UK must continue to produce high quality STEM graduates if we are to develop and maintain the knowledge economy crucial to economic recovery.  We’re concerned that the decrease in financial support for more expensive STEM courses sends the wrong messages to HEIs at a time when we should be looking for an increase in the provision of these courses.

Despite science and research funding being listed as a priority for HEFCE funding, simply maintaining levels in cash terms will be insufficient if we are to compete internationally with countries like Germany and China who are seeing significant increases in funding.”

CaSE Director Imran Khan has written an opinion piece in today’s Research Fortnight, calling on the scientific community to provide better scientific advice to Parliament. You can read the full article below:

The last general election in 2010 saw only one research scientist elected to Parliament, alongside 156 business people, 90 ‘political organisers’, 86 lawyers and 38 media types. So you would hope that Parliament was served by an efficient source of scientific advice. You might even imagine an informal ‘science caucus’ bringing together MPs for science policy discussions that aren’t simply split along party lines. You would be disappointed on both counts.

The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (Post) are staffed by well-meaning, enthusiastic people. They should be the answer but their efforts are stymied by anachronistic structures and attitudes. Hopefully, this may be about to change. Both are appointing new leaders, and the scientific community should support them in pushing for wholesale reform.

To understand why this is needed, consider recent events. In 2009, the World Health Organization declared H1N1 influenza to be a global pandemic. In 2010, the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull sent an ash cloud over northern Europe, threatening the safety of air passengers. In 2011, the Fukushima crisis caused chaos for British workers and tourists as well as the Japanese.

When MPs debate the government’s response to such events they often do so from a position of relative ignorance. For instance, while working for an MP, I recall hunting down contact details for my old tutor who was an expert in influenza, so my boss could assess the importance of stockpiling Tamiflu.

Organisations such as Post should enable experts to inform such debates as soon as possible, rather than having politicians rely on the skills and contact lists of their staff. In reality, Post’s agenda is set months in advance, meaning it can anticipate trends but not respond to events.

The ‘science induction’ event it organised for MPs after the general election attracted barely a dozen attendees. Despite calls to try the format with parliamentary staff instead— who are probably even less scientifically literate than MPs— no action has been taken. It’s time they took a more active approach to science engagement in Westminster.

The failure of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee is even more surprising. While Post is held back by structures, the committee seems limited mainly by lack of ambition. It is an example of an all-party parliamentary group. These groups bring together MPs to discuss everything from mental health to cheese. The APPG for Football has published agenda-setting reports on the game’s governance, while the malaria APPG arranges for its members to get first-hand experience of disease control campaigns.

The Parliamentary and Scientific Committee hasn’t learnt from the success of some other APPGs. One of its main organs, for instance, is the quarterly publication Science in Parliament. But a 70-page journal is not the way to communicate science policy issues to busy MPs.

It also organises a series of discussion evenings. Having any actual MPs apart from the chairman attend these events is extremely rare. The entire aim of the committee should be to engage MPs in discussion, and yet the consistent failure to attract any seems not to concern the group. Parliamentarians interested in anything from abortion rights to urban development have avenues for non-partisan discussion of the relevant policy issues, but it’s not the case for science.

The committee dates back to 1939, and HG Wells was among its original instigators, so perhaps it’s understandable that its methods seem attuned to a more leisurely paced world than today’s. Less charitably, both the journal and the discussion evenings seem to be organised as a way for members of the science establishment to descend on Westminster and strut around.

Yes, it is hard to engage MPs. Parliamentarians are famously busy, required to be instant experts in myriad policy areas and few have a natural inclination for science. That should mean we redouble our efforts, rather than sit back.

Both the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee and Post do excellent work. The committee’s SET for Britain campaign is extremely successful at bringing young scientists into Parliament, while POST notes provide an astonishing archive of succinct, accurate science policy briefings. However, in a 21st century democracy, we should expect more. Both institutions must modernise and respond to the needs of today’s MPs.

Some important issues in science policy, such as funding and education, require long-term planning and cross-party dialogue. Others, such as responding to crises and debating legislation, require rapid responses and access to expertise. Somehow scientists have contrived to fail Parliament in both areas.

It must change. And, if all this seems a little too idealistic, let me misquote the Science Media Centre: politics will do science better only when science learns to do politics better.

“Extra capital welcome – but Government must be more ambitious to rebalance the economy”

Press release

The Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) has welcomed the Chancellor’s announcement of £100m new investment into science and engineering research in UK universities, along with other measures to improve commercialisation of such research, but warned that the Government must be more ambitious to achieve its goal of rebalancing the economy.

