SCIENCE AND GOVERNMENT: POLITICAL CHOICES FOR THE FUTURE
1. Thanks. Pleasure to be once again among scientists at Oxford.
2. A seminar not a lecture. So will be brief. Want to hear your views.
3. Events this week have shown how deeply science is involved in politics. Science may feel it has suffered a setback. But we have only reduced an increase. Reduction is small compared with half a billion pound science budget, and £4½ b. (0.2 of 1%;) total Government expenditure on R&D this year. Can be no doubt about this Government's commitment to science.
4. This week has also shown that science, like politics, is about choices. We cannot do everything we want. So we have to establish priorities. No use allocating all your money only to find that you have nothing left for your favourite project. Prof. Mason [?]—freedom of political choices. [end p1]
5. Government funding only part of the picture. Industry, too, makes choices—often better ones. ⅓ govt R&D carried out industry [sic].
6. What are the Government's choices?
(i) Using science to create wealth:
—Getting ahead of international competition
—Encouraging the entrepreneur
—Restoring profitability
—Thinking more commercially about publicly-funded R&D
—Freeing private industry to make its own choices
(ii) Applying science in support of political objectives
—Defence
—Health
—Pollution control
—Food
(iii) Continued strength for fundamental research. The pursuit of excellence. S.E.R.C. Int. Sci.—£40m.
7. Always remember that you cannot have (ii) and (iii) if you neglect (i). [end p2]
8 Ec. performance in last 20 years—not good compared with industrial competitors—but know of no evidence that failure to spend enough on sc. research was responsible. Can see plenty of evidence that failure to apply the results of sc. research was a factor.
9. This is the challenge.
£3 bn on Universities—not enough of the required scientific skills.