TABLE OF CONTENTS

2010/10/01 Guardian Science: UK Centre for Intelligent Design claims it will focus on
science, not religion ............................................................................................................... 3
2010/10/01 Guardian Science: Science funding cuts could lead to lost generation of
scientists, warns Krebs ........................................................................................................... 4
2010/10/02 Guardian Letters: Loss of science base will hurt economy.................................. 6
2010/10/04 Guardian Martin Robbins: It beats living in caves ............................................... 7
2010/10/05 Guardian Martin Robbins: Why I spoofed science journalism, and how to fix it . 9
2010/10/05 S word: Rise up to defend UK science .............................................................. 14
2010/10/05 In verba: Picking (Nobel Prize) Winners ............................................................ 15
2010/10/05 Times HE: Nobel wins ‘exemplars’ of UK excellence threatened by cuts,
scientists claim ..................................................................................................................... 16
2010/10/06 S word: David Cameron: Science isn't even on his radar .................................. 18
2010/10/06 Máire Geoghegan-Quinn "Innovation Union", Launch of the Innovation Union,
Brussels................................................................................................................................ 19
2010/10/05 Research Fortnight: Is industry walking away from academia? ........................ 22
2010/10/05 Research Fortnight: Trojan Horse - The RAE must not be used to crush diversity
............................................................................................................................................. 23
2010/10/06-7 David Willetts and the history of science ...................................................... 24
David Willetts and the history of science .................................................................................................... 24
2010/10/06 THE DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................... 26
2010/10/07 Alice Bell posterous ................................................................................................................. 29
2010/10/07 Alice Bell Blog: Scientific “importance” ............................................................ 30
2010/10/07 Athene Donald’s Blog: Eureka! -Choosing the 100 Most Influential People in
British Science ...................................................................................................................... 32
2010/10/08 STS UCL Observatory: Eureka 100: the Science List .......................................... 33
2010/10/08 FT: saving science ............................................................................................. 36
2010/10/08 Guardian Evan Harris: Open letter to George Osborne: Why it's vital to protect
science funding .................................................................................................................... 37
1. It's economic hara-kiri to cut science spending ............................................................................... 37
2. We are not starting from a good position .......................................................................................... 38
3. There is no way to protect excellent science from cuts by careful targeting ............................... 38
4. You can't simply turn the tap of science talent back on after a few years ................................... 39
5. There is a political price to pay for cutting science funding (and making other irrational anti-
scientific policies) ...................................................................................................................................... 39
2010/10/08 CASE: Nobel laureates call on UK not to isolate itself from research world ...... 43
2010/10/09 Guardian Martin Robbins: Science is Vital! Follow live audio updates here ..... 45
2010/10/09 BBC News: Scientists hold protest over budget cuts ........................................ 45
2010/10/09 Guardian: Science cuts: thousands set to protest outside Treasury ................. 47
2010/10/09 Guardian Science Blog: Science is Vital ............................................................. 48
2010/10/10 Great Beyond Nature: British scientists rally to protest funding cuts - October
10, 2010 ............................................................................................................................... 50
2010/10/10 The Independent: Margareta Pagano: There's an art to funding science after
the cuts ................................................................................................................................ 51
2010/10/10 Telegraph: Science funding cuts will cost UK economy billions ........................ 52
2010/10/11 Forbes: What Happens When Governments Strangle Science? ........................ 54
2010/10/11 Physics World: Scientists march on the Treasury ............................................. 56
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2010/10/11 Royal Society of Chemistry: Scientists protest against planned funding cuts.... 58
2010/10/11 Telegraph: Government cuts 'will trigger brain drain' ...................................... 60
2010/10/11 Telegraph: Spending review: Government explores business incubator growth
hubs ..................................................................................................................................... 61
2010/10/11 S word: Hey! Osborne! Leave our geeks alone ................................................. 63
2010/10/11 Binocular Vision: Why Science is Vital .............................................................. 64
2010/10/11 Labour: Labour's New Front Bench Team ......................................................... 65
2010/10/12 DC’s improbable science: How to save British science and improve education 67
2010/10/12 Left Foot Forward: Increased science funding would help reduce the deficit ... 69
2010/10/12 Times HE: Take off the cap so students and market system can shape UK higher
education, Browne recommends ......................................................................................... 71
2010/10/12 Guardian Martin Robbins: One climate paper, two conflicting headlines ......... 79

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 2010/10/01 GUARDIAN SCIENCE: UK CENTRE
FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN CLAIMS IT WILL FOCUS
ON SCIENCE, NOT RELIGION
The newly opened Centre for Intelligent Design aims to start a debate in the UK that's not about religion
but about evidence

Dr Alastair Noble, director of the

Centre for Intelligent Design in Glasgow, says ID is 'consistently misrepresented as a religious position'

In 2006 Elanor Taylor wrote that it was time for the UK to wage war on intelligent design, saying that while
it and creationism used to be regarded like line dancing and SUVs – "peculiarly American phenomena" –
they were now taking root in British life. The last few years have led to more debate about creationism
and intelligent design, especially their classroom presence, due in part to Darwin's bicentenary
celebrations and the continued, sometimes acrimonious, discussion about the relationship between
science and religion. Creationism in this country has its cheerleaders in museums, schools and zoos, but
what of intelligent design? In Glasgow, a new institution hopes to fill that gap.

The Centre for Intelligent Design features a video introduction from Dr Alastair Noble, who has argued
that ID should not be excluded from the study of origins. He says, among other things, that he is part of a
network of people who are "dissatisfied with the pervading Darwinian explanation of origins and are
attracted to the much more credible position of intelligent design" and criticise the "strident strain of
science" that says the only acceptable explanations are those depending on "physical and materialistic
processes".

The small print of the website says the centre's activity "is organised under a charitable trust governed by
the laws of Guernsey, Channel Islands". The centre receives funding from individuals and organisations
who support its aims, according to the website, and its launch hasearned plaudits from the Discovery
Institute which says the centre returns ID to its roots: "Some of the best known pioneers of modern
science did their work in Britain and Europe in the conviction that they were exploring a universe that
really was designed."

In a telephone interview, Noble denies that the centre is a British branch of Discovery: "We are friends
with Discovery and we talk to them, but we are not formally linked. We would be interested in developing
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links with Europe. We don't get money from America – it is funded from Britain. We don't have huge
amounts of money. We will have a series of projects and will raise funds as and when needed."

According to Noble, what separates the Centre for Intelligent Design from other bodies engaged in
the evolution argument is its emphasis on science: "There are various organisations that debate the faith
issue around origins, but what we will be trying to do is open a debate around the scientific issue. ID is
consistently misrepresented as a religious position. The debate about ID is quite difficult to elevate to a
civilised conversation. It's not about religion, it's about evidence."

The network of people supporting the centre's activities numbers between 50 and 100. Among them is its
president Professor Norman Nevin, emeritus professor of medical genetics, Queens University, Belfast, and
its vice-president Dr David Galloway, who is also vice president of the Royal College of Physicians and
Surgeons, Glasgow. In its FAQs, the site lists the UK scientists "who are brave enough to make their support
for intelligent design public. There are many more who are not willing to risk their careers by making their
objections to evolution known."

Blogger and anti-Creationist campaigner Naon Tiotami notes that the support of "prominent academics"
suggests "they may stand a fighting chance at being taken seriously by the media, something that Truth in
Science hasn't accomplished," before adding: "All we can do at the moment is hope that this new project
crash-lands before it even properly gets its feet off the ground."

Next month the centre hosts Professor Mike Behe on a national lecture tour.

I asked Michael Reiss professor of science education at the Institute of Education in London what he
thought about the Centre for Intelligent Design. He replied: "In a free society it is important that
organisations that do not accept the scientific theory of evolution are allowed to exist and to proclaim their
message. However, the overwhelming scientific consensus is that the arguments against the theory of
evolution put forward by creationists and those who advocate intelligent design (ID) are invalid.

"In a school setting this means that while teachers of science are perfectly at liberty to address creationist
and ID issues, should they so wish, students must not be given the impression that there is a scientific
controversy over whether the Earth is very old (about 4.6 billion years old) or whether all species descend
from very simple common ancestors."

For now, the Centre for Intelligent Design is nothing more than a website and an office. What it achieves
will depend on how much appetite there is in the UK for intelligent design and what resistance is mounted
to its message.

2010/10/01 GUARDIAN SCIENCE: SCIENCE

FUNDING CUTS COULD LEAD TO LOST
GENERATION OF SCIENTISTS, WARNS KREBS
It will take years to restore the scientific talent lost abroad as a result of cuts in UK science funding, says
John Krebs, chair of the House of Lords science and technology committee

Alok Jha

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 'If we do end up haemorrhaging
talent, it will take a very long time to restore that,' said Krebs. Photograph: Linda Nylind/Guardian

The "brain drain" that could result from a deep cut to the UK's science funding would leave the country
with a missing generation of scientists, according to John Krebs, chair of the House of Lords science and
technology committee.

Responding to reports in the Guardian today that scientists were already planning to leave the UK ahead of
proposed budget cuts that could see government funding of research cut by around 25%, Krebs said: "The
message is loud and clear, namely that talent is highly mobile and talent goes where the resources for
research are best supplied. This is not about people wanting to earn more money, it's about people
wanting to have better equipment, better facilities, more research support to carry out their science."

He added: "If we do end up haemorrhaging talent, it will take a very long time to restore that. Many
universities will tell you that, as a result of cuts implemented during the Thatcher period, there is a gap in
the age profile of academics in many subjects. Those people who would now be in their mid-50s, there are
just fewer of them. That gap persisted for a whole generation. This is not something where you turn the
tap on and off."

Scientists in particle physics, stem cells, cancer research and ophthalmology at some of the UK's leading
universities told the Guardian this week that they saw better opportunities overseas as countries such as
the US, Canada, China and Australia planned to invest increased sums in science as part of their long-term
strategy to reduce their budget deficits.

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said: "Once our researchers go abroad,
that's it – we're not going to be getting them back anytime soon. And if we lose our hard-won reputation
as a global research hub, we're not going to attract foreign researchers either. A brain drain on this scale
could take decades to fully recover from, especially when our competitor nations are actually increasing
their own investment."

All government departments in the UK have been asked to prepare for deep cuts in their budgets as part of
the government's austerity drive. Scientists have spent months warning that such deep cuts to the UK's
science infrastructure would have devastating long-term effects, forcing the country out of the "premier
league" in many fields of research. Last week, Krebs wrote to science minister David Willetts, to give
examples of several leading universities that had already lost scientists to other countries and other cases
where universities had found it difficult to recruit the best talent from overseas.

David King, former government chief scientist and now director of theSmith School of Enterprise and the
Environment at Oxford University, said the coalition government's proposed cuts to science were ironic,
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given how often he was asked by the governments of countries including Italy, Japan, Germany and France
to explain how the UK had risen to such a high level in science.

"[They asked] how did we create this amazingly efficient science base that produced more science
outcomes whether you measure by citations or prizes per pound invested in the science base than any
other country in the world? We are the envy of many countries. The French have tried, with successive
governments, very hard to imitate what we did and they just haven't come up with a way to do it. We have
this remarkable efficient science base producing excellent work from a relatively small percentage of our
GDP. That is the prize that we have, and all of that is now potentially at risk."

Simon Denegri, chief executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities said that it was "extremely
worrying" to hear so many of Britain's leading scientists talk so despondently about the prospects for UK
science. "But who can blame them? There is no doubt that their loss will have a significant impact on
important work across many fields. A great deal of this activity is supported by funding from medical
research charities. And I am sure the public will be concerned that it is going to be ever harder for their
donations to make a difference if we allow our international standing in science to drift away like this.

"I hope this early sign that belief is beginning to seep from the system will be seen as a wake-up call by the
coalition government. They have much to do to build confidence and demonstrate that the future of
science is safe in their hands."

Mark Walport, director of the Wellcome Trust, echoed concerns that funding of basic science research was
crucial to maintaining UK industry. Some of the best biomedical science in the world was going on in the
UK, he said, but "it would be a tragedy if government didn't continue to be a good partner to industry and
charities, with the resulting benefits to the health and wealth of the nation."

2010/10/02 GUARDIAN LETTERS: LOSS OF

SCIENCE BASE WILL HURT ECONOMY
The spectre of scientists abandoning the UK for better-funded jobs abroad (Scientists quit
Britain in new brain drain, 1 October) should be of huge concern to everyone. Success starts
with talent, and an exodus of researchers would jeopardise both scientific endeavour and the
chance to create a sustainable economic recovery driven by knowledge-based industries such
as bioscience. James Dyson has outlined a viable way forward, focused on improving the way
we commercialise research through measures such as extending R&D tax credits. This is the
type of strategy we need from the government – one that invests intelligently in our talent
base, together with initiatives such as the "patent box" tax incentive, which would show that
Britain can still be a world leader in science, despite the challenging times, by encouraging
companies to exploit intellectual property in the UK.
Britain boasts four out of 10 of the top universities in the world – a huge feat given our relative
size as a country. Indeed, there are so many reasons to be optimistic about the future of
science in the UK. Ultimately, it is people that are our greatest asset, and that means both
industry collaboration, such as the upcoming BIA and ABPI joint conference on the UK's R&D
strengths, and government support for sustained investment, which ensures the UK continues
to shine on the world stage.
Nigel Gaymond
Chief executive, BioIndustry Association
• People living with severe and progressive muscle disease fear cuts will bring research into
these conditions to a near standstill. Since it was founded in 1959, we have has invested more

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than £50m into research and it is only in the last few years that scientists have expressed
cautious optimism that the first treatments will be available in the near future. But the transfer
of promising technology from the laboratory into the clinic is costly and cannot be achieved
without government support. This is a crucial time. The conditions we support are rare and
only a small number of scientists dedicate their work to research in this field. We are in danger
of losing the benefit of all the investment made so far, if world renowned scientists move
abroad.

The suggested cuts will bring the budget down to less than £2.6bn. In 2007-08 the total
science budget was £3.5bn, which is less than 0.25% of the UK's total output. Research into
rare conditions only represents a tiny fraction of this budget. We urge the government not to
make short-term expenditure reductions that could jeopardise the longer-term development of
life-saving treatments for the 70,000 children and adults with muscle disease, who have a right
to have the same quality of life as everybody else.

Dr Marita Pohlschmidt
Director of research, Muscular Dystrophy Campaign

2010/10/04 GUARDIAN MARTIN ROBBINS: IT

BEATS LIVING IN CAVES

Why science is vital, and why scientists will be demonstrating this Saturday. Guest post by Jenny Rohn

When I was a 14-year old student back in Ohio, my classmates and teachers voted me "most likely to
become a scientist". I'm still not convinced this was meant as a compliment. My parents – two artists –
generously supported me through my biology degree at university, but seemed baffled when I expressed
my wish to attend graduate school to continue my scientific training.

I cannot tell you now what drove me to become a scientist. All I know is that the desire was always there,
long before I can remember making any concrete decisions. My father used to point his telescope at the
moons of Jupiter, and drill holes in peanut-butter jars so I could capture fireflies on sultry summer nights.
Many moths felt the youthful wrath of my net, and billions of protozoa and amoebae flinched under the
light of my flimsy child's microscope. The test tubes of my chemistry set were perpetually scarred with
black gunk; I polished rocks, pressed flowers, sketched trees, tracked animal prints in the snow.

Where did this come from? I knew no real-life scientists, had no role models that I can recall – unless you
count Danny Dunn, a fictional child who went on exploits with his boffin friend Professor Bullfinch in the
series of books by Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams. The impetus was just there, pushing me forward
on a path that seemed inevitable.

But inevitability is for children. Thirty-odd years on, I know that there is no Santa Claus, and that wanting to
be a scientist is not enough to make it last forever. For the profession I love is not any more secure than
that of my artist parents. "You don't go into science to get rich," one mentor in university confided early
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on; later, during my first postdoctoral position, it became clear that you don't go into science for job
security either. Along the way, most of my colleagues have sacrificed their dreams and bailed out, unable
to land permanent positions as the funding landscape grew tighter and tighter.

With only one year left on my own fellowship, and nearly 15 years after earning a PhD, I too am staring
into the abyss. And yet something is preventing me from leaving research, no matter how much sense it
makes to flee the sinking ship before the water actually starts slopping onto the deck.

It may sound corny, but I am in love with science. I love the physical manipulations; I love the intellectual
atmosphere; I love the mind-bending problems, the euphoria of seeing something that no one else in the
world ever has before. I love the thought that, despite the bad pay and the poor prospects, the work that I
do might actually help people. I am fiercely proud of one of my patents, an invention aimed at curing some
cancers. I am intensely aware that the trappings of civilisation that hold us together – the energy, the
medicines, the vehicles, the machines, the computers, the internet – are the products of science,
technology, engineering and mathematics.

When you deal with science on a daily basis, it is difficult to take its fruits for granted. Science gives most
people the luxury to forget, at least for a while, that the world can be a brutal and dangerous place. On a
planet fraught with dwindling resources, burgeoning population, emerging disease and uncertain climate,
we abandon science at our peril.

It is with this backdrop that a new chapter in my life began: Science Is Vital, a grassroots campaign to
support UK research. I'd like to tell you that I thought long and hard about it, but the truth is that it was an
almost instantaneous reaction: I read Vince Cable's now infamous speechsignalling crippling cuts to science
funding, dashed off an angry blog post, and proposed marching in the streets on Twitter all in the space of
about 15 minutes.

I honestly did not expect it to take off. Scientists, grappling as they are with the mysteries of the universe,
don't always pay attention to what is going on outside of their labs, offices and field stations. We are
notoriously resistant to extraneous demands on our time. There will be the occasional chiding essay in a
scholarly journal, berating us to take an interest in science policy, to speak out to defend what it is that we
do. Perhaps we have ignored these pleas once too often. But this time I could sense that it was serious.

Organising this campaign has been hard work, and frankly, an ill-advised distraction from producing the
research data that will help me land that elusive position. But this is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

What really drives me – and probably the many thousands of scientists who have now signed our petition –
goes beyond the mere threat to our jobs. The UK economy is still precarious: there is strong evidence that
decreasing science funding will backfire and lead to far more long-term harm than any short-term savings
that will result. Sir Patrick Moore says it best, in an endorsement on our website: "If we cut funds for
science we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot."

Science is vital. And it's not just scientists who think so: our petition, which has more than ten thousand
contributors and rising, has been signed by a wonderfully diverse array of people, from artists, social
workers and builders to ministers, legal secretaries, and fire fighters, even a self-professed "house hubby".
Our campaign, in partnership withthe Campaign for Science and Engineering, has been endorsed by groups
such as the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and many scientific
societies.

If you agree, please sign our petition, write to your MP , consider joining us on our Parliamentary Lobby on
Tuesday 12 October, and above all,come to our rally this Saturday 9 October in central London – we're
expecting thousands.

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Think of it: scientists and their supporters, massing in the streets! We'd like as many people as possible
visibly displaying their pride in science, whether it is by wearing their white coat, T-shirts with their favorite
scientific image or wielding scientific objects and placards.

As for chants on the rally, let's see if we can do better than how Colin Blakemore lampooned us in a recent
Times piece: "What do we want?" "Thorough consideration of the evidence that public expenditure on
research is causally linked to economic benefits!" "When do we want it?" "As soon as the Government is
able to gather full, peer-reviewed data!"

I prefer something punchier, like "Science: it beats living in caves."

I'd love to hear your own suggestions.

Jenny Rohn is a cell biologist at University College London. In her spare time, she is also a science writer,
broadcaster, novelist and editor ofLabLit.com. She blogs at Mind The Gap, and her second novel, The
Honest Look, is published in November

2010/10/05 GUARDIAN MARTIN ROBBINS:

WHY I SPOOFED SCIENCE JOURNALISM, AND HOW
TO FIX IT

Last week I posted a spoof of science journalism that to my complete surprise went viral. Since then, I've
been trying to find answers. What's wrong with science journalism, and how do we fix it?

Comments (128)

Bizarrely, the most read article on the Guardian website last week wasn't about Ed Miliband or the Labour
party conference, but a quirky special-interest piece spoofing science journalism which I assumed only
about three people would get. Apparently I hit a nerve, but why? What's wrong with science journalism?
How did it become so dull and predictable? And how do we fix it?

My point was really about predictability and stagnation. The formula I outlined – using a few randomly
picked BBC science articles as a guide – isn't necessarily an example of bad journalism; but

science reporting is predictable enough that you can write a formula for it that everyone recognises, and
once the formula has been seen it's very hard to un-see, like a faint watermark at the edge of your vision.

Journalism – Analysis = RSS Feed

To see what I mean about predictability, take a look at the BBC Science & Environment news page. At the
time of writing I can see the following headlines. Spot the recurring theme:

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UK 'needs domestic wind industry'

Painless laser 'can spot disease'

City life 'boosts bug resistance'

'Ghost particle'

Neanderthals were 'keen on tech'

Fossil flower 'clue to daisies'

Winds 'may have parted Red Sea'

Malaria 'caught from gorillas'

LHC finds 'interesting effects'

I could go on, but you can see 'the pattern'. They're called 'Scare quotes' and they are used by writers to
distance themselves from the words inside, or to indicate paraphrasing – unless you're a cynic, in which
case scare quotes are a get-out-of-jail-free card that allows journalists to absolve themselves of any
responsibility for the words mentioned.

This habit is so deeply ingrained at the BBC that even the question of whether 'effects' are 'interesting' is
deemed too thorny an issue for the headline writer to give an opinion on. God forbid that in calling a piece
of research 'interesting' the BBC should sully its reputation for robotic impartiality.

The defence from some corners is that reporters should be neutral, that their job is simply to report what
has been said without passing judgement on it or challenging it in any way.

Cobblers. Ed Yong recently explained how daft this is:

If you are not actually providing any analysis, if you're not effectively 'taking a side', then you are just a
messenger, a middleman, a megaphone with ears. If that's your idea of journalism, then my RSS reader is a
journalist.

A science journalist should be capable of, at a minimum, reading a scientific paper and being able to
venture a decent opinion. A more reasonable excuse is lack of time. Full-time reporters are expected to
cover breaking stories quickly, and churn out several articles a day. Under that sort of pressure, even if the
journalist wants to delve deeper into the murky depths of a story they may simply not have the time to do
it justice.

Ultimately, though, if all you're doing is repeating press releases, and not providing your own insight,
analysis or criticism, then what exactly is the point of paying you? What are you for? What value do you
add for me? What right do you have to complain if you're going out of business?

Death by a thousand restrictions

Many of the problems in science reporting come not from the journalists or editors themselves, but as a
result of the pressures and constraints they're under, and journalists at the BBC are under more
constraints than most.

