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WHEN WILL Britain come to realise that those who make things are just
as important to the nation’s prosperity as those who produce ideas – or
even those who only make money? The latest victim of this national myopia
has been the launch of four engineering design centres under the auspices
of the Science and Engineering Research Council.

The birth of these centres (the latest opens today at Lancaster University)
offers a gleam of hope that the importance of research not only into engineering
itself, but also into the creative processes on which engineering design
is based, has at last been recognised in official circles. But, as we report
in this issue, it has been a prolonged labour – not helped, it appears,
by the continued resistance of opponents who should know better (see ‘Shaky
start for engineering design centres’, this issue).

Part of the blame must rest with the government. At a time when our
European neighbours and also, in their different ways, America and Japan,
have been promoting ways of providing direct support for building up their
technology base, the British government continues to drag its feet.

France and West Germany, for example, have active regional technology
policies. In contrast, Britain’s efforts in this direction have been modest
and half-hearted. Even the engineering design centres, which besides Lancaster
are opening in Cambridge, Newcastle and London, have been hampered by a
lack of funds. This makes it difficult to attract the top rate talent which
they need to make a significant impact on British industry.

But not only the government should share the blame. Those responsible
for setting up the centres complain they have had difficulty in getting
their case accepted within the committees of the SERC. The opposition seems
to have been targeted at the whole idea of ‘design research’. It is unfortunate
that proposals for such research appear to fare badly when judged in the
traditional peer review manner against competing proposals for research
in, say, physical sciences.

Criticism of the ‘two cultures’ split in British society tends to focus
on the ignorance of science among our predominantly arts-trained administrators.
But the difficulties experienced by those trying to get the centres off
the ground underlines the opposite problem: a lack of appreciation in parts
of the scientific community of the ‘hands-on’ creativity which is so important
to truly innovative engineering.