27/01/06 Support for long-term studies
CaSE today called on the Government to do more to ensure funding for important long-term scientific studies, such as environmental studies of climate change. In a letter to The Independent, CaSE points out that the recent closure of laboratories, while driven by the admirable aim of putting remaining research on a sustainable footing, were in danger of creating a patchy, unbalanced science base. The susbtantive text of the letter is as follows:
Colin Hindmarch’s suggestion that public inquiries should contribute to decisions about funding for science (letters, Independent, 24 January) highlights an issue of importance as science grows in importance to our economy and public policy.

The current discussion was prompted by closures of laboratories that were partly driven by the Government’s justified insistence on a reasonable understanding of the true financial costs of research. Decades of underfunding led to resources being spread very thinly, with costs hidden or ignored by accounting methods with deliberately blurred edges. This led to crumbling infrastructure. In turn for substantially increased budgets, ministers want to know that the ‘full economic cost’ of research is counted, so that scientific projects that receive public money can run sustainably.

At least in part, the closing down of some research is extremely unwelcome collateral damage of the new rules, and it brings two challenges. First, we need to know how the Government will ensure that the outcome of many individual decisions by different agencies does not end up producing an unbalanced, patchy science base. Second, ministers from the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer downwards need to be clear that they will remain committed to making the UK one of the most competitive countries in which to do science, now that we can see more clearly the level of investment that will be needed to achieve this. If they do not, scientific companies will not choose the UK as a place to do business, and our economy will suffer severely.

27/01/06 Peter Cotgreave attended the launch of the International Review of Physics at the Institute of Physics

27/01/06 Caroline Holland met with senior staff at Techniquest, Cardiff.

Techniquest website

25/01/06 Knowledge Transfer
CaSE today was delighted to take part in a seminar with the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee, as part of its inquiry into knowledge transfer activities by the Research Councils. Along with a representatives of the Research Councils, an industrialist and an academic, CaSE's Director Peter Cotgreave spent an hour with the committee highlighting some of the main themes that will run through the inquiry. "CaSE's message was that policy has concentrated a great deal on 'pushing' knowledge out of the universities and not enough on 'pulling' knowledge into industry," said Peter Cotgreave.

23/01/06 Higher Education Minister
CaSE today met with the Higher Education Minister to press the case for science and engineering in the universities. "We met with Bill Rammell to have an open discussion about how the UK is going to fund its aspirations for science in the universities," said Dr Peter Cotgreave, Director of CaSE, "at the moment, everyone agrees that science and engineering are underfunded, and the question is what to do - reducing the number of students or lowering standards are not options, so we need to find extra money from somewhere. Public funding is already stretched and endowments will take decades to have a big effect. We need a serious debate about whether to raise the level of tuition fees and we also need urgent action from the Higher Education Funding Council to reverse its crazy decision to reduce the proportion of the available public funding that goes into science and engineering". CaSE recent set out the arguments against HEFCE's decisions in its response to an official consultation.

read CaSE's memo to the minister
read CaSE's written evidence

20/01/06 Peter Cotgreave met with David Brown of Arthur D Little Ltd

19/01/06 Richard Joyner and Peter Cotgreave attended the Institute of Physics Annual Awards Dinner

18/01/06 Controls on funding for research
CaSE today called on the Government to allow more freedom for truly blue-skies research. In an interview broadcast on BBC television's Under Laboratory Conditions, CaSE pointed out that "if you were the head of a university science department these days, you would not want Watson and Crick in your department, because there would be too high a risk that their work would not deliver on the timescale of four to five years dictated by the Research Assessment Exercise". CaSE called for public funding for research to be used in ways that allow for more genuinely innovative ideas that do not necessarily fit with what happens to be fashionable with grant-awarding committees.

17/01/06 Peter Cotgreave attended the opening of the Institute of Biology's new offices

13/01/06 Peter Cotgreave and Caroline Holland met with Dr Anil Kumar and Kirsten Hawes of the Engineering & Technology Board

13/01/06 Rosemary Davies met with Dr John Holman, National Science Learning Centre

12/01/06 Funding university teaching
CaSE today called on the Government to use the opportunity of its latest review to reverse its disastrous decision to downgrade the level of funding for science and engineering in the universities. In response to the Higher Education Funding Council's (HEFCE) review of its teaching funding method, CaSE points out that giving science a smaller slice of the overall cake was an unjustified decision that is against the interests of the taxpayers whose billions of pounds HEFCE distributes. CaSE also demolishes the excuses that HEFCE has put forward for the changes, demonstrating clearly that they do not stack up.