The Curse of the Undead (Ceefax)

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Have you ever wondered why the first few lines of any BBC website article are often particularly stilted and
awkward? It's because thanks to the BBC's multi-platform publishing guidelines, the first few paragraphs of
any news story need to be written in such a way that they can be cut and pasted into a Ceefax page.

To see an example of this in action, take a look at this article and thenthis Ceefax page.

It also means that there's a pressure for things like the journal, university, and so on to be mentioned by a
certain point so that everyone gets proper credit in all versions of the article. In 2010, news stories on a
website are actually being optimised, and reorganised for Teletext. Seriously.

Science for All

Another issue affecting style is the need to reach a diverse audience. This puts pressure on commercial
media groups who need to secure page views to generate advertising revenue, but also on the BBC which
has a mandate not only to provide news accessible to as many people as possible, but to represent the UK,
its regions and communities to an international audience.

At the Daily Mail, that pressure manifests itself in the form of acres of female flesh and breathless,
lascivious descriptions of barely contained breasts, toned tummies and voluptuous, sun-kissed thighs. At
the BBC, it means expressing things as plainly and simply as possible, avoiding any slang, cultural
references or colourful language that might obscure things for those with poor literacy, or who speak
English as a second language.

The cynics among you might use the pejorative phrase 'dumbing-down', while others might talk
approvingly of 'plain English'. It seems pretty fair to me, but does the same formula have to be relentlessly
applied toevery article? Could the BBC not, amid the vast sea of simple, clear reporting find space for a
modest island of meatier, spicier prose for those of us hungry for something a little richer?

Arbitrary Word Limits

As a writer, word limits are both a blessing and a curse. Many bloggers would have their writing
immeasurably improved if they stuck to a word limit – doing that forces you to plan, to organise your
thoughts, and to avoid redundancy and repetition. On the other hand, some stories need more time to tell,
and sticking dogmatically to an arbitrary 800-word limit for stuff that's published on the internet doesn't
make a lot of sense. The internet is not running out of space.

Conventional wisdom says that after a few hundred words, people start to lose attention. Conventional
wisdom is a load of bollocks, as online magazine Slate neatly demonstrated with their experiments in long-
form writing. Detailed, investigative pieces running to tens of thousands of words netted millions of page
views, and proved that audiences aren't quite the infantile content-junkies they're often made out to be.

Fundamental Units of Science

Another set of problems spring from the attitude journalists seem to have towards science – or at least
those who aren't still describing researchers with the faintly bigoted and dehumanising term "boffins".
Science is all about process, context and community, but reporting concentrates on single people, projects
and events.

The Race to Mediocrity

A couple of months ago I happened to be in a meeting at The Guardian's headquarters in King's Cross as
news of the most massive star ever found broke. It's no exaggeration to say that half the newspaper's staff
were involved in covering the story for various sections.

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Well okay, it's a big exaggeration, but it's true that the media went into a sort of bizarre mass hysteria as
newspapers, TV, radio and magazines raced to cover a slightly-larger-than-normal ball of gas with feature
articles, diagrams showing small circles next to bigger circles, video packages showing small circles moving
next to bigger circles, and interactive fact panels. Probably someone somewhere was staging a re-
enactment with two appropriately rotund celebrities.

The result was a self-propelling explosion of journalistic effort that resulted in hundreds of virtually
identical articles scattered across the face of the internet like some sort of fast-growing weed. What did all
this effort and expense achieve? Hundreds of interesting things happen in science every week, and yet
journalists from all over the media seem driven by a herd mentality that ensures only a handful of stories
are covered. And they're not even the most interesting stories in many cases.

In the Shadow of The Event

Members of the public could be forgiven for believing that science involves occasional discoveries
interspersed with long periods of 'not very much happening right now'. The reality of science is almost the
complete opposite of this. We spend centuries incrementally building little piles of knowledge, and it's
extremely rare that an individual paper or piece of work is really that profoundly important.

One of the biggest failures of science reporting is the media's belief that a scientific paper or research
finding represents a conclusion of some kind. Scientists know that this simply isn't true. A new paper is the
start or continuance of a discussion or debate that will often rumble on for years or even decades.

Often we can only assess the importance of research with hindsight. It was several decades before the full
significance of the 1896 observation by Svante Arrhenius that increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere
would lead to an increase in global temperature became obvious. Or at least obvious to all but a minority
of ideologically driven morons.

Trying to report science by picking out random interesting papers to look at is like a food critic attending
the opening of an Indian restaurant and deciding to sample a bit of cumin, then a splash of ghee, and
maybe a few grains of rice. All sense of meaning, of context, of the whole dish, is lost.

Disconnection from the World Wide Web

The world wide web is built from links. That's why it's a web, and not just a library of pages like, well,
Ceefax. Bloggers have understood this since even before anyone had made up the word 'blog', but for
some reason links – especially links to the research itself – have remained mostly alien to online media.
Why?

Journals Behaving Badly

No discussion of science journalism would be complete without a mention of The Dreaded Embargo. It
works something like this:

The Journal of Something or Other is about to publish an interesting paper, so it decides to issue a press
release and a preview copy of the paper to journalists.

The press release is embargoed until a certain date. This gives journalists time to write about the story
without worrying about being scooped, and ensures plenty of coverage on the day.

On the day the embargo lifts, the story is published on umpteen million websites.

And that's sort of okay, except for two snags. Firstly, with tedious regularity it turns out that many journals
don't publish the paper when the embargo ends, some waiting days or even weeks to get it online.

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Secondly, many of the papers are pay-walled in any case, and organisations (like the BBC until recently)
decide there's no real benefit from linking to a pay-walled site.

This matters for two reasons: firstly, it means that the journalist can't provide a link to the study, which is
annoying for people who want to see more; secondly, it destroys accountability by preventing other
journalists, bloggers, scientists or interested people from seeing the source for themselves and judging the
merits of the claims made by researchers, university departments or reporters.

The Blue Revolution

As I said recently, links are beautiful. They take us beyond whatever we happened to be looking for, on
journeys to places we never even imagined existed. Every minute of every day, millions of curious apes
click billions of links, each tracing their own miniature voyages of discovery.

By providing links to sources, journalists can show that they're honest, open and trustworthy and allow the
reader to judge whether the interpretation they've presented of someone else's work or words is the
correct one. They can also open up avenues for exploration and discovery to their audience, providing the
reader with far more value than one journalist could provide on their own.

It's taken a long time, and a considerable amount of lobbying to get the BBC to take links seriously, but
they have begun to move in the right direction, and for that they should be praised. It would be brilliant if
other news media could do the same, and bring traditional media up to the standard set by bloggers.

Five Ways to Improve Science Journalism

A number of people responding to my spoof set me a challenge. Could I write an example of a good piece
of science journalism? At the risk of ducking the challenge (which I'd be lousy at, since I tend not to do
much reporting on research anyway), that misses the point, because I don't think there should be a set way
of doing things.

But what does that mean in practice? What should, say, the BBC do to improve their coverage? I can think
of a few things that would make an impact right away.

 Stop racing the pack. It's undignified, seriously. Commercial companies at least have the excuse
that they need the page views to survive, but the BBC is unique in being paid for by the licence fee.
That should allow it some flexibility to sit outside of the free market rat race. Let the tabloid
schmucks race to produce three hundred near identical pieces on whatever giant star they found
this week. Repeating what other people are already doing isn't adding any value for customers or
for licence fee payers.
 Challenge and analyse. If you can free some of your journalists from the rat race of inane reporting
on stuff that everyone else has already covered, then maybe you can use those people to do
something more worthwhile, something that adds real value: proper analysis and insight. Let those
people cover less, in more depth.
 Experiment with rule-breaking. The internet is very new, and new technologies take generations to
figure out. It took centuries to get from the printing press to newspapers. It took 35 years to get
from the first modern e-mail system to Twitter. It took 10 years to get from the first blogs to a
collective like Science blogs. This change is ongoing, and it could be decades, or even generations
before the situation stabilises. We are basically like the cave men at the start of "2001", bashing
bits of PHP together and wondering why everything's on fire.

What happens in the next five or ten years is anybody's guess, but the point is that while some
rules are useful, trying to stick religiously to them now would be like someone in the 16th century

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 declaring that they'd found the best way to write a print article. Rules can be useful, but don't be
dogmatic about them, let people break them – not every day, but from time to time.

 Nurture talent. If you have talented writers, then nurture them and allow them to experiment with
the form. If you're lacking a decent and diverse pool of talent, then leverage the community of
fantastic science writers working in the blogosphere. It's shocking that the BBC, which has a
mandate to represent all the UK's various communities and is central in developing talent in TV and
radio, shows no interest in working with the growing British blogosphere to develop writers and
showcase talent. It's very much their loss.
 Write for the web. This should go without saying, but articles on a website should be written for the
website. Transcribing TV or radio spots, or optimising text for Ceefax, is inexcusable. Different
forms of media require different styles of writing.

Fading Out

Science is crazy. The things that we can do are absolutely ridiculous; whether it's peering trillions of miles
into the void of space in the search for new life, deciphering our own genetic code, pulling apart the stuff
that the universe is made of, or halting the spread of disease, or just enabling this article to be sent
through light beams and thin air to your computer.

And there are hundreds of beautiful, amazing writers who can take this craziness and put it in a way that
we can all cope with, whether it's Dawkins bringing evolution to bloody life, the genius of Feynman
bringing particle physics to the masses, David Quammen's heart-wrenching descriptions of the death of the
last dodo, or Ed Yong and his life-long obsession with writing about animal sex.

And yet, somehow we're left with mainstream media coverage that's often sterile, formulaic,
unimaginative. Writing covered with the stench of the intellectual decay that inevitably comes from the
meek acceptance of often-arbitrary rules. Science deserves better, and as science blogs rack up ever
increasing millions of readers every month, traditional media companies still dragging their feet will need
to respond, sooner or later. That, or face irrelevance.

Anyway, that's my opinion. Tell me yours in the comments.

2010/10/05 S WORD: RISE UP TO DEFEND UK

SCIENCE

Hilary Leevers, Assistant Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering

People are rallying round to defend science from the feared UK spending cuts of October 20th - both
figuratively and literally.

A group of concerned scientists formed Science Is Vital as a pre-emptive movement to try to convey the
huge importance that science has for the people of the UK.

If cuts are made to public investment in research and development, they will impact upon everyone: they
will hamper the economic growth needed for public investments; they will slow the advancement on life-

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saving discoveries; and they could turn the UK's history and current strength in science and innovation into
a distant memory.

The Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) grew from a grass-roots campaign started in the 1980s.
We work to influence policy makers directly or through the media. But we are lending our support
to Science Is Vital because we believe that it can have real political impact, both up until the spending
review announcements on October 20th, and also in shaping the environment for spending thereafter.

A problem with petitions and rallies can be that they come across as special pleading by self-interested
organisations. But what drives the passion behind our collaborators at Science Is Vital is not fear of
unemployment - it's fear of a future in which the UK loses its international excellence in science and
engineering.

And science is vital in a broad sense: engineers, technologists and mathematicians have all signed the
petition in their hundreds. Looking through the first 11,000 signatories of the petition, students, graduates
and academics appear in their thousands, but it is the names of non-scientists that are most inspiring.
Artists, musicians, farmers, firefighters, priests, poets, policemen and soldiers have all signed.

There are those who might particularly appreciate the economic value science and engineering can bring,
including accountants, bankers and the leaders of over 50 small businesses. There are those who may hope
to build the scientific future, including school children and teachers. There are also those on the front line
working with science and engineering, from doctors and nurses, to air traffic controllers. And those waiting
for science to bring the answers, like the 16 signatories with motor neurone disease, or the people who
care for them.

We thank the 22 organisations already putting their names behind the campaign, including research
charities, like Cancer Research UK and the Wellcome Trust, Universities and trade unions. Over 50 fellows
of the Royal Society or the Royal Academy of Engineering have signed, along with many notable
individuals, from Patrick Moore and Brian Cox, to Ben Goldacre and Simon Singh.

We are eagerly awaiting the next 11,000 signatures, and expect to see a broader circle of support as word
ripples out from those it is easy for us to reach. Please, play your part. Come and rally with us on October
9th. Exert your right to ask your MP to meet with you at the lobby of parliament on October 12th. Ask your
MP to represent your views by signing the petition (several already have) and Parliamentary motion in
support of it.

And please, please spread the word.

2010/10/05 IN VERBA: PICKING (NOBEL PRIZE)

WINNERS
By Jack Stilgoe on 5 October 2010

It’s as though the Nobel Prize committee were running a ‘Save British Science’ campaign. In the last two
days, two Noble Prizes have been announced, both to UK scientists. Test-tube baby pioneer Robert
Edwards FRS was awarded the prize for medicine. Andre Geim FRS and Konstantin Novoselov won the prize
for physics for their work on the wunder-material Graphene (the thinnest and strongest stuff in the
universe).

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The announcements show two sides of science policy. Geim and Novoselov are both supported by grants
from the Royal Society. Geim is a Research Professor and Novoselov is a University Research Fellow, both
at the University of Manchester. Geim argues that the Royal Society’s long-term support has allowed him
to take conceptual and disciplinary leaps that would otherwise have been impossible. Novoselov, at 36,
becomes the youngest physics Nobel laureate for more than 30 years. As well as Graphene, his research
funding has allowed him (with Geim) to work on what they call ‘Gecko tape’, a superglue that mimics the
feet of a Gecko. Novoselov also represented the UK at the Royal Society’s 2008 Frontiers of Science
meeting in Germany , organised to build collaboration between outstanding young scientists in both
nations.

The Edwards story is more complicated. In 1971, seven years before Louise Brown became the first IVF
baby, Edwards was turned down for funding by the Medical Research Council on the grounds that the
research following concerns about ethics and safety. His work was privately supported until 1978 (see this
for an exhaustive account).

Edwards’s clinical research had a clear and immediate impact, and has since transformed the lives of many
parents who would have previously resigned themselves to childlessness. Geim and Novoselov’s work is
largely curiosity-driven, but is already revolutionising the way that electronics firms are imagining the next
generation of transistors, touchscreens and batteries.

It is a mistake to read too much into the histories of Nobel laureates. They are prizeworthy precisely
because they are exceptional. Nor should policy be skewed towards (literally) picking winners. But Nobels
do tell us something about the environment from which they emerge and, in the UK, this environment is
currently under threat.

2010/10/05 TIMES HE: NOBEL WINS

„EXEMPLARS‟ OF UK EXCELLENCE THREATENED BY
CUTS, SCIENTISTS CLAIM
By Paul Jump

The UK’s second Nobel award in two days attests to the research excellence that will be endangered if the
research budget is slashed in the forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review, scientists have warned.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, based at the University of Manchester, were named today as
winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2010. Their win follows yesterday’s honour in the physiology or
medicine category for Robert Edwards, who pioneered in-vitro fertilisation at the University of Cambridge
in the 1970s.

Professor Geim and Professor Novoselov, who are Russian-born, won the prize for the discovery of
graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with numerous potential applications in electronics.

Scientists have been quick to seize on the successes as evidence of the world-leading standard of UK
research and the need for continued funding if it is to be maintained.

Responding to the announcement of the physics prize, Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said it
was “hard to envisage better exemplars of the value of enabling outstanding individuals to pursue ‘open-
ended’ research projects whose outcome is unpredictable”.

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“These two brilliant scientists were attracted to the UK by the promise of adequate funding and a
supportive environment in a first-rate university. There are surely important lessons to be drawn by the
government from the Nobel Committee’s decisions,” Lord Rees added.

“The UK must sustain its science at a competitive level in a world where talent is mobile and other
countries are advancing fast – and eliminate immigration restrictions that would impede the in-flow of
talent. The UK’s investment in the physical sciences is paying off and needs to be sustained.”

Mark Miodownik, head of the Materials Research Group at King’s College London, said today’s award for
physics would bring a smile to the face of every scientist “because it shows you can still get a Nobel prize
by mucking about in a lab”.

“This is another reason to recognise that British science is a special culture, admired throughout the world
for its originality and genius, and needs to be nurtured not cut by the government if it wants to foster
future technology and wealth in the UK,” he said.

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, described Professor Geim and Professor
Novoselov as “brilliant examples of foreign scientists who had been attracted to the UK by its reputation as
a global research hub. But they could be the last of their kind if the government presses ahead with its
plans to slash investment in science and block talented non-European Union migrants from coming here.”

Peter Main, director of science and education at the Institute of Physics, said the prizes showed how the
UK punches above its weight in science.

“The UK has become a magnet for the best young researchers from around the world. These timely awards
should give pause for thought as worrying signals emanate from the government’s funding decisions,” he
said.

Details of any cuts to the science budget will be unveiled in the CSR on 20 October.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com
Readers' comments
Cheerleader 5 October, 2010
2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate? British science!
R P Grant 5 October, 2010
The http://scienceisvital.org.uk/ campaign, working with the Campaign for Science and Engineering, is holding a
rally in London at 2 pm this Saturday to show support for continued science funding in the UK. Please do come
along--and sign the petition at the website (>13,000 signatures so far).
valiant for truth 5 October, 2010
That would be the King's College London which has closed its Engineering and Chemistry Departments and made
itself internationally famous for its support for the Humanities?
Howard 5 October, 2010
This idiot Imran Khan is talking crap. These Russian scientists were known for their excellence when they were
in the U of Nijmegen. Last year Molecular Biology Lab in Cambridge had its recent Nobel Prize winner who is
American of Indian extraction. He was known for his work in America.

Any govt of any colour will welcome such distinguished scientists. What is happening is Britain is recruiting run
of the mill IT graduates and engineers from outside rhe EU because the CBI and City want them as they can be
paid less. We need our IT graduates to be trained and we want to increase the out put of our engineering
graduates.from universities. We also invite hundred of thousands of very mediocre students to fill places in our
50 new universities and we can do without them. The answer is to strengthen the excellence of Russell Group
universities by putting more funds there.
DrGrumbles 5 October, 2010
"The answer is to strengthen the excellence of Russell Group universities by putting more funds there"

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You do know that the Russel Group is merely a lobby group, and not a divinely inspired classification of the
'quality' universities.

It's difficult to make the case that some Russell Group members, such as Cardiff, Sheffield, Birmingham,
Glasgow, King's or Nottingham should receive preference when it comes to funding over largely equivalent non-
Russell Grop institutions like York, Lancaster, Queen Mary, St Andrews, Durham, UEA or Exeter, to name just a
few.
To DrGrumbles 5 October, 2010
Stupid comments I should say. Russell Group are research intensive and this Nobel prize shows that. Oxford,
Cambridge, UCL, Imperial and Manchester can boast of a few Nobel Prize winners in their history. The others,
well ..
Grow up.
To To DrGrumbles 6 October, 2010
An asinine comment. Grumbles is quite correct. Russell group is just a gang of rather good research universities.
And there are other very good research universities in the UK. It would be silly to allocate funding on the basis
of precisely which gang a university belongs to. Please (a) stop talking rot,and (b) stop trying to give childish
offence to others. Are you 12?
mmmm 6 October, 2010
And we all know the best "teachers" are the best researchers.
@To To DrGrumbles 6 October, 2010
You seem 12 not recognising there are no other research universities. You are saying that becuase you are 8 and
is in one ofthem . Must be rather mediocre.

2010/10/06 S WORD: DAVID CAMERON:

SCIENCE ISN'T EVEN ON HIS RADAR

Roger Highfield, magazine editor

It is such a simple way for a UK Prime Minister to curry a little goodwill among the nation's scientists:
congratulate the latest person to join Britain's long and illustrious roll call of Nobel prizewinners.

This week has given David Cameron plenty of opportunity to celebrate the success of British science, which
punches well above its weight in terms of international impact and quality.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, Russian born physicists based at the University of Manchester,
were named as winners of the Nobel prize in physics, the day after the physiology and medicine category
was won by Robert Edwards, who pioneered in-vitro fertilisation at the University of Cambridge in the
1970s.

Mr Cameron's predecessors have always been quick to ride on the coattails of British success.

In this case, we have extraordinary examples of how very basic research can change the world: in the case
of the physics prize for graphene, we are talking about faster electronics; and when it comes to the
medicine prize, more than four million IVF babies.

But, so far, we have heard nothing from this Prime Minister which, to be uncharitable, could well be a tacit
acknowledgement that science is on the chopping block.

It can only fuel fears that he is about to damage the UK's Nobel prospects in years to come in the
forthcoming Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).
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Combined with the proposed cap on economic migrants from outside the EU, the effects on UK research
would be chilling.

Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, was among those who warned that
Geim and Novoselov could be the last of their kind if the government presses ahead with its plans to slash
investment in science and block talented non-European Union migrants from coming here.

"The Nobel prizes are a fantastic endorsement of British science - Geim and Novoselov are brilliant
examples of foreign scientists who came to the UK because we're a global research hub," said Khan.

"But Geim and Novoselov could be the last of their kind if the government presses ahead with its plans to
slash investment in science and block talented non-EU migrants from coming here."

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, London, pointed out how the Russians were attracted to the
UK by the promise of a supportive environment in a first-rate university. "The UK must sustain its science
at a competitive level in a world where talent is mobile and other countries are advancing," he explained.

Meanwhile, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
have released a report commissioned to estimate the value of chemistry research to the UK economy.

The report, by consultants Oxford Economics, pins a value on the contribution made by industries
"upstream" and "downstream" of chemistry research, and comes up with a figure of£258 billion for the
year 2007 - equivalent to 21% of GDP.

A protest against the possible funding cuts is planned for this Saturday in London, organised by Science is
Vital. Details of any cuts to the science budget will be unveiled on 20 October.

2010/10/06 MÁIRE GEOGHEGAN-QUINN

"INNOVATION UNION", LAUNCH OF THE
INNOVATION UNION, BRUSSELS
Máire Geoghegan-Quinn

Commissioner for Research, Innovation and Science

The "Innovation Union" – turning ideas into jobs, green growth and social progress

Good afternoon and thank you for coming.

The Innovation Union is just as much an economic policy as, for example, the eurozone governance
framework the Commission proposed last week.

We need a pro-growth, anti-crisis micro-economic environment.

So the Innovation Union is a cornerstone of the Europe 2020 Strategy.

It aims to back innovators all the way - instead of putting barriers in their way.

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Not just business innovators but also public service and social innovators, in increasingly crucial areas like
the care for the elderly sector, for example. We will also talk to the social partners on how we can boost
employee-led innovation.

Here are just two statistics from our memo today.

Business R&D in the EU is 66% lower than the US and 122% lower than Japan, as a share of GDP.

And venture capital funds in Europe were in 2008 at a quarter of the level in the US.

So we face an innovation emergency.