CaSE Director Imran Khan said:

“Today’s announcement is the latest in a string of pledges of extra cash for science and engineering, and shows that the Government does understand that we cannot have a rebalanced economy without investment in research.”

“I suspect the Government realises that the multi-billion pound, 50% cut made to research capital in 2010 simply isn’t sustainable. Despite difficult times they are trying to put it right, and it is not going unnoticed.”

“However, simply reversing cuts isn’t going to be a game-changer for the UK. We need to be far more ambitious if we’re serious about having a high-tech future. The Chancellor should re-invest the windfall from the auction of 4G mobile spectrum, due later this year, into science and engineering.”

“In his budget statement, the Chancellor noted that countries like China are powering ahead in the global economy, and lamented our export record in comparison to Germany’s. He must see it is no accident that both of these nations are seeing big increases in their research and education investment.”

Research by CaSE has shown that the research base will be £1.7 billion worse off in cash terms since the 2010 Spending Review.  Whilst welcomed, the £385 million of additional funding and initiatives announced in 2011 still leaves a considerable shortfall. In 2012, Germany will boost federal research and education spending to £11.3 billion, an increase of 10 per cent from 2011.  In China, £3.3 billion for basic research is expected in 2012, an increase of 26 per cent from 2011.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

1. The Campaign for Science and Engineering is the UK’s leading independent advocate for the science and engineering sectors. Find out more at www.sciencecampaign.org.uk

2. The details of the Chancellor’s budget statement are here

3. CaSE’s research on the level of funding of UK science and engineering: http://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk/files/ScienceFundingSept2011.pdf

4. The additional funding of £385 million comprises the £195 million announced at the Conservative Party Conference, the £200 million announced in the Autumn Statement and £270 million announced in the Life Sciences Strategy (of which £90 million was new money, the rest was the allocation of existing funds).

5. Details of Germany’s boost for federal research and education are here

6. Details of China’s increase in funding for basic science are here

Following the launch of the 2012 Budget, which contained some good news for science, Universities and Science Minister David Willetts has said:

“Industry and universities have a vital role to play in collaborating to achieve sustained growth in our economy.  We know from experience that targeted funding can be successful in attracting significant business investment to our university research base. As part of our drive in bringing together the business, charity and university sectors, this new £100 million investment could bring in upwards of £200 million additional private funding to help stimulate innovation and secure our high-tech future.”

More detail about this initiative can be found within the Budget.

As part of the Government’s ambition to make the UK the technology hub of Europe (1.224), it will:

• Set up a new £100 million fund to support investment in major new university research facilities, including through additional provisions. The fund will allocate its first bids in 2012–13 and will attract additional co-investment from the private sector.

On this £100 million, a statement from BIS offers a little more information.  It is hoped the £100 million will ‘increase and bring forward private sector, or charity investment in UK university research infrastructure’ and that ‘the funding would be dedicated to large capital projects which lever in significant private investment, such as joint research facilities’.

Other spending measures include:

• Aerodynamics centre – The Government will invest £60 million to establish a UK centre for aerodynamics to open in 2012–13 to support innovation in aerospace technology, commercialise new ideas and spin-off technologies with wider applications in other sectors. (36)

On Corporate taxes:

• Patent Box – As announced in the Corporate Tax Road Map in November 2010, the Government will introduce a reduced 10 per cent rate of corporation tax for profits attributed to patents and certain other similar types of intellectual property. The regime will be phased in over five years from 1 April 2013. (2.98) (Finance Bill 2012) (bg)
• Research and Development (R&D) tax credits – As announced in Budget 2011, with effect from 1 April 2012 the rate of R&D tax credits for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will increase from 200 per cent to 225 per cent; the limit of SME payable credit, based on their PAYE/NICs liability, will be removed; and the £10,000 minimum expenditure requirement for large companies and SMEs will be abolished. The Vaccine Research Relief for SMEs will also be removed. (2.99) (Finance Bill 2012)
• R&D tax credit: ‘Above the Line’ (ATL) – From April 2013, the Government will introduce an ATL credit for R&D, with a minimum rate of 9.1 per cent before tax. Loss-making companies will be able to claim a payable credit. The Government will consult on the detailed design of the credit shortly after Budget. Final rates, including for the payable credit, will be decided following consultation. (2.100) (Finance Bill 2013) (12)

On VAT measures:

• VAT: relief for European Research Infrastructure Consortia – As announced at Budget 2011, the Government will introduce secondary legislation in autumn 2012 to provide VAT relief to European Research Infrastructure Consortia.

