25 July 2002
I can make no claims to be an expert on science. So I write this article in New Scientist with considerable humility.
I do, however, know enough about Britain’s history to understand the crucial role science and scientists play in so much of what we have achieved and given to the world. I also know, from listening to those who are experts, just how vital science remains to our future.
We have every reason to be proud of our remarkable scientific tradition, which includes names such as Newton, Darwin, Crick and Hodgkin. Our record is outstanding: with just one per cent of the world’s population, we receive nine per cent of the world’s scientific citations.
But as I said at the Royal Society in May - in what I was surprised to learn was the first speech by a British Prime Minister dedicated to science for more than a generation - we can’t afford to rely on our past achievements. Science in this country needs strong funding and strong public support, not just the warm glow of our history, if it is to continue to be a major national asset.
When we came to power in 1997, science had been neglected. Our top scientists were struggling to cope with a lengthy period of under-funding. Facilities were out-of-date and funding hard to find. Our international partners and competitors were striding ahead.
I’m not claiming, of course, that we have managed to put all this right in the last five years. But from the beginning, we matched with increased funding our belief in the fundamental importance of retaining and building a strong science and technological base.
Our intent was signalled in our first review of government spending in 1998 when the science budget was increased by 15 per cent. The 2000 spending review added on average 7 per cent a year in real terms. And in the government’s third spending review announced last week we built on this substantial progress with a further £1.25 billion increase in annual funding for science by 2006.
We are creating a new capital funding stream worth £500 million each year from 2004 to tackle the under-investment in science infrastructure.
There will be an additional £400 million each year for new areas of science such as sustainable energy technologies, proteomics and brain research, and an extra £120 million per year from 2005 for the research councils to contribute more to the indirect costs of university science.
I am pleased too that we will provide new resources worth an extra £100 million each year by 2005 for improved pay and training for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers. Universities will also be given extra resources to recruit and retain key academic staff.
Schools will gain new resources to attract science graduates into the classroom, and the government will fund science training to revitalise skills throughout teachers’ careers. This will include a valued partnership with the Wellcome Trust to deliver a National Centre for Excellence in Science Teaching.
To ensure our wider economy benefits from this investment, we’re expanding the Higher Education Innovation Fund to £90 million per year to promote knowledge transfer, and increasing the DTI’s innovation budget by an extra £50 million annually by 2006.
This week the government published a comprehensive Science, Engineering and Technology Strategy. It sets this substantial funding increase in the context of the government’s broad approach to science and innovation. Our strategy is to expand research funding and put it on the road to sustainability. We want to keep this generation of scientists working in the field and inspire a new generation in our schools.
Some will worry that science is becoming too commercialised. But it is important to realise that our investment supports research as varied as ecology, finding alternatives to animal testing, and international collaborative research on climate change.
We do need to look carefully at research, and the strategy sets out the importance of maintaining a properly balanced regulatory regime for scientific advance. We must build a system based on clear principles and safeguards, which carefully controls activity but does not stifle vital research simply because some people, no matter how strongly held their beliefs, regard it as controversial.
But it is right to maintain strict health and safety regulations and to control animal experimentation so it’s used only when absolutely necessary. It was right, as we did recently, to impose a ban on human reproductive cloning. And we are taking new measures to improve the ways that government departments handle science. But if controversy alone had been enough to block scientific research, life would be very different and much worse today.
We are determined to continue creating an environment in Britain where science can prosper for the good of all.
Properly funded scientific activity in our schools, universities and businesses is good news for everyone. It means a healthier population. It means a better quality of life - cleaner air, cleaner water, more sustainable development. It means more efficient and wealth-creating industries, which means more jobs, more opportunity, more prosperity.
More than ever before, investment in science, technology and innovation offers the prospect of sustained economic and social progress for us all.
That’s why I believe the new investment in science unveiled last week is such good news for Britain.
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