We need an Innovation Union to help get our 23 million unemployed people back to work and keep them
there.

We need an Innovation Union to tackle society's biggest challenges: climate change, energy and food
security, healthy living and an ageing society.

We need an Innovation Union because Europe does not yet have an innovation culture like the US – and
China and India are catching up.

The Innovation Union has three main characteristics. First, a world class science base; second, coherent,
Europe-wide use of public sector intervention to stimulate the private sector; third, a concerted and
determined effort to remove bottlenecks which stop ideas reaching the market.

A world class science base requires sufficient - and efficient - investment from both public and private
sector.

Research alone cannot create an Innovation Union – but you cannot have an Innovation Union without
boosting research.

Another statistic, from a new study, shows that achieving our target of investing 3% of EU GDP in R&D by
2020 could create 3.7 million jobs and increase annual GDP by up to €795 billion by 2025.

Of course, that can be much higher if we also take all of the rest of the measures the Commission is
proposing today.

On the research side these include completing the European Research Area – a legal requirement under
the Lisbon Treaty - by 2014.

Meanwhile, the Eighth Research Framework programme will be designed as a spearhead of the Europe
2020 strategy – with sustainable jobs and growth and tangible environmental and health benefits as the
overarching aim. And less red tape than ever before.

We want to build on the success of the European Research Council – frontier research is not academic
indulgence.

To give just two examples, ERC funded scientists are working on reproducing volcanic explosions in the
laboratory so that the interaction of ash with the atmosphere can be better understood.

They are also working on microscopic chemical robots that could both deliver medicines in the human
body and help neutralise toxic spills.

You may remember recent news stories that point to the importance of such research!

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You may have seen that yesterday, Professor Konstantin Novoselov, an ERC grant-holder, became one of
the youngest ever Nobel Prize winners, for physics.

The promising start of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology will also be further developed.
The Commission will reinforce its own scientific base for policy making through its Joint Research Centre.

The second characteristic of the Innovation Union is public and private sectors working together in ways
that reflect 21st century realities.

The old models of laissez-faire and dirigisme are both obsolete.

The key word today is partnership. We have seen the potential of using public money to lever in private
contributions.

Our Risk-Sharing Finance facility, co-funded and managed with the European Investment Bank to promote
riskier R&D and innovation, has leveraged in 15 times the combined Commission and EIB contribution of
over a billion euro.

The Innovative Medicines Initiative and the Joint Technology Initiatives like Green Cars and Clean Skies are
also beginning to deliver.

But we need to go much further.

So we are announcing today European Innovation Partnerships. They are different from anything before.

First, the Innovation Partnerships will each focus on a specific societal challenge where, by taking a lead,
Europe can improve the lives of its people and become a commercial world leader. They will have concrete
and measurable goals.

Second, they will be co-driven by political, industrial and scientific stakeholders. We envisage a Steering
Board chaired by a European Commissioner – not always Vice-President Tajani or I – we are not going to
hog the limelight – but the Commissioner or Commissioners whose portfolio corresponds to the subject
matter. I can tell you there is already plenty of interest among our colleagues…..

The Board will include national Ministers, MEPs and key stakeholders. Funding will be European, national
and private.

Third, the Partnerships will act on the regulatory and demand sides as well as the supply side. They will, for
example, help fast-track regulation and standards and deploy co-ordinated public procurement to create
lead markets.

The first pilot Partnership to be launched in early 2011 will be on active and healthy ageing. The aim will be
to increase the average number of healthy life years by two by 2020. That would reduce strain on social
security and health budgets and help create an EU and global market for innovative products and services,
with new opportunities for EU business.

Provided the European Council approves, there will be more Partnerships launched during 2011, including
on energy, smart mobility and "liveable cities", water efficiency, non-energy raw materials, and sustainable
and productive agriculture.

I hear you asking – can these Partnerships deliver? Our emphatic answer is they can, they will and they
must.

I've talked about a world-class science base and about a new public private axis, about building Innovation
Partnerships that bring key players together to achieve clear goals.

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Vice–President Tajani will speak to you in a moment about the third defining characteristic of our vision for
an Innovation Union: how we remove bottlenecks that stop ideas reaching the market.

Let me finish by saying that we are quite aware that we cannot stand here and click our fingers and create
an Innovation Union. This is conceived as Europe's first ever truly strategic approach to research and
innovation. It needs 100% commitment from the highest political level.

We have that commitment from President Barroso – he put innovation at the centre of the Europe 2020
Strategy. We have that commitment from President Van Rompuy, too. At the European Council in
December, we will need that same commitment from heads of state and government.

Thank you

2010/10/05 RESEARCH FORTNIGHT: IS

INDUSTRY WALKING AWAY FROM ACADEMIA?
Recession-hit companies scale back university liaison offices

By Brian Owens

Universities could find it more difficult to find industry research partners as hi-tech companies look to scale
back or close their academic liaison departments in the wake of the financial crisis.

The defence technology company QinetiQ, spun out of the government’s Defence Evaluation and Research
Agency in 2001, has closed its central academic liaison department. And within the past few months, the
mobile telecoms company Vodaphone has moved its academic cooperation work into a single office in
Germany. Previously, academic liaison was handled by a team scattered across different countries
including Germany, the UK and Spain.

A QinetiQ spokesman told Research Fortnight the company had decided to “decentralise” its interaction
with universities to individual business units. “Contracts and other relationships with universities will
continue, including some QinetiQ technical staff engaging with academic teams, but in specific ways that
demonstrate clear and direct value to the company’s commercial business,” said spokesman David Bishop.

Vodaphone chose a different explanation for its decision. “The reorganisation is aimed at refreshing and
enhancing our relationship with the academic world,” says Mark Street, a company spokesman. “We want
to build up a long-term relationship with selected universities and laboratories and have stronger and
deeper cooperation with a core group.” The company says that it plans to launch a website in the coming
months to make it easier for academic institutions to get in touch with “visionary projects of relevance to
Vodafone”.

The past year has also seen less interest in academic collaboration in the UK at Boeing, Kodak, Siemens and
Fujitsu, even though the government is encouraging universities to build closer links with industry.

Not all companies are scaling back, however. Malcolm Skingle, director of external science and technology
at GlaxoSmithKline, confirms that while many companies are reducing their work with universities, GSK has
no plans to follow suit. The company recently cut back on internal research capacity and plans to rely
instead on more external collaborations. “From our point of view it is important to maintain clinical
translational research. We are looking at all our budgets, but it would be madness not to tap into the
science base in academia.”

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The requirement to pay full economic costs is a potential deterrent for companies who want to work with
UK universities, he says, but adds that it is easier to co-fund underpinning science in the UK than almost
anywhere else in the world.

Oisin MacNamara, director of research, business and innovation at Northumbria University, is concerned
that the loss of academic liaison expertise in industry will make it more difficult for universities to find
collaborative or contract research. “In the last 10 years the government has built up the capacity of
universities to be more outward facing, and to do knowledge transfer,” he says. “But if we don’t have that
capacity on the other end, then it doesn’t work.”

But MacNamara says he is confident universities will find ways to overcome the obstacles. “We are very
flexible, we can adapt pretty well to what is happening in industry.” Universities should look to build one-
on-one long-term relationships, and take advantage of specialist knowledge and regional clusters, he says.

One example of just such a collaboration is the announcement on 4 October that Jaguar Land Rover is to
move its 170-member advanced research group to the University of Warwick. The company moreover
pledges to spend $100 million on collaborative research with the university over the next few years.

The move was inspired by Germany’s Fraunhofer institutes, which the coalition government is keen to see
replicated in the UK. The deal was highlighted by science minister David Willetts at the Conservative Party
conference on Monday. “We back initiatives like that. They bridge the barrier between research and
business,” he said.

2010/10/05 RESEARCH FORTNIGHT: TROJAN

HORSE - THE RAE MUST NOT BE USED TO CRUSH
DIVERSITY
Whichever way you do the maths, one thing is clear: small institutions, and possibly small research
departments too, could sink as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review. Even John Browne’s
review of higher education finance is widely expected to recommend that universities that cannot balance
the books ought to be allowed to fail.

If these things happen they will mark the end in the UK of the idea of the post-war university as we have
come to know it: the principle that anyone should have access to institutions of advanced learning and
research, irrespective of class or ability to pay.

If the present Conservative-led coalition chooses such a path it will be building on two innovations piloted
by previous Conservative administrations. The first of these was the creation of the Research Assessment
Exercise in 1986 by then education minister Keith Joseph, one of the founders of Thatcherism; the second
was John Major’s decision six years later to grant university status to the former polytechnics.

As is well known, the RAE was intended to concentrate funding on the best researchers, keeping the UK
near the top of scientific league tables, securing Nobels, and so on. Major’s decision on the other hand was
intended to democratise learning. But the actions now under consideration will remove opportunities for
higher education and research from many thousands unable to secure places at Russell group institutions.

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Politicians looking to cut the long tail of UK higher education will no doubt seek justification for their
decisions in the RAE weightings, as Vince Cable has already intimated. But for all its precision, the RAE is
not beyond criticism: there is no immutable law that says four-star departments deserve to receive three
times as much funding as the next best.

Moreover, concentrating funding in such a way contrasts sharply with how public funding is allocated more
widely. Secondary schools, for example, do not receive more funds because their pupils achieve better
results. Indeed, the Department for Education’s planned pupil-premium will do the opposite. In a similar
way, hospitals in affluent areas tend to deliver a better quality of service, and higher levels of patient
satisfaction compared with those in more deprived parts. According to an RAE-style system, they would get
more funding. But that would rightly be considered inequitable. Yet it has become entirely acceptable to
distribute research funding according to this philosophy.

A fascination with measurement, with metrics and league tables, is central to UK public policy. It goes back
to Victorian times and is something that differentiates this country from some of our European neighbours.
But using formal quality assessment to concentrate funding on a relatively small group of elite institutions
has taken metrics too far.

It is widely accepted that diversity, as well as excellence, is an important ingredient in discovery and
innovation. The research breakthroughs that we all want will be less likely if only the fittest are allowed to
survive. The combined outcome of the Browne review and the CSR looks likely to snuff out diversity in the
university system at the expense of both teaching and research. It’s an impact too far.

2010/10/06-7 DAVID WILLETTS AND THE

HISTORY OF SCIENCE
David Willetts and the history of science
Rebekah Higgitt

There has been an interesting discussion on Mersenne, the history of science listserv, prompted by James
Sumner, who has kindly allowed me to post his email to the Mersenne subscribers.

There have been interesting responses from Peter Morris (who was at school with Willetts, and defends
him, but points out that Priestley did not make these discoveries in Birmingham – it was Leeds), Joseph
Priestley (who condemns the exclusion of dissenters from publically-funded universities, but champions
the liberality of private, dissenting institutions - via Simon Schaffer), John Langrish (on the small
probabilites of patents making money at home, and the fact that “industry and universities do different
things”) and Robert Bud (who suggests that Willett’s speech must be read with knowledge of the
government’s interest in “establishing a network of so-called Clark Maxwell institutes” which will promote
“the translation of academic research into commerical benefit”). The links are to their Mersenne messages.
Any more views, from non-Mersenne subscribers?

1. Charles Darwin quote: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent
that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”
6 Responses to David Willetts and the history of science

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 James Sumner says:
October 7, 2010 at 11:54 am
Thanks, Becky. At the risk of pecking a very small (if revealing) canard to death: non-specialists may be
wondering what‘s wrong with the first half of the Priestley/Schweppe claim. I‘d summarise it as follows:
1. Oxygen gas has nothing to do with this story. Oxygen does dissolve in water (ask a fish), but it doesn‘t make
it fizzy. There are fascinating questions about Priestley‘s relationship to the discovery of the gas (calling it
―oxygen‖ implies claims which he rejected to his dying day), but we‘ve got quite enough to worry about with what
follows.
2. You don‘t get carbon dioxide from the air. You could if you really wanted to — atmospheric air contains a
small proportion, which we now know how to separate and purify — but there are far easier ways of getting it.
For Priestley, the obvious source of the fizz-making gas (which he knew as ―fixed air‖) was a brewery: it hangs
in vast clouds over fermenting beer. For reliable commercial fizzing-up, though, you need a more controllable
source. Priestley recommended the reaction between mineral acids and chalk.
3. ―Fixed air‖ had been established as a concept for decades (though its meaning gradually changed) when
Priestley set to work on impregnating it artificially into water.
4. As Peter Morris points out, Priestley didn‘t do this in Birmingham, where he lived in the 1780s. He did it in
Leeds in the early 1770s.
5. It seems to be true that Schweppe was influenced by Priestley‘s publication on this subject more than
anybody else‘s. It does not follow that Priestley ―did the experiments‖ in any crucial sense. The possibility of
artificial impregnation must have occurred to various people around the same time, who varied in their concern
to publish and to commercialise. A lot of discussion, refinement and re-thinking happened in the long gap
between 1772, when Priestley published, and 1792, when Schweppe came to London.

Thony C. says:
October 7, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Maybe somebody ought to point out to the esteemed Minister that it was in Birmingham that the conservative
Church and King mob burnt down Priestley‘s house and laboratory causing him to join the 18th century brain
drain and emigrate to America.

Kieron Flanagan says:

October 7, 2010 at 5:12 pm
John Langrish‘s point about probability is of course a key one – and as the structure of the UK economy has
shifted more and more away from manufacturing and towards services, this reduces still further the
probability that UK science will be ‗commercialised‘ by UK industry. The reverse is also true, of course – UK
industry potentially has the whole of global science to choose from, assuming it has the necessary ‗absorptive
capacity‘ to identify, understand and evaluate research from overseas. There is no reason why UK innovations
should be based on UK science.
In this sense the ‗myth‘ is indeed a myth – the problem is not one of ‗translation‘ within a closed system. The
question which Willetts should be asking is what role could science and technology play in any attempt to
‗rebalance‘ the economy towards high value-added manufacturing? Rather than attempting to ‗translate‘ UK
science into our existing industrial base, the proposed Fraunhofer-style centres could play a role in supporting
the emerging industries of the future by addressing the relative lack of (non-defence related) applied*
research and technological development, public and private, stemming from the shift to services already
mentioned coupled with the steady decline in publicly-funded applied civil and mission-oriented R&D. In fact
this is much the space that the network of Fraunhofer institutes occupies in the German research system- not
just translating German science to German industry but performing leading edge applied R&D and technological
development, often in collaboration with firms, creating a formidable technology base (and absorptive capacity)
for the German system.
However, judging from the remarks Vince Cable has made on the matter it seems more likely the Clerk Maxwell
label will simply be attached to a rebranded Harwell (and possibly also Daresbury) science and innovation
campuses.
*yes, I know all these terms are problematic

William Cullerne Bown says:

October 7, 2010 at 7:52 pm

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OK, Willetts reference to Schweppes doesn‘t really add up to anything. But then none of his speech really hangs
together at all. Fizzed-up history is the least of his/our problems. See http://bit.ly/aNYJg7

James Sumner says:

October 8, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Both here and on Mersenne, the direction taken by the follow-ups is probably more interesting than my original
point. Here, though, is how I responded to Peter‘s comment:
—
Of course, the lines I quoted were not designed with close inspection in mind. I‘d also accept that they‘re more
a product of the peculiarities of political speechifying than of anything peculiar to Mr Willetts. Looking at the
whole text, it‘s easy to spot the underlying template. The historical excursus follows on from the overt joke
which is included to ensure audience reaction at the beginning (―…Thinktank Museum, which is perhaps where I‘ll
end up‖), and smooths the transition into the purposeful rhetoric later on. I assume the audience was expected
to titter in recognition at ―Schweppe‖, and that it politely did so.
Indeed, of the many things happening on and below the surface of that speech, the Priestley-Schweppe drama
is arguably the single least important. Others on this list have rightly focused on the general question of
university-industry relations, which matters a great deal to most of us in our roles both as scholars of the field
and as citizens.
However: I have to argue that the triviality of this kind of public history is not itself trivial. Consider what it
means to accept that the Priestley-Schweppe legend (which may well have its origins in schoolroom oral
tradition, as Peter suggests) is as fit as any other to account publicly for the past. One plausible conclusion
from this assumption — and I‘ve encountered this from a few professionals in the sciences and elsewhere, as
I‘m sure many of us have — is that the dedicated pursuit of history must be a very easy, unconstrained,
skylarking activity. From this would follow that historians might reasonably be asked to work for less, and/or
that there might reasonably be fewer working historians.
—

Beto Pimentel says:

October 9, 2010 at 2:45 pm
It is interesting to realize how universal these things are. I thought (quite naïvely, I admit) that
the misuse and mythification of tales in the history of science and technology had something to
do with the (local) lack of available scholars and/or sources, or something like that, or some sort
of cultural bias. I am afraid I was wrong. It happens everywhere, for the most vile to the most
innocent reasons. I guess it has to do with people‘s need to build archetypical figures and
structures (how things work), always simplifying the complex mechanisms through which history,
people and society operate, so to come up with justifications and models for their (our) own
behaviour. Bottom line is then that people mityfy because it works. Should education change
this? CAN education change this?

2010/10/06 THE DISCUSSION

From: James Sumner

Dear listmembers

Those of us keen, for whatever reason, to gauge the attitude of the current UK government towards the
history of science might find enlightenment in the thoughts of David Willetts, Minister of State for
Universities and Science, as presented at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on Monday. Or
possibly not. His speech (full text at
http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2010/10/David_Willetts_Scholarships_to_help_Armed_Fo
rces_families.aspx ) begins as follows:

"Here in Birmingham, where I was brought up, is the right place to focus on the big challenge of growth
and prosperity [...] When science, engineering and enterprise come together, you can change the world.
But it does not always work out. At the same time as Boulton and Watt were designing steam engines,

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their friend Joseph Priestley successfully obtained oxygen and carbon dioxide from air. He did the
experiments but it was a Swiss businessman who made money by using his technique to put fizz in water -
he was called Joseph Schweppe."

Let's pass over any questions about the relevance of oxygen or the likelihood of deriving fixed air from the
atmosphere. I drew a blank on Joseph Schweppe: nearly fifteen seconds of painstaking deskbound
research, however, brought me to Jean (or Johann) Jacob Schweppe, a jeweller turned soda-water
manufacturer from Hesse, sometime resident of Geneva and possibly naturalised Swiss (except when
deemed French).

Schweppe's ODNB entry clearly explains that he was entering a market already crowded with domestic
suppliers when he started selling carbonated waters in London in 1792. Farrar, Farrar and Scott's series on
the Henry family of Manchester for _Ambix_ in the late 70s notes that Thomas Henry was experimenting
on fixed air impregnation at the same time as Priestley, and that he commercialised the results on a large
scale quickly enough to tackle head-on, for a time, Schweppe's expansion of agencies into the northern
towns. Schweppe, no doubt, was the most successful (and is the best remembered, though not as to his
forenames) of the early soda-water vendors in England, but the exercise of stuffing him into the mould of
the penicillin-era "foreign theft" fable is bafflingly contrived.

Obviously, we belong to a community of people trained to take history seriously, which is not the general
approach: it's inevitable that past actors and preoccupations, in the hands of the speechwriter, end up as
brightly coloured, briefly amusing analogues of whatever present-day assertion was going to be made
anyway. (See also Charles Darwin's well-known lines on adaptability, beloved of leaders promoting
unwelcome changes, which the naturalist somehow forgot to write in his own lifetime). The difference
here is that it's peculiarly difficult to follow how the excursion into chemical history connects to what
follows:

talk of using closer academic-industrial links to remedy "that old British problem of failing to make the
most of our own discoveries and inventions."The best I could come up with is this: Britain's unique
shortcoming in technological style (as perennially insisted on in Martin Wiener-ish decline narratives) is
now deemed to be so resonant and seductive that it can strike at any moment in history -- even including
the pre-decline, full-steam-ahead period of industrial pomp. Priestley, obliged (as a mere historical
character) to precisely exemplify one monolithic set of values or another, unwisely chose his nationality
than

his era: he thus carefully failed to commercialise his discoveries, and the rewards were scooped up by
Schweppe in consequence of his Swissness.

Hence the emerging Swiss dominance of manufacturing industry in the later nineteenth century ("Swiss",
of course, being interchangeable with "French" or "German"). I hope this clears matters up for good.

Best regards

James

----

From: Morris Peter

Dear James,

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I think you are making far too much of this. I suspect it was intended to be at least partly tongue in cheek. I
am not sure Willetts was really trying to make a exact parallel between soda water and penicillin, although
he was clearly alluding the myth of 'foreigners stealing British ideas'. I knew David Willetts when we were
both at university and yes, he is very clever although perhaps not as clever as his moniker would make out.
But he did PPE so not a historian of science or even a scientist. I am intrigued though to know where he
got the anecdote from. Was it a story that went the rounds when he was growing up in Birmingham? Or
was it supplied by a speechwriter? I am not sure I would be so censorious about JJ's nationality or the idea
that he succeeded where Priestley 'failed'. Knowing he came to London from Geneva, I too had assumed
he was Swiss and it is true that his firm did eventually drive most of the earlier soda water manufacturers
out of business. Of course Priestley himself never even tried. But it is rather odd that the speechwriter
failed to use that fount of all wisdom, Wikipedia, which does give the correct name and land of birth, and
more or less the correct story.

But you did fail to spot another problem with this story. It at least implies that Priestley first made artificial
fizzy water and discovered oxygen in Birmingham when of course neither was the case. He first made fizzy
water in Leeds. I spent a long time in the early 90s pinning down the exact spot with the aim of making it a
historic chemical landmark, and eventually traced it to a set of traffic lights on a main road in the middle of
Leeds. I later did the same exercise for oxygen (let's for now overlook the whole Priestley-Scheele-Lavoisier
issue) and came down to three possible locations, a wing of Bowood House long demolished (the idea it
was discovered in the current library at Bowood is clearly false), his sitting room in his home on Calne
Green or Lansdowne House in Berkeley Square (at a spot which is now a pavement next to GSK's London
head office). Of these three, I think Lansdowne House (long demolished) is the most likely but having
stayed at his house in Calne and compared the fireplace there with his drawings in his books on

gases, it must run it a close second. But anyway not Birmingham. So I suspect Willett's story may be a
garbled tale that did the round of chemistry classes in Birmingham, and King Edward's School in particular,
in the 1970s when chemistry teachers still liked to leaven their lessons with a bit of cod history.