Joined by three experts in the interactions between politics and science, our director Imran Khan and the audience discussed how we can help take the people, ideas, and ways of thinking of science “from the lab bench to the front bench”

This post is written by Kate Sloyan, a PhD student at the Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton.  These are her personal reflections on the evening.

Click here for an audio recording of the event. You can also read the most interesting questions and comments submitted by the audience during the discussion.

The problem

Science and technology are the foundations of society but rarely the foundations of policy. Science is not an election issue, and as such those in Parliament and Whitehall tend to have not enough experience or enthusiasm for science or how it works. As a result, poor decisions can be made: proposed changes to immigration law that would have drastically affected university recruitment and well- meaning but restrictive regulation on medical research are just two examples.

Given that scientists and scientific ways of thinking are underrepresented in policy making, the question of the evening concerned what we as interested parties can do to tackle the problem.

Helping us to discuss the issue were panellists with first-hand experience:

• Dr Alice Jones, lecturer in Psychology at Goldsmiths University and participant in the Royal Society’s MP-scientist pairingscheme;
• Mark Henderson, science journalist and Head of Communications at the Wellcome Trust
• Dr Chris Tyler, former science adviser to the Science and Technology Select Committee and now Executive Director of the Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP), University of Cambridge.

The key message is that there is hope. MPs and civil servants are not hostile towards science, and the evidence base is valued. MPs are expected to quickly become experts in a wide range of topics but often must do so with limited support, something noted by both Alice Jones on the MP-scientist pairing scheme and Chris Tyler as a former Parliamentary Science Advisor. With competing pressures and often no experience of science since their teens, it is perhaps not surprising that policy makers can show little interest. It’s up to us, therefore, to show them why they should care.

What can we do?

Fortunately there are plenty of routes to influencing policy: writing to your MP, going to surgeries and lobbying him or her in Parliament as well as getting involved with campaign groups and learned societies. The Royal Society’s MP-scientist pairing scheme can provide participants on both sides with highly valuable insights, many examples of which were described by Alice Jones. Personal interactions shouldn’t be undervalued; as Chris Tyler remarked, it’s crucial to remember that policy is made by people. A letter, anecdote or conversation will often make more of a lasting impact than a dry scientific report.

In light of Paul Nurse’s recent comments concerning the relationship between science and society, there was some discussion of bias and the possible negative impact of science’s involvement in politics. However, the panel were keen to point out the positives whilst taking note of politically sensitive issues such as climate change.

Alice Jones reiterated that she did not and should never feel obliged to change her science as a result of involvement with government, but that we as scientists might learn to communicate our work in a more easily digestible way. While we are keen to have parliamentarians understand us, understanding must go both ways. With more effective communication, knowledge of the best time to lobby (i.e. before an MP will be accused of “flip-flopping”) and an appreciation that policy makers are looking for “the least worst” answer rather than the “right” one, we may be able to have a greater influence.

We should also be open to communicating with other scientists about policy matters such as impact (although there were a few indrawn breaths from the audience when that word was mentioned), as well as to thinking of ourselves as potential policy makers.

How can we encourage scientists and the public to get involved?

The importance of getting younger scientists involved was emphasised. Post- and undergraduate policy training was accepted as becoming more widespread, although much is still to be developed.

As pointed out from the audience, we should also not forget public engagement via outreach and education, as it’s only with a greater public understanding of science that science, engineering and maths will become election issues. Mark Henderson highlighted the importance of teaching science as a way of thinking and not as a selection of facts: if the public has a greater understanding of the scientific method then perhaps a proper understanding of uncertainty, as well as of science, will make its way into Parliament, Whitehall and the media.

Some questions were not fully answered, for example Lords reform, which may provide greater accountability at the expense of removing important, impartial scientific voices from Parliament. Questions surrounding the balancing of funding priorities were not resolved, beyond highlighting the need for scientists to appreciate the difficult roles of research councils.

There was also discussion of apparently failed attempts to influence policy, including audience testimony about EPSRC funding concerns as well as the infamous David Nutt controversy. The panel felt, however, that positive results can arise even from apparently negative cases. It is important to make such results clear to scientists as well as politicians, and to encourage scientists to persevere.

Overall, the evening was somewhat of a call to arms. Although science may be underrepresented in Parliament and Whitehall, the outlook is very positive in terms of what we can achieve and the impact we can make. MPs and civil servants are not hostile to science, they are just uninterested and inexperienced. It’s up to us as people who love science to mobilise and help convince them of why they should care. As panellist Mark Henderson stated, politics lets us down only because we let it.