read CaSE's response

06/01/06 CaSE's 20th Birthday
Case today celebrated its twentieth birthday with a dinner at Balliol College Oxford. Some forty guests attended, including journalists, Parliamentarians, businesspeople, academics and former staff. The Chairman, Richard Joyner, welcomed everyone, and the Director, Peter Cotgreave, read out messages from those unable to be present. These included the observation by veteran parliamentarian Tam Dalyell that “if it were not for you, those of us who supported science in the 1980s in the House of Commons would have been infinitely less effective,” and the comment by Tim Radford, recently retired science editor of the Guardian, that he would have loved to have been there to raise a glass to the founders, Denis Noble, Joe Lamb and John Mulvey. Other messages included those of Professor Colin Humphreys, who said: “congratulations to SBS and CaSE for doing such a splendid job over the last 20 years” and Professor Antony Hewish, who commented, “You have done a splendid job in pressing the case for science”. Bertrard Monthubert, a leading light of Sauvons La Recherche, the recently-formed French campaign for science, spoke with warmth about CaSE as a “big brother” to his organisation.

Baroness Sharp made a short speech, thanking CaSE for the work it is doing, and in particular honouring the founders. Denis Noble, who hosted both the original dinner in the autumn of 1985 at which the campaign was first discussed and this year’s 20th Anniversary dinner, replied with an amusing speech about the early days of the society.

Looking forward, Sir John Maddox kindly said a few words about the current team of staff, praising the quality and quantity of campaigning material produced by CaSE.

We produced a short booklet for the occasion. This includes a definitive history of the beginning of the society by former Director John Mulvey and an article by long-term friend Clive Cookson, who as science reporter for the BBC covered the launch of the society, and more recently as science editor of the Financial Times has always given CaSE a platform to make our case.

read the anniversary booklet

06/01/06 Members' Views
CaSE today brought together more than 40 representatives from the companies, universities and learned societies that support our work to discuss the main challenges for the science and engineering community in the coming years (pictured below). "This was a hugely useful activity, setting out some of the major themes for the coming years," said Professor Richard Joyner, Chairman of CaSE. CaSE will be publishing a summary of everyone's views some time in the next few weeks.

03/01/06 UK's scientific competitiveness
CaSE today expanded on its call for the Government to make the UK more competitive for industrial research investment. In an article in Laboratory News, CaSE argues that while the Chancellor of the Exchequer says he wants the UK to "lead in the world's most most wealth-creating generating and dynamic sectors, including science," the fact is that private sector investment in science is actually falling. While tax credits for R&D are welcome, policy has relied too heavily on them as the principal lever for encouraging the industrial sector to invest in research and development in the UK. The Government talks the right rhetoric about science, and its heart is broadly in the right place, concludes the article "but there is a long way to go before it achieves its dream of securing for the UK the status as the leading scientific nation".

Laboratory News website

01/01/06 New Year Wishlist
CaSE published a three-point wish list for science and engineering policy in 2006. In a short article on the politics.co.uk website, CaSE called for urgent action to recruit more science teachers, significant changes to make the UK a more competitive place for industrial research, and a more mature approach to funding universities.
The substantive text of the article is given below:
We are constantly told that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister disagree about just about everything, but on one issue they are in perfect unity. They never tire of saying they want the UK to be "the best place for science"; Gordon Brown said it again in his pre-Budget speech a couple of weeks ago. They have rightly recognised that no part of Europe will thrive in the coming decades if it does not compete effectively in its ability to discover and apply new knowledge. And the Government has increased public expenditure on science enormously during the past eight years.
But private sector investment in research is falling in this country, while it is rising throughout the rest of the industrialised world. If Tony Blair and Gordon Brown really want to set the economic context in which industry sees the UK as a competitive environment for science, they need to address three big issues.
First, they need to stop messing about with the educational curriculum and tackle the problem of a desperate shortage of science teachers in schools. Two thirds of pupils are taught physics by non-physicists, so it's hardly surprising they don't get excited about the subject. Tackling this issue will involve differential salaries - the physics teacher in a school will be paid a lot more than the history teacher. Until the Government adopts this market-based solution, the problem won't be solved.
Second, the Government needs to take action to reduce the costs for private firms investing in research and development. The costs of regulation, the tax regime and the rules about collaborating with universities are all more favourable in other countries. Basically, companies can purchase research of the same quality more cheaply overseas.
Third, we have to stop the pretence that our colleges and universities can deliver world-class science without proper funding. If there is not enough public money (and there isn't going to be), other sources must be encouraged. The Government could lift the cap on tuition fees and introduce a real market (in which students might come to appreciate that the economic value of a science degree is greater than that of a qualification in other subjects) or it could introduce real incentives for individuals and institutions to donate towards endowments. The existing scheme, trumpeted in last year's pre-Budget report, added up to about £60,000 per university, hardly enough to compete with the tens of billions of dollars in the endowments of American universities.

politics.co.uk