Cheers,

Peter

-------------

From: "S.J. Schaffer"

"By thus shutting the door of the universities .... and keeping the means of learning to yourselves, you may
think to keep us in ignorance, and therefore less able to give you disturbance. But though ignominiously
and unjustly excluded from the seats of learning, which, as maintained by public funds, ought to be open
to all the community, and driven to the expedient of providing at a great expence for scientific education
among ourselves, we have had this advantage, that our institutions, being formed in a more enlightened
age, are more liberal...Thus while your universities resemble pools of stagnant water secured by dams and
mounds, and offensive to the neighbourhood, ours are like rivers, which, taking their natural course,
fertilize a whole country'. (Joseph Priestley, A letter to right honourable William Pitt, First Lord of the
Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1787).

----------

From: John Z Langrish

It's not just history that is treated badly by politicians; it's also probability.

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The myth of Brit discovers - nasty foreigner makes the money has been rejected by every serious study
going back to Carter and Williams in Manchester in the 1950s (they were both good politicians as well and
became vice chancellors)

The probability bit is -

Patent evidence shows that less than one in a hundred patented invention ever makes any money.

This can be compared with biological mutation - less than 1% of novelties offer any improvement.

If the use of an invention were fairly random, it could be used anywhere in the world and there is a lot
more world out there (full of nasty foreigners) so the probability of a British invention being used abroad is
much higher than being used here. Plus novelty needs advantage to survive. Conditions 'abroad' may be
advantageous when not so in UK

eg Synthetic Rubber invented by Manchester chemists c 1912.

Germany and USA made the money. NOT because Brits hopeless at industry but because Brits owned the
trees! Not until the Japanese stole the rubber trees that synthetic rubber had an advantage in the UK.

eg2 Laithwaite 'invented' a linear motor at UMIST. Daily Express had headline when the French thought of
using this for a railway. What the paper did not say was that the economics of a linear motor railway
needed a line at least 1000miles long. So possible advantage for Paris - Marseilles but no use at all for
Lands End - John 'O G.

The idea of closer collab between industry and Universities is trotted out by every politician BUT all the
evidence says 'rubbish' - industry and universities do different things. U tries to understand. Industry tries
to make things work. And things have a habit of working WITHOUT understanding.

See my book "Wealth from Knowledge" - 1972!!

John Z Langrish

2010/10/07 Alice Bell posterous

There is a fascinating dicussion between historians of science developing on the Mersenne listerv right
now, surrounding David Willetts' reference to Josephs Priestley and Schweppe.

This was just posted by Simon Schaffer:

"By thus shutting the door of the universities .... and keeping the means of learning to yourselves, you may
think to keep us in ignorance, and therefore less able to give you disturbance. But though ignominiously
and unjustly excluded from the seats of learning, which, as maintained by public funds, ought to be open
to all the community, and driven to the expedient of providing at a great expence for scientific education
among ourselves, we have had this advantage, that our institutions, being formed in a more enlightened
age, are more liberal...Thus while your universities resemble pools of stagnant water secured by dams and
mounds, and offensive to the neighbourhood, ours are like rivers, which, taking their natural course,
fertilize a whole country'. (Joseph Priestley, A letter to right honourable William Pitt, First Lord of the
Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1787).

More here.

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 2010/10/07 ALICE BELL BLOG:
SCIENTIFIC “IMPORTANCE”
The Times’ have just published a list of the “100 most important people in British science”. I was one of the
judges. It’s online behind the Times paywall, or you can buy a paper copy (added 11:35am: or read it on
the UCL STS blog).

I hope people disagree with it. I disagree with most of it all of it the very idea of it. But that’s why these
lists are put together: the fun of disagreeing with them.

I want people to disagree with it because I want people to think about where “importance” sits in science
(and whether you’re happy with that). If you are surprised by the position of someone or another, don’t
just think “stupid Times”; remember this person must have been recommended by someone. The Times
surveyed a load of scientific institutions, not just the judges. You are probably disagreeing with the idea
that this person has influence as much as anything else (though there are a fair few people on the list I’m
still unconvinced by…).

Obviously, the whole exercise is very silly. Is someone important if they are very influential in one
particular part of science? Or only if they have impact on lots of different parts of science, or if they make
science meaningful outside the scientific community? If this last choice: where precisely? Westminster?
Fleet St? Somewhere more imaginative? In the end, we took a broad approach; reflecting the range of
people in science and a variety of ways they might have influence (which, of course, made comparisons all
the more difficult).

For me, however, the biggest problem was ascribing power to specific people.

For example, the first draft of the list had a glaring gap when it came to school science. There were a few
scientists who do work with schools, but no one who worked full time on the issue. We struggled. As I told
the Times:
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When it comes to school-science, it is especially difficult to identify powerful individuals (rather than
groups). Each teacher has the capacity for immense power, but only for a small number of people.
Individual teachers aren’t famous, but that’s because they garner their power by treating their students as
individuals. We could have anonymous listings for “the teaching profession”, “school technicians
everywhere”, “anyone who has ever run an after-school science club”, and, because influence is not always
positive in education, “really boring science teachers who alienate their students”.

We could say the same for a lot of science communication: that it’s at its most powerful when working
face-to-face. Yes, the big name scientist-popularisers on the television and/or bestseller bookshelves reach
millions of people and so have influence, but so do the multitude of smaller-scale interactions. Arguably
the “long tail” of the web is only increasing this fragmentation of science’s “publics”. We might say similar
things about the role of public-to-public science communication. Headlines are flashy, but maybe it’s word
of mouth that really constructs science’s importance.

Of course, this problem of individualising power is true when thinking about scientific research too. Much
of contemporary science is modeled on networks of individuals, not superstars. As Martin Rees says in this
video interview (£wall) on the Times site:

Most scientists are anonymous. A few, a fairly arbitrary number get well known and I think my heroes are
really those who work hard and produce most of the science without getting any public recognition. Just as
we have the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, then I think we should acknowledge scientists who are
unknown, but are the ones that do most of the groundwork of the subject.

This point is underlined by Ben Miller’s Eureka column, where he reflects on only having heard of a handful
of the 100 names on the list.

We should also remember that a fair bit of work in science happens under deliberate anonymity, not just
the quiet lab-bench graft Rees is talking about. Indeed, at one point we thought about adding an entry for
unidentifiable GCHQ scientists and, more simply, “peer reviewers”. In the end though, as with “boring
science teachers”, the Times stuck to identifiable names.

Perhaps this difficulty in identifying individuals in science shows up the central foolishness of such a list.
Still, I learnt a lot (and laughed a lot) from the playing with this list, and I hope you do too. Have a read of
it. Think about why you disagree and how, and use this as a chance to reflect upon the often unnoticed
networks of influence running through, across, and out of the scientific community. Think about where
power really sits in science, and whether you’re ok with the current state of affairs.

Added 11:40am: See also Athene Donald’s blogpost about the experience of judging the list.

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 2010/10/07 ATHENE DONALD‟S BLOG:
EUREKA! -CHOOSING THE 100 MOST
INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN BRITISH SCIENCE
This piece also appears as a guestblog on the Times’s Science blog “Eureka Zone” (behind the paywall).

When an invitation to join the panel to help draw up the Eureka100 powerlist in science arrived in my
inbox, my fancy was certainly tickled and I readily accepted. However, as the process evolved it became
clear in just how many different ways the phrase ‘ most influential people in British science’ can be
interpreted. Does it mean simply practicing scientists? Certainly my first assumption was these would
represent the majority of entries. Over what time period did influence need to have been exerted; in other
words were we trying to produce a list of ‘old farts’, to use Will Carling’s memorable phrase, or those at
the peak of their profession now whose influence would continue to increase? Or perhaps we should be
searching out those who were clearly upwardly mobile but perhaps not yet reached their peak. How widely
were we to spread our net beyond actual practicing scientists? Should it include politicians, policy makers,
captains of industry and those associated with the media? These may well not be scientists, may not even
have studied science beyond GCSE/O Level but that definitely does not preclude them from wielding
power and influence within the sector. Each of us came to the table with different internal weightings of
these sorts of factors, and that led to some lively banter and discussion as we tried to draw up an agreed
ranking. Throw the need for good journalistic copy into the mix and things only got more complex.
Ultimately the ‘editorial decision is final’, as they say.

So at the end of the process am I satisfied the list does justice to all, and that it really does represent a
meaningful take on the UK today? Well no, I think we could have produced many variants of this list each
of which would have been equally valid. There simply isn’t a single figure of merit that can be accurately
quantified for this purpose. We have produced a list of spurious accuracy – as I described it at the time –
and the scientist in me is worried by a measurement that may look precise but is so inherently inaccurate.
Unfortunately I am also used to ranking other imprecise things, grants and departments come to mind, and
so rather too well-used to having to compare apples and oranges in ways that can also make one feel very
uncomfortable. There will be many people on the list whom readers will think ‘why on earth are they
there’; for me that group would include Prince Charles and Heston Blumenthal. There will be other names
which some readers will see as dreadful omissions – insert your own favourite omission mentally here.
Everyone reading Eureka would have created a different list according to their own internal weightings,
prejudices and knowledge.

However I am quite sure that there will be some people, such as our number 1 Paul Nurse, about whom
everyone can agree. He clearly should be there or thereabouts; furthermore, he is a prime example of
someone bucking the apparent brain drain that has been hitting the news in recent weeks. We also got it
right about Andre Geim , ranking him high even before Tuesday’s announcement about the Nobel
Prize More debatable is whether George Osborne should have been on the list – he was very high up at
times, and then in the final iteration simply banished to the politicians’ list, along with Vince Cable and
David Willetts. From my contribution to the Fight Debate, it will be clear that I was not that keen on public
communicators being high up on the list. People like Brian Cox zoomed up and down the list; he eventually
settled at number 24, with David Attenborough somewhat higher at number 7.

There was a debate (initiated by Evan Harris as I recall) about whether we needed a woman in the top 10. I
argued against any such tokenism (I’ve written previously about the pros and cons of women-only
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prizes here). Women had been proposed on merit, and were placed as accurately as the males. That’s how
it should be. In the end the top-ranked woman, Nancy Rothwell, came in precisely at number 10, just
below her Manchester colleague Geim. Had women mysteriously not been put forward at all I would have
adopted a very different position about this, but the number overall in the list strikes me as reasonable if
hardly impressive at 12. We must hope that if the process were to be rerun in 10 year’s time the position
would be significantly different.

In the end I think the list has probably downplayed the influence of government advisors such as John
Krebs and Adrian Smith in favour of individual scientists, although I am delighted to see my Cambridge
colleague David MacKay well regarded because of the importance of his role as CSA at DECC – see my
comments on him here(scroll down, but behind the pay wall). I am not entirely comfortable that the CEO’s
of the Research Councils are separated out to another list (with the exception of the outgoing chief of the
MRC Leszek Borysiewicz , because he doubled up as the incoming VC of my own university), but Mark
Walport seemed to be regarded entirely differently as head of the Wellcome; no one else had problems
with this but I saw it as a slightly artificial distinction.

I could go on; we all had pet issues that made us nervous, so don’t ask us to defend the detail of the
outcome. But then, what do you expect if you ask a committee to produce a list like this? To adapt
Nietzsche “You have your list. I have my list. As for the right list, the correct list, and the only list, it does
not exist.”

2010/10/08 STS UCL OBSERVATORY: EUREKA

100: THE SCIENCE LIST
So, as Alice Bell hinted in her comment on the key concepts team’s recent post on the most
influential people in UK science policy here on the STS Observatory, The Times produced its own list: the
Eureka 100. It’s behind a pay-wall, but here it is:

1. Paul Nurse
2. Mark Walport
3. Stephen Hawking
4. Alex Jeffreys
5. Jonathan Ive
6. John Sulston
7. David Attenborough (note!)
8. Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal, President of the RS)
9. Andre Geim (a very late entry, or just good timing?)
10. Nancy Rothwell (VC of Manchester)
11. John Rose (Rolls-Royce)
12. Iain Lobban (director of GCHQ)
13. Philip Campbell (Editor, Nature)
14. Andrew Witty (on our list too, CEO of GSK)
15. Jocelyn Bell Burnell (pulsars, a long time ago)
16. John Beddington (GCSA)
17. Richard Friend (plastics)
18. David Mackay (CSA, Department of Energy and Climate Change)
19. Ross Brawn (Formula 1, boys toys)
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 20. John Bell (Oxford medical science)
21. James Dyson (polulist inventor, Conservative advisor)
22. Fred Sanger (Cambridge sequencer)
23. Sally Davies (CMO)
24. Brian Cox (not just a pretty face)
25. Richard Dawkins (’atheist campaigner’ ho ho)
26. Wendy Hall (computer science)
27. Paul Davies (SETI)
28. Peter Mansfield (MRI scanning)
29. Kay Davies (Oxford gene therapy)
30. Martin Evans (stem cells)
31. Simon Campbell (viagra)
32. David Bulcombe (Cambridge botany)
33. Simon Singh (science writer, accidental libel campaigner)
34. Peter Higgs (of possible particle fame)
35. Tim Hunt (Nobellist, cancer research)
36. Mike Stratton (cancer research)
37. Ann Dowling (Cambridge engineer)
38. Harry Kroto (Nobellist, carbon)
39. Anthony Hollander (stem cells)
40. Chris Whitty (chief scientist, DFID)
41. Andrew Wiles (top mathmo)
42. John Houghton (IPCC)
43. Phil Jones (UEA climate scientist)
44. Kim Shillinglaw (BBC science head)
45. David Brennan (CEO AstraZeneca)
46. Greg Winter (Cambridge molecular biology/medicine)
47. Leszek Borysiewicz (VC Cambridge)
48. John Pendry (Imperial invisibility cloak)
49. Steven Ley (Cambridge organic chemist)
50. Adrian Owen (neuroscience)
51. Hermann Hauser (cambridge IT)
52. Tim Berners-Lee (WWW)
53. Chris Stringer (very ancient humans)
54. David King (ex-GCSA, pro-nuclear)
55. Philip Cohen (Dundee biochemist, note recent Willetts speech)
56. David Payne (optic fibres)
57. John Young (Pfizer UK)
58. Steven Cowley (Culham fusion)
59. Harpal Kumar (on our list too, CEO Cancer Research UK)
60. Peter Ratcliffe (Oxford medical science)
61. Ian King (CEO BAE Systems - rather low?)
62. Jim Virdee (CERN)
63. Fiona Fox (Science Media Centre)
64. Colin Blakemore (Oxford neuroscience - rather low too, or maybe had more influence under
Labour?)
65. Graham Richards (Isis Innovations)
66. James Lovelock (Gaia, pro-nuclear)
67. Peter Knight (quantum optics)
68. John Browne (President of RAE, ex-BP)
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 69. George Efstathiou (Cambridge astronomer)
70. Adrian Smith (BIS civil servant)
71. John Krebs (one of science’s great and good)
72. John McCloskey (earthquakes)
73. Heston Blumenthal (super science chef)
74. Robin Millar (Association for Science Education)
75. Simon Donaldson (mathematician)
76. Marcus du Sautoy (popular mathematician)
77. Ben Goldacre (bad science, bad hair)
78. David Sainsbury (former science minister)
79. David Nutt (former drugs advisor)
80. Fiona Goldlee (editor, BMJ)
81. Robert Winston (fertility)
82. Steve O’Rahilly (Cambridge clinical biochem)
83. Guang-zhong Yang (robotic surgery)
84. Mark Welland (nano, CSA to MoD, should be much higher)
85. Mike Richards (cancer research)
86. Janet Thornton (genetics)
87. Steve Sparks (volcanoes)
88. Ottoline Leyser (plant genetics)
89. Mark Miodownik(KCL materials)
90. Michael Rawlins (chair of NICE)
91. Callum Roberts (marine biology)
92. John Armitt (Olympics engineer)
93. Paul Smith (Millennium Seed Bank)
94. Prince Charles (oh yes)
95. Shankar Balasubramanian (sequencing)
96. Sue Ion (BNFL)
97. Paul Westerbury (more big tent engineering)
98. Richard Fortey (writer, NHM)
99. Steve Bramwell (magnetricity)
100. Roy Anderson (remember foot and mouth?)

Plenty to talk about there. UCL does not do well in the Eureka 100 but does spectacularly well in the also-
ran ‘just missed out’ column…

The list was chosen by Lord Waldegrave, Alice Bell, Dame Athene Donald and Dr Evan Harris.
10 Responses to ―Eureka 100: the Science List‖
Alice Bell Says: October 7th, 2010 at 11:31 am
―the list was chosen by Lord Waldegrave, Alice Bell, Dame Athene Donald and Dr Evan Harris‖
Nope, it was chosen by the Times, we just helped them talk through it. They also asked a load of scientific
institutions (Wellcome, IoP, etc…) to provide lists of nominations.
Jane Gregory Says: October 7th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
Not sure whose comment it is against Jocelyn Bell Burnell‘s name - ‗pulsars, a long time ago‘ - but she was just
finishing her term as President of the Institute of Physics when the list was written. Her significance for
women in science over the last 40 years has been immense.
Alice Bell Says:October 7th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
@ - Jane
Bell Burnell was in top 10 until the very last draft.
Chris Stringer Says: October 7th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Might be worth checking who are ex-UCL though - I was an undergrad (Anthropology) 1966-1969..
Sarah Says: October 7th, 2010 at 12:37 pm

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No Patrick Moore?
Kathrin Cohen Kadosh Says: October 7th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
UCL are also represented in these Eureka lists today:
Top 5 Science Couples: Chris and Uta Frith
Top 5 Academic Power Brokers: Malcom Grant
Top 10 Science people under 40:
Sarah Brindle
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
Lucie Green
Kajsa-Stina Magnusson Says: October 7th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
12 women out of 100… sigh.
robert may Says:
October 11th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
where am I?

2010/10/08 FT: SAVING SCIENCE

The awarding of this year’s Nobel Prize for Physics to two Russian-born scientists at Manchester University
has reignited the debate on British science under the ruling Con-Lib coalition. The stakes are high: ill-
judged spending decisions could threaten not just Britain’s status as a hub of scientific research, but also its
growth prospects. The government’s current proposals do exactly that.

Science is important to Britain, and not only for the prestige that breakthroughs such as the discovery of
graphene – for which the Nobel Prize was awarded – bring to its universities. Research and development
contributes to economic growth. And as the country tries to wean itself off its reliance on the financial
sector, a shift towards skilled, technology-intensive industries is desirable.

Cuts should be moderate at most. Given the need to cut the fiscal deficit, science cannot escape the axe
entirely. The government seems set to slash spending on science education in order to shelter research.
This is sensible. But even if the £4bn science research budget does not face the full 25 per cent cuts meted
out elsewhere, there could still be serious consequences, especially at a time when other countries are
increasing science spending.

The government should not be tempted to let pure science bear the brunt of cuts on the grounds that its
economic pay-off is less obvious than applied science. The uncertainty inherent in research means a broad
base is vital to keep discoveries flowing. And pure science has in fact had huge economic and social
implications, as the world wide web, a byproduct of the particle accelerator project at Cern, shows. Even
so, the government can do a better job of helping to commercialise scientific research. Promoting closer
collaboration between businesses and research institutions could yield huge economic gains.

Beyond funding, curbs on immigration from outside the European Union will also hurt science; 10 per cent
of academics in the UK are thought to come from overseas, many from outside the EU. If the government
proceeds with its ill-conceived immigration cap, it should at least exempt academic research staff, and
encourage business to fund research positions through universities. Surely this will do more for the country
than elite footballers, to whom the cap does not apply.

In spite of its size, Britain remains a world leader in scientific research. To jeopardise that position would
be a grave error.

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 2010/10/08 GUARDIAN EVAN HARRIS: OPEN
LETTER TO GEORGE OSBORNE: WHY IT'S VITAL TO
PROTECT SCIENCE FUNDING

Scientists will gather at the doors of the Treasury in Whitehall tomorrow to protest against threatened cuts
in science funding. This is what we are saying to the government

Doesn't George Osborne

realise science is vital for Britain's future? The Chancellor addressing the Conservative
conference this week. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Dear George,
As you read this, I hope you are hard at work in your office in the Treasury on a sunny
Saturday afternoon working on the Comprehensive Spending Review.

I'll be outside your window at the head of a demonstration of well over a thousand
scientists and researchers bringing you a message about what's best for the country's
future. Many of us will be in white lab coats, but it doesn't mean we are coming to get
you. Yet. We want to talk to you about the value of proper funding of science and
research.
This is not just special pleading from one interest group. Here's why.

1. It's economic hara-kiri to cut science spending

It is clear that cuts to science funding are a damaging false economy as research and
development funding for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) produces
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growth – the growth that is needed to help cut the deficit. To cut science funding in order to cut
the deficit is actually self-defeating.

The evidence base for this assertion is extensive and can be found at the Royal Society,
among other places, and even in an academic paperco-authored by one of your Treasury
officials.
Furthermore, our competitors like Germany and the USA – also facing the need to cut their
deficits – are not only avoiding cuts to their science spend, but actually increasing investment.
You and your government colleagues have expressed the wish to rebalance the economy
towards high-tech and high-skills and away from over-reliance on the city. That will need
science investment.

2. We are not starting from a good position

Unlike other areas of public spending, like the NHS, we cannot say that science spending as a
share of GDP is at its highest ever. In fact, the position is poor. Our overall science spending is
the worst of the G7 bar Italy, and despite more investment during the past 10 years (where
science spending rose in line with GDP increase), we are still only back at the low level share
of GDP allocated half-way through Mrs Thatcher's period of cutbacks, in 1986.

That was of course the year that you were doing your O levels at St Paul's, so you may not
have noticed that it was also the year that Save British Science (now the Campaign for
Science and Engineering) was established to try to increase this dismal funding level. Do you
really want to be the Chancellor who cuts investment back below that level?
You have sought to reassure us that despite the 14% cuts across all government spending in
the next few years we will still be spending at 2006 levels. In fact, in science we would end up
a decade behind 1986 levels, and neither of us thinks that the late 1970s is an era to aspire to!

3. There is no way to protect excellent science from cuts by careful targeting

This is not because there are no effective ways of trying to identify, grade and rank research
funding applications. This is done by the brutal system of peer review, which has its flaws. But
– as Churchill said about democracy – it has fewer flaws than any other system.

It is also not because there are no ways (albeit imperfect) to identify the best research
retrospectively. The Research Assessment Exercise, known as the RAE (a form of peer
review) seeks to do this every few years. The most recent was in 2008.
The point is that peer review ranking of grant funding applications is already being
done and only a small proportion of even the top-ranked applications can currently be
funded from our science budget. So cutting this means cutting funding for research already
graded as top-class, and it means the success rate for even top-rated applications falls to 10%
or less, with the consequence that researchers spend all their time filling in doomed grant
applications and rarely finding the time to get their research done.
In addition, the retrospective RAE judges that 54% of submitted research from university staff
is either world class (4*) or internationally significant (3*). You might erroneously presume –
like Vince Cable's speechwriter – that this means that about 45% of the research assessed is
mediocre, so cutting funding to this research would be relatively undamaging.
But you'd be wrong. First, of the other 46%, 33% is graded as being of a quality that is
recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour. Of the other 13%,
11% is "merely" graded 1*, signifying research that of a "quality that is recognised nationally in
terms of originality, significance and rigour".

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So perhaps, George, you are thinking you can cut the funding to this 1* research. You
should ask your officials how much Higher Education Funding Council for England
(HEFCE) "quality–related" (QR) funding grant currently goes to 1* research? They will
tell you the answer: Zero, zilch, nada. So, no scope there for easy cuts.
You might now be asking, what about cutting funding to the 31% of research which is graded
2* – the supposedly "mediocre" work that is of a quality recognised internationally in terms of
originality, significance and rigour (a quality that Treasury economic forecasters could only
dream of attaining).

Again your officials will apologetically explain that such research gets only 1/13th of the
HEFCE QR funding. That's about £160m, going often to the newer, improving universities
which lie outside the golden triangle, and which have good links with industry. That is not
going to solve the deficit – especially given your new and welcome regional policy designed to
support new business enterprises in the north and midlands.

So I am sure you will not now be paying any regard to the 45% "mediocre" figure that Vince
Cable mentioned last month. That has been comprehensively trashed, including by Professor
Stephen Curry and me.

4. You can't simply turn the tap of science talent back on after a few years

Unlike other areas of the workforce (like teaching or building, for example), if the science work
force can't get funding or is made redundant it doesn't stay around waiting for the
improvement. Science careers can't be switched on and off with funding, and people will leave
the country (brain drain) or leave science, never to return.

Science is a truly global undertaking and its language is English. So the best scientists, if their
personal circumstances permit, will go abroad. There is no doubt that the brain drain is real
and at risk of getting worseif funding and morale falls in this country.
Those that stay are well-qualified and highly employable, and will be snapped up by the
private sector, often in better paid, non-science roles. Because science moves on so quickly it
is much more difficult for such people to return to their former research interests, especially as
they would be taking a pay cut to do so. Public sector scientists are not paid well and do not
have great job security even in the good times. Once they leave, there are huge deterrents to
coming back.

The point I am trying to make, you see, is that in science there is a long-term cost of short-
term cutbacks, and highly skilled people who have been trained at the public expense and
employed relatively cheaply thereafter will be lost forever.

5. There is a political price to pay for cutting science funding (and making other
irrational anti-scientific policies)

I know you think that science is a soft touch politically because the mainstream newspapers
and the media are more concerned with almost any other area of government spending, and
regard science R&D as a side-show. But the fact that there are over 20,000 signatures to
theScience is Vital online petition in less than a fortnight, and that so many ordinary voters are
joining the rally should alert you to the danger of taking us for granted. We are part of a
community which is connected, frustrated, politically middle-ground and liable to judge
politicians by their policies and actions not by their branding or packaging.
The growth of the internet means that by the next election there may be half a million
scientists, sceptics and rationalists writing to their MPs about their record and their
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intentions. Half a million swing voters can demonstrate the Third Law of Political Motion
– that for every short-sighted political action there is an equal and opposite electoral
reaction.
So as you work on the CSR in your office tomorrow afternoon and you hear the voices of
hundreds of scientists, please take heed. The Science is Vital movement is new but it is widely
supported and is growing and, as I urged back in August, has taken its fight to Parliament.
Some of our banners will warn you that we can make mini black holes at the Large Hadron
Collider at Cern. But the serious message to you is that the country's future depends on a
vibrant science base.

Yours truly,

Evan

This article was amended on 9 October 2010. The original stated that 56% of submitted
research from university staff is judged either world class (4*) or internationally significant (3*).
This has been corrected.

Posted byEvan Harris Friday 8 October 2010 18.37 BSTguardian.co.uk

Comments
Ramski 8 October 2010 6:48PM
Nice letter Evan and of course I agree with you 100%. Pity you lost your seat at the election; you're one of the
few Lib Dem politicians I like.
fulmin8or 8 October 2010 7:02PM
Well said! As one of Mrs T's 'lost generation' of scientists one shudders to think what the Tories will do this
time.
hoddle1 8 October 2010 7:03PM
George is unavailable for comment.
When you are a millionaire, well-paid from the public purse, expenses claiming Tory Chancellor of the
Exchequer, who has a glorious house in Tatton, why would you bother to answer silly science questions from
experts?
We are of course all in this together.
classm8 October 2010 7:04PM
Another short sighted policy from the coalition. Let's watch Cameron wobble on this one.
LuisPerea8 October 2010 7:23PM
Hello I´m agree and I´m with you I´m from Mexico City and is amaizing that in my Love Country always happen
things like this Science GROW-UP!!
ACElliott8 October 2010 7:54PM
Nicely put, Evan.
I have written to my own MP - your Lib Dem colleague John Leech - giving some "University specific" examples
of how the proposed science cuts are likely to damage the University (Manchester) where a good fraction of his
constituents work or study. Not to mention their likely knock-on effects on businesses who are "end-users" of
the scientists we train - an obvious example being the big AstraZeneca UK research site at Alderley Park.
Mariawolters8 October 2010 8:02PM
Like @ACElliott, I wrote to my MP, Mike Crockart, Edinburgh West, Lib Dem - Universities are a large part of
the Edinburgh economy, and if the recent couple of years has taught us anything, it's that we can't rely on the
financial sector to prop Edinburgh's finances up any longer.
Jacabsolute8 October 2010 8:10PM
Excellent letter!
Your arguments would convince any clear thinker to consider higher investment in scientific research. Sadly I
feel that Mr Osborne's depth of political thought is rivalled by and possibly based on 'The Wind in the
Willows'. Here's hoping that in relation to science he wishes to pretend otherwise.
AnnaCM8 October 2010 8:14PM
HEY! OSBORNE! LEAVE OUR GEEKS ALONE!

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In all seriousness, *huge* applause, Evan. Thank you. Good luck tomorrow, and to all that are able to be there to
help fight these ignorant, dangerously counter-productive cuts.
24thfloor8 October 2010 11:38PM
Good luck but ou are dealing with the economic illterate and idelogical deranged. Ozzie is only there for the
cuts, for some reason the idelogues in the Tory party think tanks have it in for Science funding considering you
Prof's just like welfare cheats. If it was any good someone would pay for it. The reality is that the UK gets its
scienific research on the cheap, the sums involved are pitifull £40k for two Phds, £10k for equipment no grant
for travel to overseas colaboratorators. Even although all the guys who are doing the cutting come out of the
elitely education axis of Oxbridge. Again its a class based policy, only the Russell Group can have funding the
rest should be turned back into FE Colleges and Proletechnics where they came from, this will stop the
oversupply of well qualified vocationaly trained working class graduates and foreigners getting the jobs that
should be reserved for the children of the elite because they are elite.
joanwd9 October 2010 12:09AM
Science research = better understanding of problems = more cures for diseases/solutions to environmental or
energy issues = less spending on the NHS/other.
But hey, scientists are evil and useless!
XtalDave9 October 2010 6:28AM
Correspondance with my MP (Conservative Edward Timpson) yielded the spontaneous and unprompted use of the
phrase "Science is Vital".
I sincerely hope that this is a good omen...
MusingsofaFailure9 October 2010 6:37AM
http://scienceisvital.org.uk/attend-the-demo/
The rally will be alongside HM Treasury, on King Charles Street, LONDON SW1A 2AH
Be there, or be square!!
Many of us will be in white lab coats
Actually, I'll be wearing something rather colourful.
GordonBrownNose9 October 2010 9:48AM
@fulmin8o
Well said! As one of Mrs T's 'lost generation' of scientists one shudders to think what the Tories will do this
time.
And Labour did what exactly during it's 13 year tenure? I don't see a glowing report for them either.
We do need to be very very careful over cuts to science. To an outsider it may look like people just trying to
protect their own funds whereas many discoveries lead to bigger and better things.
After all, it was a man from these shores that "invented" the Internet.
Dubaz9 October 2010 10:30AM
The problem with these cuts is that they won't just affect this generation, the immediate next generation
doing PhDs etc and those doing undergraduate degrees but it will also filter down to the schools. The
government and media is consistently making the public aware that fewer students are choosing science A-
levels and degress in favour of softer subjects and they want to change this trend. Well, what will be the
point? They won't be able to do any rigorous science with their qualifications anyway. We may as well just up
the places for media students and become a completely braindead society. Its such a shame! Our great heritage
in science is being eroded by some incompetent fools. Bring on the next election. Perhaps more of us 'soon to be
unemployed scientists' could stand as politicians. The current ones blatantly do not have the capabilities to
understand the simple paradigm that more science/technology funding leads to greater future growth and
success. I for one will not be hanging around to watch the meltdown of our fantastic and hard-fought research.
This is an insult to all the great scientists that have led the world efforts in science and technology for
centuries
R.I.P British Science. You will be missed, of that I am certain

DrEvanHarris9 October 2010 11:58AM

The original post had two typos involving the 4* and 3* ratings for RAE (written as 1* and 2* resp) and the
percentage in each category where the figures were 2% out. These have now been fixed. Apologies.
@ Ramski @fulmin8or @joanwd
Thanks
@hoddle1 @Jacabsolute
Hopefully our friends in Parliament can hold him to account on this stuff
@classm
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―Another short sighted policy from the coalition‖
Its not decided yet
@ACElliott @Mariawolters @XtalDave
Thanks guys. I had seen your blogs.
@AnnaCM
―HEY! OSBORNE! LEAVE OUR GEEKS ALONE!‖
That‘s a good potential chant for today!
@24thfloor
I wouldn‘t go that far but there is an element of raising the drawbridge behind in the fees discussion
@ MusingsofaFailure
See you there
Canuteseait9 October 2010 12:03PM
I hate to differ from the mainstream but anything that existed under labour made appallingly bad use of public
money. I am a science supporter through and through but bashing the Torys for decisions that have not been
made and listening to what must certainly be a biased report from a political scientist may not be the answer. I
see the problem, I support major funding for science, but is the money being spent wisely, and are the benefits
supporting the costs. It may be as an example that we are supporting a large research project costing millions
of pounds when the same work is being carried out elsewhere in the world and the research data is available at
a fraction of the cost. Possibly as in the NHS we are purchasing materials for research which have vastly
inflated costs as was the case under labours notorious contracts. I want results not just spent tax money.
blueporcupine9 October 2010 12:52PM
@Dubaz
We may as well just up the places for media students and become a completely braindead society.
Yeah, how dare other fields of human knowledge exist apart from science. The people with aptitude and
inclination to work in them must be braindead. We might just as well fire them all off into outer space on a B
arc. I'm sure it can't be that hard to do things like draft good law, structure tax systems, make qualitative
policy decisions and manage international diplomacy. I mean, humanities grads do these things, so it must
fulmin8or9 October 2010 1:53PM
GordonBrownNose 9 October 2010 9:48AM
Er you didn't read the letter did you. Here's a hint:
"2. We are not starting from a good position"
The Internet (packet switching) was developed by ARPA.
The www came out of CERN. Tim "Father of the Web" Berners-Lee was in Switzerland at the time. The UK
lacking the FUNDING to site the facility "on these shores."
#FAIL
Gyroid9 October 2010 2:32PM
Thank you Evan.
Would you consider standing as an "Independent for Science" at the next bi-election?
Your voice is needed in Westminster.
shepm9 October 2010 7:33PM
Thanks Evan, both for this and the cheerleading!
Ramski9 October 2010 8:26PM
Thanks for the acknowledgement Evan! Hope the protest went well...there's precious little more important than
science, medical research and innovation.
Stand up for science!
Dubaz9 October 2010 8:36PM
@blueporcupine
It wasn't my intention to cause offence, so sorry if that was the case. My feeling is simply that those people in
the professions you mention probably did not study media studies or such like. I did not make a blanket
criticism of the humanities because many of the subjects are equally as important and will also be affected by
the cuts. There is a difference between criticism of a subject and criticism of those that do the job. It is not
always the same thing. I presume that to do Law and structure tax systems you would have to study something
like Law and Economics, forgive me if that's shortsighted!
Of course science isn't everything, but it is very important and I didn't really want to distract from that.
yepandthattoo10 October 2010 8:18AM
If science is to pay then good science should be encouraged. Though what is good science and who decides it.
Is it worth viewing scientific works on the principle that all is good unless otherwise stated or all is bad.

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Adherence to established methods and good principles are a reasoned way of making sure that science pays out.
This includes the investigation of new methods.
Enthusiasm should be met with reality. This works both ways. That is, positively and negatively.
If science is on the poverty line (several children and a huge mortgage) is it likely to produce good science? The
same could be said for several pints of beer or some other stimulation for conversation.
JoeBauwens10 October 2010 12:43PM
Missed the rally - I was there in spirit but the flu virus (which I suppose has a vested interest in cutting
science spending) got the better of me.
In case anybody does read this far down, 14% of the UK economy is dependent on Banking & the Financial
Sector, as opposed to 30% for science, technology & related fields. Deciding which to cut and which to support
shouldn't be rocket science.
Gyrold - I like your thinking, possibly we need a lot of Independent for Science candidates.
chunkylimey10 October 2010 7:57PM
@ACElliott
Did you get a response from John Leech by the way?
I've sent him 2 bits of correspondence about this and I've had no response at all.
This is annoying on 2 counts. Firstly I'm a paid up Liberal Democrat member (but not for long at this rate) and
secondly because South Manchester is very dependent on Science based jobs and Leech is clearly dropping the
ball on this issue.
paul12345610 October 2010 9:51PM
Cutting funding for fundamental contributors to economic growth such as science & engineering is idiotic.
Having said that, there are indeed some wasteful recipients of science e.g. guy on TV a few weeks ago
presenting his "revolutionary" research results on "why toast tastes good". Perhaps more investment should be
redirected towards the practical application of Science in Engineering.
I also say that there should be MUCH deeper and MUCH faster cuts to the truly wasteful "welfare" and NHS
budgets - so much is wasted in these areas that contribute little to economic growth.
iden1311 October 2010 1:39PM
@Canuteseait
What, specifically, do you consider to be 'results'?
Currently the UK punches well above its weight in terms of a money-spent:quality-of-research ratio. The
significant point made in Dr Evan Harris's letter is that the status-quo is not good enough and more money
needs to be invested; this being the case, in addition to the other points , how will a reduction in science
spending help the country?
On the other hand, you may just be a neoliberal troll - if so, don't worry about responding.

2010/10/08 CASE: NOBEL LAUREATES CALL

ON UK NOT TO ISOLATE ITSELF FROM RESEARCH
WORLD
By NICK HALL

CaSE has organised a letter published in yesterday’s Times newspaper opposing the
government’s proposed cap on non-EU migrants, signed by eight Nobel laureates including
the two Russian migrants who won the Nobel Prize for Physics this week, Professor
Andrew Geim and Professor Konstantin Novoselov. The letter received excellent coverage
on the front page of the paper, as well as receiving further exposure in the paper’s leader,
which called on the UK to maintain its excellence in scientific research, and a case study.

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The story also received coverage during Thursday’s edition of Question Time when an
audience member asked the panel what sort of immigration policy allows footballers into
the UK but not scientists and was met with rapturous applause.
As CaSE Director Imran Khan pointed in the previous day’s Times, the success of foreign
scientists like Professor Geim and Professor Novoselov “could be among the last of their
kind if the Government presses ahead with its plans to slash investment in science and
block talented non-EU migrants from coming here”.
Sir,
The UK has long had a reputation as a global centre of research excellence. It is not only
our world-class institutions, but also our inclusive culture which has attracted the world’s
best scientists to come and work here.
Nobel prize-winners in science — from America’s James Watson and Germany’s Hans
Krebs in years past, to India’s Venki Ramakrishnan and Russia’s Andre Geim (a
signatory to this letter) in the past twelve months — have been enriching and enhancing
British science and society for decades. They add to our store of knowledge, and inspire
countless young researchers to follow in their footsteps.
These benefits are jeopardised by the Government’s plan to cap migration to the UK. It
would damage our ability to recruit the brightest young talent, as well as distinguished
scientists, into our universities and industries. International collaborations underlie 40
per cent of the UK’s scientific output, but would become far more difficult if we were to
constrict our borders. The UK produces nearly 10 per cent of the world’s scientific output
with only 1 per cent of its population; we punch above our weight because we can engage
with excellence wherever it occurs.
The UK must not isolate itself from the increasingly globalised world of research —
British science depends on it. The Government has seen fit to introduce an exception to the
rules for Premier League footballers. It is a sad reflection of our priorities as a nation if
we cannot afford the same recognition for elite scientists and engineers.
Sir Paul Nurse
Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2001
Sir Martin Evans
Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2007
Andre Geim
Nobel Prize for Physics, 2010
Sir Tim Hunt
Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2001
Sir Harry Kroto
Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1996
Konstantin Novoselov
Nobel Prize for Physics, 2010
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Sir John Sulston
Nobel Prize for Medicine, 2002
Sir John Walker
Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 1997

2010/10/09 GUARDIAN MARTIN ROBBINS:

SCIENCE IS VITAL! FOLLOW LIVE AUDIO UPDATES
HERE

Listen to regular near-live audio updates from the Science is Vital rally today.

James O'Malley of The Pod Delusion fame will be be giving us live audio updates from the Science is
Vital protest at The Treasury today, including providing updates on what's happening, getting interviews
with key people there, and getting the reaction of the great unwashed. Keep this page in your browser this
afternoon and check regularly for updates!

More than 23,400 people have now signed the petition against science cuts. If you're not one of them,
then you're going to make science very unhappy, and when science gets unhappy then stuff breaks, like
the laws of physics, so sign it. Now.

2010/10/09 BBC NEWS: SCIENTISTS HOLD

PROTEST OVER BUDGET CUTS

More than 20,000 have signed a petition against any

funding cuts in the sector
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Hundreds of scientists have gathered outside the Treasury to protest against expected cuts to science
funding.

The rally was organised by the Science is Vital campaign, whose petition calling for no cuts to funding has
been signed by more than 20,000 people.

Speaking at the protest, the former head of the Medical Research Council, Professor Colin Blakemore, said
cuts would be "disastrous".

The government says science spending must stand up to "economic scrutiny".

The protest comes in advance of the coalition government's first comprehensive spending review, due on
20 October.

All Whitehall departments - with the exception of Health and International Development - face budget
reductions of up to 25% over four years as part of a £83bn cuts programme.

Prof Blakemore, who specialises in the development of the brain, said the £4bn science budget was "a lot
of money, but very small compared with most competitors.

'Innovation'

"We should be asking ourselves why it is that the United States, Germany, France, Sweden, Singapore -
countries that we have to compete with all around the world - are increasing their investment in science
now.

Demonstrators were asked to wear science items such as a

laboratory coat

"And the answer is obvious - because they see that science is the key to innovation. It's therefore the key
to the economy for the future. To cut science now would really be disastrous," he said.

Dr Jenny Rohn, from the University of London, said cutting science would be "shooting ourselves in the
foot".

"If you don't fund science, you're not fuelling the economy," she said.

The campaign is also supported by astronomer Sir Patrick Moore CBE.

Shadow business secretary John Denham said: "For two spending reviews Labour ring-fenced the science
budget as a key investment in Britain's economic growth.

"The coalition government needs to demonstrate that they understand just how important both
fundamental and applied research is to our future economic growth."

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said no details of proposed cuts to
science funding were available in advance of the spending review.

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But he added: "Public spending on science, just like everything else, has to stand up to rigorous economic
scrutiny.

"In these austere times, the public should expect nothing less."

2010/10/09 GUARDIAN: SCIENCE CUTS:

THOUSANDS SET TO PROTEST OUTSIDE TREASURY
Patrick Moore, Tanya Byron and Brian Cox to urge government to think again on cuts to funding for
scientists

Alok Jha

Patrick Moore: astronomer is

among several famous names who are angry about cuts to science funding. Photograph:
Fiona Hanson/PA
Thousands of people are expected to gather outside the Treasury in London today to protest
against proposed cuts to science funding.
Protesters will argue that science and engineering should not be a "soft touch" for cuts, but a
key part of the UK's plans to rebalance the economy and maintain intellectual excellence. The
demonstration is organised by the Science is Vital (SIV) campaign, whose supporters include
broadcasters Patrick Moore and Tanya Byron, Bad science columnist Ben Goldacre, Cern
physicist Brian Cox, several MPs and the president of the Royal Society, Martin Rees.
Cutting support for science, especially when other countries including the US, Germany, India
and China are raising their funding, would force Britain out of the premier league in many fields
of research, leading scientists have argued.
All government departments have been asked to prepare for cuts of 25% or more in their
budgets as part of the government's austerity drive. In 2008/09, the state supplied more than
£5bn for universities to carry out curiosity-driven science and up to £1bn could be wiped off
annual budgets if the proposed cuts go ahead in the comprehensive spending review later this
month.

Today's rally is being organised by the newly-formed Science is Vital(SIV) campaign group, a
coalition of research scientists, scientific institutions, teachers, writers and celebrities.

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Jenny Rohn, founder of SIV and a cell biologist at University College London, said the idea for
the campaign came after she heard business secretary Vince Cable's first speech on science,
delivered last month. Inthe speech, Cable called for scientists to do "more with less" and,
speaking on on Today program earlier that morning, mistakenly allegedthat 45% of UK
science was not of world-class quality. "I've been reluctant to get involved in politics in the
past, but it was essentially the last straw," said Rohn. "Scientists are the best possible
spokespeople for the fact that cutting funding for science, tech and innovation will actually
backfire economically."
So far, around 22,000 people have signed an online petition to protest cuts in scientific
research funding and Rohn expects several thousand people attend the rally at the today. "We
hope that by showing that scientists are not a soft touch, that there will be a political price to
pay if our message goes unheeded by the Treasury."
Many leading scientific organistions have pledged their support to the SIV campaign, including
Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust, Society for Biology and the Royal Astronomical
Society. "As well as scientists and engineers, we've had thousands of ordinary people – from
firefighters to teachers to poets and civil servants – signing," said Imran Khan, director of
the Campaign for Science and Engineering. "It's going to be a great mix of people from all
walks of life who realise that retreating into the past and cutting back our support for science
just isn't an option for the UK."
He added: "We're taking our rally direct to HM Treasury, and we want George Osborne to hear
our message. British science is a key part of our economy and needs to be supported if we
want the economy to grow. Everything we hear suggests that the budgets still haven't been
settled, so there's everything to play for. We need the government to realise just how many
people care about this issue."

The rally will be addressed by scientists and campaigners including the neuroscientist Colin
Blakemore, former Lib-Dem MP Evan Harris, science writer Simon Singh and doctor and writer
Ben Goldacre.

"Basic science forms the foundation of everything else that matters," said Khan. "Just look at
the [physics] Nobel prize winners Konstantin Novoselov and Andre Geim this week – their
work on graphene was blue-sky when they started, and now we hope it could revolutionise
materials science and lead to hundreds of applications."

2010/10/09 GUARDIAN SCIENCE BLOG:

SCIENCE IS VITAL

It's not a threat, it's not whining. We're scientists and we are reporting the facts

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The last time I went on a demo was more than twenty years ago. It was either poll tax or student grants
(remember those?). Probably there should have been others. Oh well.

This was for science. Being an evidence-based community, there is a degree of scepticism amongst
scientists about the practical benefits of demonstrating. In his speech, Dr. Evan Harris was eloquent about
the difference between an intellectual argument and a political one. He may not be able to sing, but he
does know some politics, and I buy it.

It is. You know it.

We have to tell the public and the politicians that the UK has something precious (as in valuable and
vulnerable) in its scientific capability, and in fact in its research and education more generally. And it is not
enough just to tell politicians behind closed doors. The public need to know and the politicians need to
know that the public know. Don't keep quiet. After all, we live in a democracy. And it beats living in caves.

Other countries are investing in research to get out of recession. If we don't, people will leave either Britain
or science or both. Britain is a great place, and I love science, so I don't want to do either of these things.
But as Ben Goldacre said at the demo, this is not a whine, it's not a threat. We are just reporting facts.
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It's sort of our job.

PS You can hear the speeches here.

2010/10/10 GREAT BEYOND NATURE:

BRITISH SCIENTISTS RALLY TO PROTEST FUNDING
CUTS - OCTOBER 10, 2010

Several hundred scientists and supporters of science gathered outside

the UK Treasury in London on Saturday afternoon to protest imminent cuts to government science funding - an
unusual move by a community that rarely takes to the streets to voice its displeasure.
The protest was organised by the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE) and Science is Vital, a
campaign group started about a month ago by University College London postdoctoral researcher Jennifer
Rohn in response to Business Secretary Vince Cable’s speech suggesting that around 45% of scientific research
is not of a sufficiently high standard to justify funding it in these tough economic times.
Rohn spoke to Nature earlier this week about their campaign.
Science funding is likely to be cut as part of the government’s comprehensive spending review, to be finalised
some time in the next few weeks. All departments will be expected to absorb cuts of up to 25% over the next
four years as the coalition looks to save £83 billion.
Evan Harris, who was Liberal Democrat science spokesman until he lost his seat at the last general election,
led the proceedings which included short speeches by Colin Blakemore, the ex-head of the Medical Research
Council, and science writers Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre, among others. Many of the protesters were
sporting their lab coats and the atmosphere remained upbeat throughout, despite Harris’ attempts to get the
crowd to join him in song.
The campaigners argue that scientific research represents a sound financial investment, and that cuts would
decimate British science, driving a generation of scientists abroad and scaring off those who might have
brought their expertise to the UK from other countries.
Their argument is compelling. As Blakemore says, many nations are increasing science funding as they look for
ways to boost faltering economies. China, Germany, France, Sweden and the United States are all spending
more on science despite the tough financial climate.

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The organisers said around 2,000 people attended the rally, and more than 25,000 people have signed Science
is Vital’s petition calling for science funding to be maintained, including many of the great and good of UK
science.
Disclaimer: Nature is a supporter of Science is Vital.

2010/10/10 THE INDEPENDENT: MARGARETA

PAGANO: THERE'S AN ART TO FUNDING SCIENCE
AFTER THE CUTS
And the Rolls-Royce prize points the way

Sir John Rose will present his seventh and last Science Prize as chief executive of Rolls-Royce tomorrow
night when he hosts one of the year's most interesting events at London's Science Museum.

Nine schools have been chosen by Rolls-Royce to share the £120,000 prize which they will spend on
experiments ranging from the chemistry of the solar system to building a hydroponic greenhouse. Sir
John's scheme may be tiny, grass-roots stuff, but it's a perfect example of how private-sector philanthropy
works together with the state. More pertinently, it provides a foretaste of how academia will have to pay
its way when the government's £6bn science funding is cut by the forecast 15 per cent. It takes a lot to get
academics worked up but this weekend they plan marches and petitions, while eight Nobel laureates were
angry enough to write to newspapers arguing that the cuts (along with the immigration cap) will devastate
the UK's research and jeopardise growth.

But is this true? Should science be more exempt than the arts or, indeed, couples being denied child
benefit? And will British growth really be hurt by these cuts? To answer the first question, if the
Comprehensive Spending Review is to be fair, surely it has to be comprehensive. But, while supporting
scientific research is important to future economic growth, it isn't necessarily true that it can only be done
efficiently with the taxpayers' money.

Take microfinancing, or "crowd-funding" as it's known in the US. Cuts to US government funding three
years ago were the catalyst to this kind of donating, whereby Joe Public gives small contributions to
research projects chosen by scientists. These are peer-reviewed, and put online for donors to choose from,
with a research log kept to inform them of progress. Researchers retain ownership and intellectual rights,
so it's commercial too. Whether this catches on more in the UK, though, will be a moot point as Americans
give about four times more than Brits to charity.

Philanthropy is leading the pack in another way. According to Chemistry World, science funding by
philanthropists is more flexible and productive than state-funded research because it's tied neither to the
public purse nor to public opinion. It's a view backed by a fascinating report from the Royal Society, The
Scientific Century, which demonstrated that putting money behind scientists rather than pre-destined
projects is far more blue-sky, as brilliant discoveries or inventions are so often serendipitous. Indeed, the
UK's biggest science-to-medical charity, the Wellcome Trust, now awards grants, or investigator awards, to
brainy individuals rather than to projects because it accepts that following the genius of the scientists –
giving them the freedom to switch in and out of their research – is the real issue. Think Teflon, penicillin, X-
rays, gelignite, cornflakes, Viagra and microwaves – a few brilliant mistakes from our greatest minds.

While there will be gaps that philanthropy can't fill, they may not be too devastating if we balance carefully
the alternatives; as Louis Pasteur said: "In the fields of observation, chance favours only the prepared
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mind." Who knows, those schoolchildren chosen by Rolls-Royce now may well be the ones making the
most wonderful mistakes in the future.

Money bags: A swinging profit for Mulberry

What women have in their handbags is a mystery to most men but why (and how) women buy such
exorbitantly expensive bags is to me the even bigger mystery. The Somerset-based Mulberry handbag
company defied gravity yet again last week to reveal that even more women are buying even more of their
bags, which start at around £500 and soar upwards. Sales were up 70 per cent in the past 10 weeks, and,
no surprise, most of the buying is in the Far East. Analysts sharpened their pencils – looking for £13m
profits next year. Shares, at 465p, are tipped to fly even higher. Time to tuck some away in those
cavernous handbags, girls? Any old brand will do.

Cameron's conference speech had a banker-sized hole in it. Now, why was that?

There was one glaring omission in David Cameron's conference speech which I've been puzzling about all
week. If he wants the broadest shoulders in society to share the burden of cutting the deficit, then why
didn't he mention the broadest of all; the deltoids of our masters of the universe – the bankers?

His speech referred to the banks once, and that was in relation to getting them lending. There was nothing
about pay or, more importantly, structural reform of the banking industry.

We've already had early estimates that some £7bn will be paid to the City's finest in bonuses for 2010.
Bonus packages are not decided until the end of the year, but it can't be long till stories start appearing
about the millions of pounds going to Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays bankers et al. In terms of timing,
it couldn't be worse. In two weeks, the full fall-out from the Comprehensive Spending Review will be giving
the unions and opposition leaders free reign to run amok; one law for the public sector and one for the
bankers?

Cameron and George Osborne made a terrible error in announcing the child benefit cuts at conference (a
good enough reason why policy statements should always be made in Parliament for full scrutiny). But I
don't believe either of them is so foolish as to fail to anticipate an outcry over bankers's pay. After all, it
was the Chancellor who beat the populist drum this time last year. Can you imagine what the reaction will
be if state-owned RBS reveals it has paid 100 staff a million or more each? No. That's why I think that either
Cameron is planning something big to hit the bankers with; or he knew the Europeans were doing his dirty
work for him, as we saw on Friday when the EU unveiled a bonus cap, setting a 30 per cent limit on the
amount of cash received upfront. Much fiercer than our own 50 per cent. Very handy, those Europeans.

2010/10/10 TELEGRAPH: SCIENCE FUNDING

CUTS WILL COST UK ECONOMY BILLIONS
Cuts to scientific research funding could cost the UK economy up to £10 billion, a hard hitting report due to
be published later this week is expected to reveal.

By Richard Gray, Science Correspondent

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Scientists have warned that such drastic cuts would mean 'game over' for British science Photo: ALAMY

The report, which has been drawn up by the UK's seven research councils that are responsible for
distributing government funding for research, will set out a robust case against proposed cuts to the
country's science and technology budgets.

All government departments have been warned they should prepare for cuts of more than 25 per cent in
their budgets under the comprehensive spending review, which is due to be published later this month.

Scientists have warned, however, that such drastic cuts would mean "game over" for British science.
Currently the country has a research budget of around £6 billion.

The forthcoming report from Research Councils UK will warn that a cut in £1 billion in the amount of
funding they can provide for scientific research would lead to a fall in GDP of more than £10 billion.

It will argue that public investment in scientific research is essential to ensure that long-term productivity
and breakthroughs continue. It will also say that without publicly funded research, private research and
development could also dry up as companies will simply move to countries where they can still work with
academics.

It will say: "Science is important for innovation and productivity not just for pushing forward the
technological frontier.

"Universities at the research frontier have a second core 'product', namely highly trained people, an
essential resource for UK companies and foreign companies investing in the UK.

"Continued public investment in scientific endeavour is essential for the success of UK business and
industry and, more broadly, for a productive economy, a healthy society and a sustainable world."

Publication of the report come in the same week as David Willetts, the minister for university and science,
appears before the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee for questioning about the cuts after
they wrote to him setting out their concern.

Leading UK universities also claim they are already falling behind their competitors abroad in being able to
attract the best scientific researchers and further cuts in funding are likely to see them losing out further
on the brightest scientific minds.

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Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society, said: "Science is one of the few areas where the UK has a
genuine economic competitive advantage. It makes no sense to cut investment when France, Germany,
the US, China and many others are investing in science as the best hope of long term economic growth.

"Just this week two Russian scientists, working in the UK for the last ten years, won Nobel Prizes. Would
they have chosen the UK today, when cuts are threatened?"

Dr Robert Kirby-Harris, chief executive at the Institute of Physics, added: "This report is coming out at a
crucial time and The Treasury needs to take note.

"Today, the UK physics base is in good health, delivering a Nobel Prize this week for an innovation that is
forecast to make billions, but funding needs to be sustained or damage will be done that could hamper the
UK economy irrecoverably."

2010/10/11 FORBES: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN

GOVERNMENTS STRANGLE SCIENCE?
Parmy Olson

The Science is Vital rally in London on Saturday; Image by ShaneMcC via Flickr

Scientists are not the kinds of people you’d normally find at a demonstration, hoisting signs above their
heads and generally being rebellious, but when their funding is at stake they’re damned if they don’t make
a mean placard. “No More Dr. Nice Guy,” read one white sign in perfectly-spaced font at a
demonstration by 2,000 scientists and supporters in London on Saturday. With little evidence to show that
demonstrations generally have much of an effect on policy, this must have been a big deal.

It was. Scientists in Britain are getting twitchy about government plans to cut funding for research and
development–not only will it affect their livelihoods, it could hurt the economy and future innovation. The
campaign Science Is Vital was started by University College London professor Jennifer Rohn after
she blogged that her fellow scientists should stop with the hand-wringing and take action against the
inevitable cuts. They’ve collected around 26,000 signatures.

Sadly, it is probable they won’t get the concessions they want. Under new spending plans to be announced
next week, all government departments in Britain, except the National Health Service, must find savings of
25-45%. On Monday and possibly in response to Saturday’s demonstration, a cabinet minister in charge of
transport (possibly the one who one drew the shortest straw to make such an unpopular announcement)
said the government would not bow to public pressure and would sally forth with cuts to all proposed
departments.

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But science really is special. Cutting funds to science and engineering research risks strangling the lifeblood
of future contributions to long-term economic growth. They are risks that are, frustratingly, difficult to
quantify in today’s service-based economy—after all, how can you show what innovations “won’t” be
discovered because of a lack of funds? But scientists know in their bones the risks are there if they don’t
get the money.

There are some statistics to make their case: for every £1 spent on public or charitable research, gross
domestic product gets a 30 pence return in perpetuity on top of any other direct gains from the research,
according one 2008 medical study cited by Science is Vital.

There’s also Britain’s image. Sure it has acclaimed universities like Oxford and Cambridge, along with two
Nobel physics prize winners last week who came from the University of Manchester. But a dent to that
reputation could stifle investment from overseas, especially when other countries like the United States,
France and Germany are boosting funds to their science and engineering sectors.

And funding for academic research is already being squeezed here. A PhD student at one of Britain’s top
universities tells me that for the first time in several years there are a little over half the usual number of
people on their course. The reason: big public and private sector cuts to the Medical Research
Council means that funding for studentships at that university’s research center have dropped.

“Everyone is feeling really uncomfortable,” said the PhD student. “The teachers don’t talk about it directly
but I think they are trying to insulate us from it. It is really disheartening being a student and thinking there
is no future. What is the point of me doing what I’m doing now if there are no jobs out there when I
finish?”

One other problem: if the U.K. government does close off the taps to science, it can’t just turn them on
again a few years later expecting innovation to accelerate to the rate it once held. Former Science Minister
Lord Waldegrave puts it thusly: “If we cut science now, just as the benefits of nearly twenty years of
consistent policy are really beginning to bear fruit, we will seriously damage our economic prospects.”

Saturday’s demonstration by scientists may have just been one of hundreds taking place across Europe
recently as other countries in the region struggle to tackle their inflated budget deficits. But while it is
unpopular for a government to cut public funding – and even more so to favor certain sectors over
others—they know long term it is the smart thing to do. Smarter still would be to make those cuts
selectively.

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 2010/10/11 PHYSICS WORLD: SCIENTISTS
MARCH ON THE TREASURY

Scientists protest against impending cuts to the UK science budget

By Leila Sattary

On Saturday I joined more than 2000 scientists who gathered outside the UK Treasury in Westminster to
attend the Science is Vital rally to protest against the expected cuts to the UK science budget.

I was one of the thousands of lab-coat-wearing protesters cheering and chanting below UK chancellor
George Osbourne’s window as he worked on the figures for the impending Comprehensive Spending
Review, which is due to be published next week and set department budgets for the next four years.

It is unnatural for scientists to gather to talk about money, of all things, but that just shows the worry they
feel about the likely spending cuts to the UK science budget. Politicians should recognize how very unusual
it is for scientists to come out of the lab and on to the street to protest.

While many of the protesters who attended the rally were young scientists, obviously worried about their
future careers in science in the UK, it was clear to me that most people were there because they are
fundamentally concerned about the future wellbeing of our country and how the UK could fall without
sustained funding for science.

Science is Vital was started by cell biologist Jenny Rohn. In a few short weeks, with the help of Facebook
and Twitter, word had spread that scientists were mobilizing to support the future of science funding in
the UK. In addition to the rally, Science is Vital has also organized a petition, which now has more than
25,000 signatures and will be presented to Parliament on Tuesday.

Evan Harris, a Liberal Democrat and science supporter, acted as coordinator and rustled the group of geeks
into something that almost resembled a protest mob chanting “Hey, Osbourne, leave our labs alone.” He
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might not be much of a singer, but Evan certainly understands what makes politicians tick. Despite our
attempts at chanting and being an angry horde the atmosphere was good spirited and festival-like with just
as much laughing at nerd jokes as protesting.

Speakers at the rally included Colin Blakemore, former chief executive of the Medical Research Council,
Imran Khan, director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering and Ben Goldacre,Guardian columnist
and author of Bad Science.

Mark Miodownik, head of the Material Research Group at Kings College London, who is giving this year’s
Royal Institution Christmas lectures also spoke and reminded scientists to stick together. He told us that in
our fight against funding cuts we should avoid being divided by scientific faction by the desire to protect
our own subject area, and instead work together to give a strong and unified message to government.

Overall, scientists were not whining and not threatening; in typical scientific style, they were stating the
facts – science is vital.

Leila Sattary a projects officer at the Univeristy of Oxford and a freelance writer

Evan Harris rallies the troops

Posted by Michael Banks on Oc

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 2010/10/11 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CHEMISTRY:
SCIENTISTS PROTEST AGAINST PLANNED FUNDING
CUTS
Two thousand people joined a rally outside the UK Treasury on Saturday to protest against the
government's plans to slash research funding as part of measures to cut the budget deficit.

The demonstration was organised by campaign group Science is Vital, established just one month ago in
response to a comment by business secretary Vince Cable that 45 per cent of research grants in the UK
went to research that was not considered 'excellent'. He said the the bar would have to be raised as
budgets were squeezed.

The rally drew 2000 protesters

'He got his sums wrong for a start,' says former research scientist Richard Grant of Science is Vital. 'He
misread the data - most of British science is of international quality. We are already doing a lot with our
funding, far more than any other country when you look at how many scientists we've got and how many
papers we publish.'

Over 25,000 people have now signed the Science is vital petition, calling on the government not to reduce
science funding as a result of the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), which in a week and a half's time
will reveal the government's spending plans for the next four years. While Cable has previously dismissed
suggestions that the research budget could be cut by 35 per cent as 'way in excess' of figures being
discussed, all government departments have been warned to prepare for cuts of 25 per cent.

'Cutting funding to science will backfire because it is precisely the research we do, the development, the
innovation and the tech, that fuels the economy,' said Jenny Rohn, a cell biologist at University College
London, UK, whose blog post in response to Cable's comments planted the seed that grew into the Science
is Vital campaign. 'We can't just hide in our labs any more. We want to send a message to politicians that if
they persist in their idea of dismantling UK science there will be a political price to pay.'

A case of 'special pleading'?

With the British economy in a frail state, claiming that scientific research should escape the CSR
unscathed could be seen as unrealistic and narrow minded: if science is protected, other budgets will be
forced to take a greater hit. 'Scientists are just like everyone else - we want good public schools, we want
good hospitals,' says director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, Imran Khan. 'But we know that

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if the UK wants to get there it's not going to do it by competing on cheap labour or digging more things out
of the ground. It has to be a high-tech, modern economy that's forward looking.'

Cutting the science budget now will force talented young researchers to look for jobs elsewhere in the
world says Khan, in countries like the US, Germany or China whose governments are investing heavily in
science. 'By the time the government realises just how bad it is five years down the line, it's going to be too
late - it's going to be really hard to bring that talent back and reinvigorate our science base.'

A view from the lab

'In the case of universities they're even talking about 75 per cent off our teaching budgets - there is no way
we can survive that,' says Andrea Sella, a lecturer in inorganic chemistry at University College London, UK,
who came to the UK in 1986 after studying at the University of Toronto in Canada. 'All the evidence shows
that UK science is amongst the most efficient in the world, so the idea that we're going to be able to salami
slice ad infinitum doesn't wash.'

Researchers in university departments already have very little administrative support, says Sella, so the
idea that there is a significant amount of fat that can be trimmed is misguided.

'People are really scared,' says Science is Vital's Grant. 'If you close a thousand university departments
you're going to have tens of thousands of people out of a job. We've only just got science funding levels
from the government back up to the level they were in 1986 and people are worried - they're looking to
move abroad, they're looking at other careers.'

Put it this way, I'm moving to Japan

After completing her PhD in Bristol last year, Zoe Schnepp moved to Germany to take up a
placement at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam where she's
researching simple synthetic routes to make complex metal nitrides and carbides.

She says the opportunities in Germany are very good, and it wasn't hard to find a position.
'With the situation in the UK descending rapidly, a lot of people advised me that if I do ever
want a long-term position in the UK I need to have the best possible CV, and in science
one of the best ways of doing that is to travel to other institutions in other countries.'

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 Initially her plan was to only spend a year or so in Germany, but the situation in the UK has
made her reconsider her options. 'Put it this way - I'm moving to Japan next year,' she says.
'It's pretty bleak. Actually applying for a position in the UK at the moment is impossible.
There are adverts for PhDs and postdocs, but there are no permanent positions - you can't
do a postdoc indefinitely if you want to have a long-term career in science.'

Schnepp supports the aims of the Science is Vital campaign, and says it's important that
the UK retains its position at the top of the global research base. 'I'm early in my career, but
I've worked in Germany, the US and the UK, and UK science has a really good reputation
with a really nice combination of creativity, expertise and excellence. It would be a real
shame if people started to move overseas and the UK lost a lot of that excellence.'

Too little too late?

In a 2004 report that set out the government's 10-year plan for science and innovation, the Treasury
highlighted the 'direct benefits to the economy as a whole and to firms individually' to be gained from
investment in science, and emphasised that 'high quality research and personnel in the UK science base
must be maintained'. It also explicitly noted that the UK achieves 'excellent research performance' with
relatively low input, generating a large number of PhDs and significant research and
development activities.

The government currently distributes around £4 billion in science funding, a figure that looks set to be
revised sharply downwards if Cable's suggested cuts materialise as feared. But with less than two weeks
until the CSR sets out the four-year spending plans, chancellor George Osborne and Cable are reportedly
still battling over the science budget, giving the protesters hope that their campaign could yet have an
impact.

'One of the characteristics of 21st century politics is the idea that it's enough to go online and simply sign a
petition and somehow you've helped with world hunger or you've defeated climate change,' says Sella.
'That's ridiculous - people have to get out there, stand up and be counted.'

It's a sentiment echoed by Grant: 'This is the first major demonstration there has been about funding cuts.
We think we can make a difference - we wouldn't be here if we didn't.'

Anna Lewcock

2010/10/11 TELEGRAPH: GOVERNMENT CUTS

'WILL TRIGGER BRAIN DRAIN'
Britain faces a brain drain of scientific talent because of proposed cuts to budgets, it has been disclosed.

By Peter Hutchison

Scientists at some of the country's leading institutions say they are preparing to move to better funded
research positions abroad.

Last week, leading vice-chancellors warned that Britain was in danger of losing its position at the top of the
medical research league if the Government cuts budgets in the Comprehensive Spending Review. An
investigation by The Guardian has found that leading researchers, including an Oxford professor of physics
and a stem cell researcher seeking a cure for the commonest form of blindness, are poised to go abroad.

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Professor Brian Foster, a particle physicist at Oxford, said he had been offered a professorship at Hamburg
University and was likely to move most of his research to Germany.

Dr Carlos Gias, a stem cell researcher at University College London, has decided to move either to
Singapore or the US. Dr Gias, whose research is focused on a form of blindness called age-related macular
degeneration, told the paper that people in his department had been leaving for Singapore after failing to
find jobs in Britain.

"It's not been just one or two *but+ several of them, and *in Singapore+ … they don't have any problems of
funding," he said.

Last week, scientists said Britain's world-leading position in stem cell research faced major problems if cuts
were too deep. Sir Richard Sykes, the chairman of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, said: "The UK is without
doubt a leader in stem cell research. We need to translate and commercialise stem cell therapies, or
scientists will move away.

"I believe that the UK's position is under threat at the moment because there is a funding gap which is
currently filled elsewhere by private and government funding."

At a Science Media Centre and Campaign for Science and Engineering meeting last Friday, the heads of five
universities and the Royal Society said Britain would lose its position at the top of world research if the cuts
announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review later this month are too great.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has said the Government will cut its £6 billion-a-year research budget
and strip out "mediocrity", with only top-flight work attracting funding.

2010/10/11 TELEGRAPH: SPENDING REVIEW:

GOVERNMENT EXPLORES BUSINESS INCUBATOR
GROWTH HUBS
A national network of state-supported business incubator growth hubs is one idea designed to stimulate
economic growth being considered by the Business Department ahead of Whitehall spending cuts

By Richard Tyler

A column of cool molecular hydrogen gas and dust that is an incubator for new stars, as recorded by the
Hubble telescope Photo: JEFF HESTER/PAUL SCOWEN (ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY)/ NASA

Government officials are sounding out business groups about the launch of "growth hubs" ahead of
swingeing cuts to direct business support.
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Whitehall Department's are braced for the loss of up to 40pc of their budgets in the spending review to be
announced on October 20 and will take a knife to discretionary spending on business support.

Business Department officials are preparing cost effective schemes that ministers can launch after the
spending review.

One is to back a more coherent national chain of "growth hubs", either existing clusters of businesses,
based around a university or incubation centre, or in areas of the country where the provision of
subsidised office space and infrastructure could stimulate more economic activity.

There are around 300 incubators in the UK, directly supporting in excess of 12,000 businesses, according to
the UK Business Incubation association.

Some, like BioCity in Nottingham, which houses 70 young science-based companies, has become self-
financing after receiving some initial public development funding. Others, however, remain reliant on
grants for a proportion of their income and to provide support services.

One source said: "These growth hubs have to create value and what really has value is the quality of the
support that goes on around it."

The Business Department is already funding the trial of new regional 'knowledge hubs' in Newcastle, based
on the British Library's Business and Intellectual Property centre, which is widely credited as successful
example of publicly-funded support.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, has also confirmed that he will create a new generation of corporate
research labs, with "long term" funding on the model of the industry focused Fraunhofer institutes in
Germany.

In a speech in Scotland last week, Dr Cable said the UK had some existing infrastructure like the Advanced
Manufacturing Centre in Sheffield but the approach to the commercialisation of scientific research was
"too scattered, too piecemeal and with none of the long term funding that leads to industrial confidence".

He added: "I am planning to rationalise this into what I like to call Hauser centres, building on the
recommendations of the great inventor-entrepreneur Herman Hauser [the Amadeus Capital co-founder]."

Business groups anticipate significant cuts to business support across Whitehall, including at the Treasury.

Across government direct business support spending amounts to £5.4bn a year, according to research by
Pricewaterhouse Coopers, of which £1bn is spent by local government.

Some £2.6bn of the total goes on employment initiatives and £2.7bn on a multitude of enterprise schemes,
delivered by around 2,000 different organisations. On top of that the Treasury hands out £4bn a year in tax
breaks to encourage business growth and investment.

The Business department's spending on economic development only represents 3.4pc of Whitehall's total.
Its largest funding streams are not directly to business but for adult education and science research.

The Federation of Small Businesses has already said some £2bn spent on support could be reduced to
£500m without causing the economy much pain as long as the remaining money was focused on helping
firms with fewer than 10 staff to grow.

The British Chambers of Commerce has told the Treasury there should be "proper economic evaluation" of
the impact of existing tax allowances and reliefs before any cuts are made.

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One key theme emerging is that as budgets for subsidised business training schemes are reduced, the
private sector will be told it should pay more for services that it values.

The EEF, representing manufacturers, has called on the Manufacturing Advice Service to reduce the cost of
providing "basic business improvement" support and accepting the need to charge companies more for its
bespoke consultancy services.

2010/10/11 S WORD: HEY! OSBORNE! LEAVE

OUR GEEKS ALONE

Rowan Hooper, news editor

As passionate protests against government go, it was amazingly good-natured, even carnival-like.

On Saturday some 2000 scientists gathered outside the UK Treasury in London to protest atplanned cuts in
government science funding, and in particular, at chancellor George Osborne. Many protesters wore white
lab coats and brandished placards bearing slogans such as "No More Dr Nice Guy" and "Science - it beats
living in a cave".

The highlight of the afternoon had to be former MP and Liberal Democrat science spokesman Evan Harris,
backed by a quartet calling themselves the Science Supremes, singing "Hey Osborne, we wanna know if
you'll fund our work," to the tune of Bruce Channel's Hey! Baby:

According to a Press Association write-up, when the crowd chanted "Hey! Osborne! Leave our geeks alone"
to the tune of Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall (Part II), "a solitary figure watching from inside the
Treasury" applauded.

Was it Osborne himself? Comedian Dean Burnett took the podium and doubted if the chancellor really was
at work: "I don't see a giant burning eye in the window", he told the crowd.

But although the protest was carnival-like, the prospect of the planned cuts is grim. Martin Rees, the
president of the Royal Society, has said that 20 per cent cuts would be a "game over" scenario and would
cause irreversible destruction.

The protest was organised by Science is Vital, a campaign started by University College London
researcher Jennifer Rohn which has accumulated huge support - at the time of posting this blog, more than
26,000 people had signed a petition. The next stage is to lobby Parliamentitself tomorrow.

Speakers at the rally included Imran Khan, the director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, New
Scientist consultant and founder of the Science Party, Michael Brooks, and the former head of the Medical
Research Council, Colin Blakemore, among others.

When Blakemore took to the podium, he reminded everyone of the seriousness of the threat to science in
the UK.

"We should be asking ourselves why it is that the United States, Germany, France, Sweden, Singapore -
countries that we have to compete with all around the world - are increasing their investment in science

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now. The answer is obvious - because they see that science is the key to innovation. It's therefore the key
to the economy for the future. To cut science now would really be disastrous."

You can listen to the speeches here, courtesy of the Pod Delusion.

2010/10/11 BINOCULAR VISION: WHY

SCIENCE IS VITAL
Posted by Stephen Moss

On Saturday 9th October I was one of the many hundreds (or thousands according to the police) of science
supporters at the Science is Vital rally at the UK Treasury, the aim of which was to impress on Government
the importance of investment in science and the futility of cutting the science budget. I was inspired to be
there not just by the remarkable driving force known as Jenny Rohn, but also by science minister David
Willetts, whose maiden speech I had attended at the Royal Institution. Two aspects of Mr Willetts speech
alarmed me, firstly his proposal that the UK need not be world leaders in science but instead simply
capitalize on the discoveries of others, and second, the utterly fallacious argument that Britain cannot
afford to increase or even maintain science funding. Science returns far more to the economy than it
receives, so no matter how dire the UK economy, simple logic will tell you that you can't save money by
cutting funding for an activity that pays for itself.

I owe both my livelihood and my life to science, so I had good reason to be there. Earlier this year I had
open-heart surgery to correct a leaky mitral valve, and within a few weeks I was back on my bike and
cycling to work again. The defect first emerged on an electrocardiogram, invented by British scientist
Alexander Muirhead, and during the operation I benefited from the work of chemists, such as Britons
James Simpson and John Snow who discovered anaesthetics, the engineers and physicists who invented
the monitoring and by-pass equipment, and the UK physiologists who more recently pioneered research
into the cardioprotective effects of ischaemic preconditioning. Thanks to science, my week in hospital
turned out to be nothing short of uneventful. And to further counter Willetts' feeble capitulation that we
don't need to take the lead in science, I should mention the late Sir James Black, UK scientist and Nobel
laureate, who discovered the beta-blockers that every day ensure my heart beats to an even rhythm.

There are powerful philosophical and cultural reasons why science is vital, but even for a government
interested only in the prosaic justification of economics, the case for funding science is persuasive. The
force of the argument is compelling, it continues to gather momentum, and I look forward to doing a little
bit more tomorrow when the campaign moves to lobby Parliament.
4 COMMENTS
Excellent post. Many of us, like you, have good reason to be grateful to long ago, or not so long ago, scientific
researchers for similar reasons.
It is a pity that the national newspapers don't carry daily features like your blog posts, instead of filling their
pages with "stories" (press releases) about tv "personalities" and people famous for wearing unusual clothes, or
falling over, or something equally banal.
Posted by: Maxine Clarke Oct 11, 2010 4:05 PM
Very well said, Stephen. Glad to hear the post-op recovery was uneventful.
Of course, for those who need valve replacements there are also all the scientists who helped us understand
the immune system and tissue rejection (pig valves are treated chemically in various ways to remove antigens
and thus minimize the rejection risk)... and for valve replacement patients on warfarin (often used to reduce
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the risk of clot formation on synthetic replacement valves) there is also all our knowledge of blood clotting and
how to manipulate it therapeutically.
Also serving, I think, as another example of the "Comroe & Dripps" analysis in action.
Posted by: Austin Elliott Oct 11, 2010 4:34 PM
I agree completely with Maxine and Austin. This is a very well-written post. The reasoning of Mr. Willetts is
quite strange, in fact, strangely myopic, and reeks of ignorance, if I may be so bold as to say. Science is not
merely a tool, to be used and discarded after use. Science represents an important part of the fundamental
human spirit of enquiry; scientific research leads to knowledge, enlightenment and progress of humankind. For a
'Science Minister' not to understand that fact is utterly contemptible.
I don't know if you happen to be a Harry Potter aficionado, Stephen, but the actions of your Minister of
Science is very reminiscent of those of the 'Minister of Magic' in the series of books. The Minister was
strangely obdurate in not recognizing (and in fact, refusing to accept for the longest time) the fact that the
Dark Lord, Voldemort, had returned to power - posing a grave danger to the entire wizarding world, as well as
muggles. Simply replace "Voldemort's return to power" with "proposed steep budget cuts in Science and
scientific research", et voilà! Life imitates Art!
Posted by: Kausik Datta Oct 11, 2010 5:55 PM
Thanks for the positive comments, of course it's difficult to find a dissenting voice among scientists when it
comes to arguing the case for the science budget. But the parallels of the current crisis with events in the
wizarding world had quite escaped me - perhaps George Osborne is destined to become known as 'he who must
not be named'.
Posted by: Stephen Moss Oct 11, 2010 10:27 PM

2010/10/11 LABOUR: LABOUR'S NEW FRONT

BENCH TEAM

Leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, has promoted a new generation of Labour MPs to
prominent positions in his shadow front bench team (full listing below).

Ed Miliband and his shadow cabinet will be joined by new MPs such as Rachel Reeves, Johnny Reynolds, Tom
Greatrex, Michael Dugher, Luciana Berger, Gloria De Piero and Gemma Doyle. The frontbench line-up also has
roles for longer-serving PLP members such as Wayne David, Andy Slaughter, Karen Buck and Alison Sebeck.

Chuka Umunna and Anne McGuire have also been appointed as PPS to Ed Miliband, combining new and
established talent in the Leader’s team.

Ed Miliband, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

"I am delighted with Labour's front bench team. I am particularly pleased that I could bring in a new generation of
talent, whilst also using the experience of a broad range of Labour MPs. This is a team from all parts of the
party, which will robustly hold the coalition government to account"
The Shadow Cabinet

Leader of the Opposition

Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP

Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP

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Department for Education
Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Election Coordinator
Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP

Kevin Brennan MP

Sharon Hodgson MP

Iain Wright MP

Toby Perkins MP

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills
Rt Hon John Denham MP

Gareth Thomas MP

Ian Lucas MP

Gordon Banks MP

Gordon Marsden MP

Nia Griffith MP

Chi Onwurah MP

Department of Health
Shadow Secretary of State for Health
Rt Hon John Healey MP
Shadow Minister (Public Health)
Diane Abbott MP

Emily Thornberry MP

Derek Twigg MP

Liz Kendall MP

Department for Energy and Climate Change

Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change
Meg Hillier MP

Huw Irranca-Davies

Luciana Berger MP

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2010/10/12 DC‟S IMPROBABLE SCIENCE: HOW
TO SAVE BRITISH SCIENCE AND IMPROVE
EDUCATION
The proposals made here are intended to improve postgraduate education with little harm to
undergraduate education and no extra cost. It is not intended to get the government off the hook when it
comes to funding of either teaching or research. The recent Royal Society report,The Scientific Century:
securing our future prosperity, makes it very clear that research funding in the UK is already low.

There is a good summary of the financial case atScience is Vital. Even before cuts
the UK invested only 1.8% of its GDP in R&D in 2007. This is short of the UK’s own
target of 2.5%, and further behind the EU target of 3.8%. If you haven’t
already, sign their petition.

The article reproduced here is the original 800-word version of proposals made already on this blog.

It was published today in The Times, in a 500 word version that was skilfully shortened by Times journalist,
Robbie Millen. It made the Thunderer column (page 22) It was written before I had seen the Browne report
on University finance, Comments on that will be added in the follow-up.

HONOURS DEGREES HAVE HAD THEIR DAY

Universities have problems. The competition for research money is already intense in the extreme, and
many excellent research applications get turned down. Vice-chancellors want students to pay huge fees.
A financial crisis looms. It is time for a rethink the entire university system.

The traditional honours degree has had its day

The UK’s honours degree system is a relic left over from the time when a tiny fraction of the population
went to university. The aim is now for half the population to get some sort of higher education, and the
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old system doesn’t work. It tries to get children from school to the level where they can start research in
only three years. Even in its heyday it often failed to do that. Now teachers in vastly bigger third year
classes try to teach quite advanced stuff to students most of whom have long since decided that they don’t
want to do research. It’s just as well they decided that, because academia doesn’t have jobs for half the
population.

The research funding system is strained to breaking point

Vince Cable’s cockup over the amount of money spent on mediocre science has long since been corrected
But despite the intense competition for research funds, anyone who listens to Radio 4’s Today Programme
(I do), or reads the Daily Mail (I don’t) might get the impression that some pretty trivial research gets
published. One reason for this is that science reporters always prefer the simple and trivial to basic
research. But another reason is that the system places enormous pressure to publish vast amounts.
Quantity matters more than quality. The Research Assessment Exercise determines the funds that a
university gets from government, and although started with the best of intentions, it has done more to
reduce the quality of research than any other single change in the last 20 years.

Promotion in universities is dependent on publication, and so is university funding. Since 1992, when John
Major’s government converted polytechnics into universities at a stroke of the pen, their staff too have
been expected to publish to be promoted. We need a lot of teachers to cope with 50 percent of the
population, but there just aren’t enough good researchers to go round. It is a truth universally
acknowledged that advanced teaching should be done by people who are themselves doing research, but
the numbers don’t add up. So what can be done?

Another way to organise higher education

The first essential is to abolish the honours degree (cue howls of outrage from the deeply conservative
vice-chancellors). It is simply too specialist for an age of mass education. Rather, there should be more
general first degrees. They should still, by and large, aim to produce critical thinking rather than being
vocational, but cover a wider range of subjects to a lower level,

If this were done, the necessity to have the first degrees taught by active researchers would decrease.
Many of them could be taught in ‘teaching only’ institutions. They could do it more cheaply too, if their
staff were not under pressure to publish papers constantly. It would take fewer people and less space. It
isn’t ideal, but I see no other way to increase the numbers in higher education without spending much
more than we do now.

After the first degree, that modest fraction of students who had the ability and desire to get more
specialist knowledge would go to graduate school. There they could be taught at a rather higher level than
the present third year of an honours degree, and be prepared for research, if that is what they wanted to
do.

Hang on though, isn’t it the case that UK Universities already have graduate schools? Yes, but they are
largely offshoots of HR that provide courses in advanced powerpoint and life-style psychobabble. Vast
amounts of money have been wasted in the “Roberts Agenda”. What we need is real graduate schools
that teach advanced stuff. Education not training.

There is another problem. It is very hard now for anyone in research to find time to think about their
subject. Most of their time is occupied writing grant applications (with 15% chance of success), churning
out trivial papers and teaching. If much of the lower level undergraduate teaching were to be done, more
cheaply, in places that did little or no research, the saving would, with luck, fund the extra year for the
minority who go on the graduate school. The research intensive universities would do less undergraduate

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teaching. Their staff would have more time to do research and teach the graduate school. They would turn
into something more like Institutes of Advanced Studies.

A lot of details would have to be worked out, and it isn’t ideal, just the least bad solution I can think of. It
has not escaped my attention that this system has some resemblance to that in the USA. The USA does
rather well in science. Perhaps we should try it.

What we should not copy is the high fees charged in the USA. Education is a public good, and the costs
should be met by people paying according to their means. I think that is called income tax.

FOLLOW-UP

The Browne report is a retrogressive disaster

As I understand it. the recommendations not only remove the cap on fees but also make it more expensive
for most people to repay loans. It is the most retrogressive thing that has happened in education in my
lifetime. According to an analysis cited in the Guardian

“Graduates earning between £35,000 and £60,000 a year are likely to have to pay back more in fees and
interest than those earning more than £100,000″

That is far to the right of anything that Mrs Thatcher contemplated. If it were to be adopted, it would be a
national disgrace.

The Lib Dems are our only hope to stop the recommendations being implemented. They must hold the
line.

2010/10/12 LEFT FOOT FORWARD:

INCREASED SCIENCE FUNDING WOULD HELP
REDUCE THE DEFICIT
Our guest writer is Michael Burke, an economist who blogs regularly for theSocialist Economic Bulletin

British universities are in trouble. Lord Browne today proposes a huge cut in the Hefce budget while last
weekend, scientists, researchers, students and others gathered outside the Treasury to protest at the
government’s plans to cut public sector funding for scientific research. They rightly point out that
investment in this area is a key to future long-term prosperity and that even ‘temporary’ cuts are likely to
have lasting damage to research capacity. They rightly point out that investment in this area is a key to
future long-term prosperity and that even ‘temporary’ cuts are likely to have lasting damage to research
capacity.

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 The argument in favour of scientific research rests not just
on its role as general public good. Investment in scientific research has direct, positive consequences not
just for the economy but also for public finances. This week Research Councils UK is due to launch
a report showing that the multiplier effects for research and development funding is 1:10, that is every £1
billion spent on research increases GDP by £10bn, an enormous pay-off.

This is achieved through increased employment, attracting new investment, increasing efficiency, boosting
sales, exports and intellectual property revenues, etc. This assessment of the large ‘multiplier’ attached to
scientific research is supported by a host of organisations, including business groups as well as academics.

But all this activity also has an impact on government finances, with every £1bn increase in activity
producing £750 million improvement in government finances (comprised of £500m in tax revenues,
£250m in lower welfare outlays as people are brought into work and poverty reduced).

Therefore increased R&D spending will help to lower the deficit:

£1bn X 10 X 0.75 = £7.5bn

This is a net improvement to govt. finances of £6.5bn (after the initial £1bn outlay is deducted).

The same process works in reverse. Cutting government spending by £1bn in this area will reduce GDP by
£10bn and so widen the deficit by £6.5bn over the medium-term. The business secretary Vince Cable says,
correctly, that investment is an input, not a measure of output. But the self-serving mantra, ‘we could do
more with less’ is accompanied by no plan to actually do so. And the data above poses the question, why
would you want to? Since increased investment in science provides a boost to the economy and thereby
narrows the deficit, surely anyone concerned with either economic well-being or deficit-reduction would
want to increase science investment significantly?

As usual, George Osborne and David Cameron provide the explanation for the apparent contradictions of
their Coalition partner’s policies, boldly stating that it is the explicit intention to clear the public sector out
of the way, in order for the private sector to increase its own returns. But, as this Guardian survey of
business opinion makes clear, the private sector has no intention of increasing its own science investment
without the determining support of the public sector.

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 2010/10/12 TIMES HE: TAKE OFF THE CAP SO
STUDENTS AND MARKET SYSTEM CAN SHAPE UK
HIGHER EDUCATION, BROWNE RECOMMENDS
By John Morgan

The tuition fee cap should be scrapped, “blanket subsidies” for courses ended and universities
freed to compete for students in one of the most radical overhauls of the sector ever.

These are among the conclusions of Lord Browne of Madingley’s review of university fees and funding, whose
report published today says that higher education should be exposed to a competitive market with a funding
system driven by student choice.

The proposals from the government-commissioned Securing a Sustainable Future for Higher
Education include:

• Student fees to be funded upfront by the government up to £6,000 through a system of loans and graduate
repayments

• Fees above £6,000 not formally capped but subject to a levy, with a proportion of the additional income
creamed off by the government

• The government to be given scope to withdraw public funding from all but “priority” subjects, with teaching
funding for the arts and humanities likely to be axed

• Public investment to be targeted at clinical medicine, nursing, science, technology and modern languages

• The formation of a new super-quango – the Higher Education Council – through the merger of the Higher
Education Funding Council for England, the Quality Assurance Agency, the Office for Fair Access and the Office
of the Independent Adjudicator

• All new academics with teaching duties to undertake a teacher-training qualification accredited by the Higher
Education Academy

• “New providers” to be allowed to apply for public funding for priority courses and, potentially, allowed to take
over “failing” institutions.

The seven-strong review panel, which included vice-chancellors and business leaders, say they took “a reduction
in public investment in higher education as a binding constraint in producing a set of proposals that could
reasonably be implemented in the near future”.

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The announcement of the Comprehensive Spending Review on 20 October will reveal the scale of cuts to the
sector’s public funding. Lord Browne’s review came under intense pressure from leading research universities to
allow them to bridge the gap through tuition fees.

However, in a stark warning about the likely scale of the cuts, today’s report says that even doubling the current
fee level to £6,000 a year may not allow universities to fully make up the deficit created by the reduction in
teaching funding expected after the CSR.

If, as the review believes, a fee of about £7,000 is necessary to keep university funding on an even keel, that
suggests that teaching funding is likely to be cut by as much as 70 per cent.

The review says reductions in public spending should be made by “removing the blanket subsidy that the public
currently provides for all courses through the Hefce grant”.

This will “expose institutions to more competition as they will no longer get a large block grant year on year
regardless of the quality of teaching; more of the investment in higher education will be directed by students”.

It adds that “in a more competitive environment”, some institutions with less success at attracting students “may
be at risk of failing”.

The beneficiary must pay

The review marks another stage in the shift to a system where the balance of funding lies with individuals rather
than with taxpayers, and today’s report repeatedly argues that higher education confers more benefits on
individuals than on the public at large.

Under Lord Browne’s proposed system, above the “soft cap” of £6,000, levies would be imposed rather than
formal limits. The review recommends, for example, that if a university charges a fee of £7,000, it should pay a
40 per cent levy on the additional £1,000 to cover the costs to the government from increased student loan
defaults.

The highest fee noted in the review’s chart of levies is £12,000, at which point universities would be paying a 75
per cent levy on a portion of the income above £6,000 – and receiving 73 per cent of the total fee.

For students, cost-of-living loans should be simplified to create a flat-rate entitlement of £3,750 open to all with
no means-test, the review says.

The maximum cost-of-living grant for students from low-income backgrounds would rise to £3,250, available in
full to those from households with an income of up to £25,000 and available in part to an income limit of
£60,000.

The current system in which all students are given subsidised rock-bottom interest rates on their loans –
criticised by some as an unnecessary expense – would end.

Graduates would start repaying their loans once they earn more than £21,000 – up from the current threshold of
£15,000 – at a rate of 9 per cent. At £6,000 fees, students could have to repay £30,000 in fees and living costs.

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Students with “higher earnings after graduation” will pay a real rate of interest on the outstanding balance of
their fees and cost-of-living loans.

This interest rate “will be equal to the government’s cost of borrowing (inflation plus 2.2 per cent)”, the review
says.

Low-income graduates who fail to make it above the earnings threshold would not be charged interest, and their
loan balance would rise in line with inflation, while those earning just above the threshold, whose repayments do
not cover the interest costs, “will have the rest of the interest rebated to them by government”. The review notes:
“Crucially, the lowest 20 per cent of earners on average will pay less than they do today.”

But students would have to meet a threshold on academic standards, based on Universities and Colleges
Admissions Service points, to qualify for finance.

The review calls for “student charters” that give information about course quality and employment prospects,
noting that incentives to improve choice and the student experience are currently “limited” by the cap on student
numbers.

“Growth within successful institutions is stifled; less successful institutions are insulated from competition; and
students do not have the opportunity to choose between institutions on the basis of choice and value for money,”
the review says.

There should be a 10 per cent increase in overall student numbers over three years, it argues, but within that,
individual institutions “will face no restrictions from the government on how many students they can admit”.

Thus, it argues, students’ choices “will shape the landscape of higher education”.

The report offers part-time students a boost. Upfront fees for part-time students should be abolished, the review
says, with entitlement for fee loans starting at 33 per cent of full-time equivalent.

Postgraduates, however, are given short shrift in the review, which rejects calls for the extension of the
undergraduate system of student support.

The review rejects a graduate tax as “unworkable”, saying such a system would require the government to plug
an upfront funding gap in every year until 2041-42.

john.morgan@tsleducation.com

Full report
Read the report in full at: http://hereview.independent.gov.uk/hereview/report/
Readers' comments
Super 12 October, 2010
ok, but isn't that Super Quango a huge blow to the autonomy of universities?
enraged 12 October, 2010
chilling:
• The government to be given scope to withdraw public funding from all but ―priority‖ subjects, with teaching
funding for the arts and humanities likely to be axed
And this will happen because we just KNOW--have proven scientifically--that arts and humanities graduates do
not contribute to the economy, that the thinking and creativity nourished by arts and humanities have no value-
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-economic, social or otherwise (not to mention whatever role they play in the constitution and preservation of
culture as such)?? Yeah, right.
To the barricades.
Meh 12 October, 2010
Let market forces enter the pay scale too! It's ludicrous that academics across all disciplines get the same
pay.
Herbert 12 October, 2010
I will be increasing the proportion of first-class and upper-second-class marks I give, effective immediately.
Students must be satisfied, on pain of my own unemployment.
sue 12 October, 2010
@ enraged. Indeed. We've had it.
william 12 October, 2010
Browne's done it again. First BP, now the universities. Where next for the serial destroyer?
Total dissenter 12 October, 2010
Total dissenter
As a scientist I view the cuts to Arts and Humanities with despair – Philosophy, English, History all of no value
to critical thinking and assessment of the values/assumptions of science? The philistines have taken over the
academy.
And more competition and choice – what a stupid model. If you get more competition all folk will do will be to
reject (to an even greater extent than they do now) competitors‘ grants and papers – just as in the USA.
Scholarship in UK (as opposed to RAE bullshit) is under attack, why are VCs and academics collaborating with
this?
Bob 12 October, 2010
@William. Browne made BP one of the most successful companies in the world and paid up for a fair chunk of
our pensions
This review is entirely to be welcomed. The beneficary of the degree pays up, providing they earn well enough.
Humanities are cheap to teach, and therefore don't need any subsidy. Sciences and technical subjects are
expensive to teach and therefore if we need people with those skills, we have to pay for them to be learned.
Otherwise we'll have a nation of arts students.
Why all the fear?
Amused 12 October, 2010
No surprises here. From a student point of view I actually support these recommendations. Unless you earn
more you will see no qualitative difference (except that the funding you will receive in-course will increase).
Kinsalegreg 12 October, 2010
I would like to see the modelling of the impact on institutions of a substantial removal of arts/humanities
teaching funding. This will disproportionately impact on those institutions such as the ex-church colleges who
have an excellent record of teaching and of drawing into and supporting a wide diversity of learners.
Amused 12 October, 2010
There is an interesting contradiction here. The report talks about scope for not limiting student numbers etc
etc. But then, tucked away in the fine print, is the following:

"The minimum tariff entry standard will be set every year by

Government shortly after the UCAS deadline for receiving
applications. In our proposal to simplify the application
process for students, Student Finance applications will be
submitted at the same time. Government will therefore
make its decision about the entry standard knowing both
the demand for student places in that year; and the demand
for Student Finance. It will be able to predict to a
reasonable degree of certainty what the entry standard
should be in order to manage the amount of money that
it has available to spend on Student Finance."

What it means is that students will be applying having no idea whether or not they meet an arbitrary
government "minimum entry standard", and that this can be raised or lowered year on year depending on how
much money central government wants to chuck in to support the applicants.

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It also exclusively pertains to UCAS attainment, so other forms of academic achievement often used (Access
to HE, Open University credits) will surely be unusable from then on?
Either way, in real terms this will equate to students not knowing whether or not their application will even get
to the institution, and central government retaining the power to cap places.
Amused 12 October, 2010
Actually - just answered my own question (should've read on a bit).
Turns out the answer is to allocate a certain number of places directly to institutions to admit people based on
whatever criteria they see fit.
What a fXXX up! 12 October, 2010
Cut the subsidy for all but priority subjects and let the market work?
Cutting the subsidy for arts and humanities courses means that those institutions with poorer teaching quality
will be exposed to competition? Is this guy trying to add insult to injury or does he really believe this stuff?
Meh 12 October, 2010
@Bob "Why all the fear?"
Well I imagine many arts and humanities academics, and every academic in the lowly ranked, poor performing
universities, will hold a little fear today about how they plan to pay for their mortgages in the future.
On the flip side, academics in high demand courses (like myself), may be feeling that there is now an actual
valid career to be had in academia.
enraged 12 October, 2010
Dear Amused (thanks for cheeky rejoinder to my nom de plume--very clever!), Dear Bob, (and your ilk),
None of us has the slightest idea what the economic impact of cutting arts/humanities funding will be. Many
institutions that primarily educate students in these subjects will be unlikely to be able to charge the
necessary fees to continue operating. What do you think the economic impact of such potential institutional
closures will be? We're not just talking unemployment, on a large scale, but the effects that such job losses
(not to mention curtailments to social mobility) will diffuse in unpredictable ways.
Yes, arts degrees are cheap to teach. That's why we already teach at maximum capacity (in terms of SSR).
Many arts/humanities degrees have long been cross-subsidising more expensive (and less popular) science
subjects. But such cross-subsidy was actually a social and intellectual good, as it allowed the university to
function as a serious institution.
The too-common derisory attitude towards arts/humanities teaching is a sign of a culture already in serious
decline. This decline will only hasten with divestment in these areas. Arts and humanities graduates contribute
enormously and unpredictably to the larger economy, as well as to the vitality of the culture. By vitality, I don't
just mean a lively arts scene, I mean a real, authentic culture, one that is capable of reinventing itself in
response to the serious challenges of the day and not one that is merely equipped to serve the short-term
needs of business.
Good luck living in this culture if this stuff goes down as intended.
John Clarke 12 October, 2010
A free market in university tuition fees eh?
We have to remember that the Tory Party were not elected as a government last May; the Nasty Party have no
mandate for this. We have to remember that the LibDem were aiming for 'no fees' in their election manifesto.
If this madness goes through parliament the ConDem Coalition Government will have have institutionalised
crippling levels of debt for young people, damaged a world class Higher Education system & made degree's
accessible to only a rich elite (again) with the electoral backing of only a tiny number of people. Is that a
democracy?
I think we need to address a need for true democracy before introducing more 'free' markets into our society.
This almighty cock-up will make the Tories fiasco at British Rail look tame in comparison.
Amused 12 October, 2010
@Enraged - I don't believe I made any comment about the righteousness of the subsidy.
I repeat - from a student point of view, I support these changes, as it amounts to absolutely no qualitative
difference whatsoever, other than that those can afford it repay a higher proportion of their degree study.
Seems perfectly fair to me.
bob 12 October, 2010
@Meh
Exactly. 'Twas ever thus - those providing services of little value wish to be protected to continue living in a
world without real accountability, and those doing something valuable want to be free to do more of it

There's been an implicit deal between academics and politicians in recent decades, which is bad for both
academia and the country

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The deal seems to centre around the academics getting a lot of freedom to do stuff of marginal value, providing
they stay poor, and keep out of politics.
It's bad for them and it's bad for the country. Far better would be academics providing valuable services, paid
well, and free to speak out when and where they want.
bob 12 October, 2010
@ enraged
If you're teaching at maximim capacity, then the new mode will allow you to break that restriction and be paid
for doing so
As for the value of arts degrees, you don't need to convince me. You need to convince employers and students.
I note that even in the US - 'freer' than Browne - arts degrees still get taught.
Doug Belshaw 12 October, 2010
So when, as a country, did we decide that we would focus exclusively on STEM, business and anything vaguely
'scientific'? As a holder of degrees in Philosophy and History I am more than slightly outraged.
Dr Truth 12 October, 2010
Excellent stuff. Nice to see that we have some clear heads working on these issues.
bob 12 October, 2010
@ John Clarke
Not a bad rant, but factually incorrect in two important particulars
1) Students will not have 'crippling levels of debt'. They pay back what they can afford once they can afford
it.
2) You claim that HE will only be accessible by the rich, yet poor folks will never have to pay a penny for tuition,
and their debt will eventually be written off
Andy 12 October, 2010
Will this mean the end of PPE and thus no more politicians? We can but hope ...
What a fXXX up! 12 October, 2010
Cut the subsidy for all but priority subjects and let the market work?
Cutting the subsidy for arts and humanities courses means that those institutions with poorer teaching quality
will be exposed to competition? Is this guy trying to add insult to injury or does he really believe this stuff?
Nickelodeon 12 October, 2010
Put another penny in,
In the Nickelodeon
All I want is lovely cash and
Market, market, market.
As Marx said, "ideas" - like those of "Lord Browne" - are standardly a superstructure on a basis, which now
happens to be capitalism.
Dr Harry 12 October, 2010
I liked the ideas of -
1) removing the blanket subsidy that the public currently provides for all courses through the Hefce grant and
2) if the Universities fail... they might ultimately close or be taken over
Well done, Lord..
william 12 October, 2010
@Bob "Browne made BP one of the most successful companies in the world and paid up for a fair chunk of our
pensions"
Opinions differ on that one. He certainly increased profitability, but there's a widespread suspicion he did so
by cutting corners, thereby contributing to BP's lamentable safety record, and the recent Gulf disaster.
It appears the same logic is in play here - increase profitability by cutting; in this case those useless arts and
humanities. (BTW I'm a scientist.)
will.i.am.not 12 October, 2010
@ bob
1. mortgage lenders and the like are already looking at those with student loans and deciding against giving them
credit on that basis. Although this is admittedly an extra source of debt, many would consider that a "crippling"
disadvantage. Student debt will percolate all other areas of graduates' finances and beyond.
2. already heard many "poor folks" on the radio and read them on the blogs this morning worrying that they will
not be able to afford university with the prospect of a large debt confronting them as soon as they graduate
(or leave, degree or not) (and see 1 above).

FACT.
Truth & Reconciliation 12 October, 2010

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@bob @meh
I have no idea what you teach and no idea what institution you work at, so I can't comment on how relevant or
important your subject is. Equally, I don't see that you have any right to criticise subjects or institutions
delivered today, which you have neither studied nor taught in. The 'my course is better than yours' argument is
likely to lead us all down a path we really don't want to take, and distracts us from the issues which are actually
important. The opportunity for the British public to study higher education, no matter what the subject, in
institutions which have staff who can teach, study and research freely, is what is at stake.
bob 12 October, 2010
@william
I know BP well - the safety flaws (which were real, esp in the US) came from a range of issues; organisation
model, management focus, merger with Amoco. Browne and others have some responsibility here.
However, he managed over a decade of growth without safety errors - not many achieve this
To John Clarke 12 October, 2010
Your nasty Brown +Red Ed party ordered this review. They need not have done it. Just like the economy crash
Gordon lumbered this on to his sucessors. The only redeeming feature of this review is that students need a
minimum educational background for a loan. I should say 2As and a B. That should take care of those
universities which run clearing for weeks and weeks.
bob 12 October, 2010
@ will.i.am.not
1) Mortgage lenders won't discriminate against graduates, although graduates with marginal finances may
struggle to get loans under the current system. But not under the new one where they are just making
payments against the cost of the tuition (and where the payments cease if they lose their job)

2) This is the great tragedy. There is no reason for poor folks to not attend univesity, but inaccurate scare-
mongering and bleating by those opposed to changes may cause poorly-informed people to think of a degree as a
'risk'. It isn't, and 'champions of the poor' should be telling them to get a degree if they can. If ever there
was a self-fulfilling prophecy, this is it!
bob 12 October, 2010
@ Truth & Reconciliation
I have no interest in 'my subject's better than yours'. Let students decide what they want to learn, and then
they can pay for it. If it's engineering, great. If it's media studies, equally great
Cynical Ungulate 12 October, 2010
How is this going to contribute to reducing the deficit? Whichever way I see it, the government is going to be
paying at least as much or more to the universities every year. Sure, the entire amount is now structured as a
loan, but it's still cash the government is going to borrow, and the repayments aren't going to cover the
government's costs even under the proposal.
Faith in Governors 12 October, 2010
Lord Browne is putting a lot of faith in governors:
"Institutional failure – if it were to occur – would have implications for students and staff as well as past
graduates. The HE Council will require the governing bodies of institutions to certify each year that the
institution is a viable going concern. These statements will provide the HE Council with early warning of where
institutions may have ineffective management or be at risk for other reasons. The HE Council will have powers
to provide targeted funding to prevent institutional failure from taking place, e.g. by providing additional
funding to small or specialist institutions that may be at risk due to temporary changes in student demand. It
will also make recommendations to the governing body of an institution where it views that management is
ineffective."
So - Governors need to write to HEC to say, our managers are ok. What governing body is going to write 'um, we
think our managers are a bit useless, can we have some targeted funding please'
Stu Dent 12 October, 2010
Does anyone know what the report says about interest rates for those who already have a student loan? When
I signed up aged 19 I was told that it was interest free, at the moment I think its about 1.5%, will it now go up
to 9%? I know others will have to pay more so I should count myself lucky but can they just keep hiking the
interest rates once you've signed the contract?
Truth & Reconciliation 12 October, 2010
@bob
Fair enough, though I am not sure this is represented in your comment that:

'The deal seems to centre around the academics getting a lot of freedom to do stuff of marginal value'

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On what basis can you say that other's work is of 'marginal value'? On what basis do you measure 'value'?
Institutional brand name? Fee price? Location? Academic grant income? Academic RAE result? Academic sole
authorship rate? Academics publication of sixth form text books? Academic appearances on television/radio?
I agree that students should have free choice, but they will make their decision based on a host of issues that
have personal relevance to them. And yes, they'll be likely to choose subjects which they are pushed towards
by parents, which are promoted on TV, or which they studied at school, but increasingly the cost will have an
impact on middle-income families, where fees are variable, just as it does on the choice of post-grad courses
now.
will.i.am.not 12 October, 2010
bob
I think the first point comes under the heading of 'known unknowns'. There will be unintended and
unpredictable consequences to all this, but financial risk will remain the same.
I'm sympathetic to your second point, although prospects of employment well paid enough to pay off the debt
will remain more within the grasp of the well-off and privileged.
Meh 12 October, 2010
@Truth & Reconciliation
"The opportunity for the British public to study higher education, no matter what the subject, in institutions
which have staff who can teach, study and research freely, is what is at stake."
That luxury is long gone!
In my subject, British students are already side-lined in favour of international students so we can pull high
fees to afford more staff and decent facilities.
My field will flourish with increased tuition fees and students will have no problem paying them back because
they end up in well-paid jobs. It's a win-win situation (with the proviso that enough bursaries/scholarships are
created to help students from low-income families.)
Should my field subsidise you? No.
Should I get less pay so an academic in an obscure arts subject can run a course with a few dozen students?
No.
Will this mean the death of arts and humanities? No, but it will mean the fat is cut.
Welcome to the wonderful world of supply and demand.
Edmund Chattoe-Brown 12 October, 2010
Of course, we all have our own personal political views about what is important and "right" but the depressing
thing about this for me is that the proposals themselves seems to be based on duff social science and no
evidence. Free markets only work when the product isn't a public good, "choice" in education is particularly
problematic because to know what your education is worth to you, you must already have had it and so on and so
on. To me the problem is not merely that politicians aren't reflecting my views but that clearly don't have the
first idea what they are talking about!
amused 12 October, 2010
@Cynical Ungulate - yes that is mostly correct. The only money that will be saved is from those subjects which
no longer receive any subsidy. But on the whole, this new system will not be substantially cheaper unless the
government reduces the number of places available.
If you read the report in full, there is a mechanism for allowing governments to determine the quantity of
students they want to fund year-on-year.

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 2010/10/12 GUARDIAN MARTIN ROBBINS:
ONE CLIMATE PAPER, TWO CONFLICTING
HEADLINES

How can one climate paper be reported under two contradictory headlines by two different news
websites?

Comments (6)

Last week, on October 6th, The Guardian published a story under the headline "Sun's role in
warming the planet may be overestimated, study finds.". A day later, tech website The
Register published a climate story of its own, "Much of recent global warming actually caused
by Sun," at a URL that ended "/solar_as_big_as_people/."
The two headlines are completely contradictory, yet bizarrely both stories report on
the same Nature letter, a piece of research led by Professor Joanna Haigh at Imperial College
London. So what on Earth is going on?
The research itself is fairly clear, albeit provisional. You would expect that when the sun is
most active it would have a warming effect on temperatures, while at times of low activity it it
ought to have a cooling influence. Instead, the data so far show that - for a three year period
between 2004 and 2007 at least - the opposite happened.

While the Sun's activity declined, the amount of UV radiation reaching the Earth fell, but the
output of energy reaching us as visible light actually increased. The effect of that shift in
the type of energy reaching us on the atmosphere could mean that lower solar activity actually
results in a slight warming effect, and vice versa. It might just be an anomaly, or it might mean
we have to alter our understanding of solar forcing - we'll know for sure as we get more data
from longer periods.
Either way, it has little effect on the reality of man made climate change. Since the sun's
activity waxes and wanes over a fairly regular 11 year cycle, the changes even themselves out
over time. And as Haigh points out, "the warming influence of rising greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, emitted by human activities, was at least 10 times greater than changes in the
strength of the sun."
And yet The Register article puts a whole different spin on the story, one that seems to
completely contradict The Guardian's reporting, the paper, and Haigh's own statements on the
subject.
"New data indicates that changes in the Sun's output of energy were a major factor in the
global temperature increases seen in recent years. The research will be unwelcome among
hardcore green activists, as it downplays the influence of human-driven carbon emissions."

Eh? Compare and contrast with e.g. Imperial College's press release:
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"Overall solar activity has been increasing over the past century, so the researchers believe it
is possible that during this period, the Sun has been contributing a small cooling effect, rather
than a small warming effect as had previously been thought."

That's basically the complete opposite then. The Register go on to state that:

"The prof considers that increased sun-powered warming probably had as much effect on
global temperature as carbon during the period of her study."

And that's sort of true, but the period of study was only three years, and the impact evens out
of the course of the 11 year cycle. To suggest then that "recent temperature rises may well
have been down to the Sun as much as anything humanity has done" seems rather obtuse.
The article appears to me to seriously misrepresent the research, but don't take my word for it.
I showed The Register's article to Professor Haigh herself, and here's her response:

"The title of the article in The Register entirely misrepresents the paper's conclusions. While
our work showed over a 3 year period that declining solar activity might have caused a
warming of the planet it made no claims on longer periods. Even if it were the case that solar
activity is inversely related to warming then the ups and downs of the solar cycle would cancel
out over time. And over the past century overall solar activity has risen which, on the same
basis, would imply global cooling."

At a time when action to deal with climate change is needed more than ever, this sort of
misleading reporting does nothing to help the public debate.

But it's not just the misrepresentation of science that grates. Through-out the article, the
author, uses rather unfortunate language to describe scientists. The team of researchers are
described as "boffins working at Imperial College," and the research is described as being
published in"hefty boffinry mag Nature."
The use of 'boffin', common at the random-USE-of-CAPITALS end of tabloid journalism,
is problematic to many scientists, as the word is increasingly loaded with negative
connotations.
I find it quite a dehumanizing term, and it's fascinating to me that no names are mentioned
until the second half of The Register's article, as if all scientists are replaced by
interchangeable 'boffin' avatars in the consciousness of the writer. Whenever I see it, it reeks
of a self-conscious desire to separate the reporter from the labeled group of people, to present
clear space between the human writer, and those faceless, nameless 'boffins'.

Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it - your mileage may vary - but either way I feel it
belittles researchers, and patronizes the reader.
I put Haigh's criticisms to The Register website this morning, and I'm waiting for a response - if
I get one I'll post it on this blog. At a minimum it would be nice if they would consider issuing a
correction. Personally I think they owe Professor Haigh an apology.

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