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There are no prizes for guessing what was on William Waldegrave’s Christmas
reading list this year. The science minister has spent the holiday ploughing
through the 782 documents submitted to him in preparation for the White
Paper on science and technology to be published in the spring.

Top of the pile, and most controversial, is the paper from the Prime
Minister’s Advisory Council on Science and Technology. ACOST wants to replace
the five existing research councils with two new ones and introduce a competitive
market in government-funded research (see This Week, 28 November). These
radical proposals have prompted sometimes bitter denunciations from the
research councils, and guarantee some lively debate this year.

Almost before the ink was dry on the ACOST plan, the Royal Society had
come out strongly against both of ACOST’s main suggestions. The idea of
making universities compete for funding against privatised research council
institutions and private companies is ‘misplaced’, the society says, because
new knowledge is not a commodity that can be bought and sold.

The Royal Society also rejects ACOST’s plans for just two research councils
– one to fund basic research prompted by scientific curiosity and one to
fund more applied work. Instead, it backs the proposal of the Advisory Board
for the Research Councils for a clutch of small research councils, each
with a clear ‘mission’, such as funding research to improve health or conserve
the environment.

The Royal Society strongly disagrees with the assumption underlying
the ACOST plans, that one of the reasons for Britain’s economic decline
compared to other countries in recent years is a failure of the research
council system to deliver what industry needs. The society says: ‘The responsibility
for improving the UK’s capability for creating wealth from science and technology
lies primarily with industry.’

Industry’s submissions echo those of the Royal Society. The Chemical
Industries Association, representing one of Britain’s few remaining world-class
industries, says the country’s woes are not caused by a lack of ideas from
scientists. ‘The problem lies in the capability of the UK manufacturing
sector to exploit advances in knowledge and turn them into value added products.’

The association says it is concerned by the weakness of the science
base supported by the research councils and universities. And Britain’s
biggest chemicals company, ICI, is blunt: ‘Any further decline may be terminal.’

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry offers an analysis
which could have been written in many university laboratories. It says bright
graduates are turning away from careers in science because researchers in
academia are paid too little; science teaching in schools is often poor;
and good research which takes time to show its worth is being nipped in
the bud by short-term pressures. In addition, ‘investment in capital facilities
and equipment is totally inadequate’.

More than anything, the ABPI wants a steady supply of well-trained graduates,
and research which underpins industrial work. It does not want academic
researchers to try to do industry’s job for it.

Industry, academia and ACOST are united in opposing the government’s
present policy of not funding near-market research. The Engineering Employers’
Federation speaks for many when it says: ‘The problem lies in the government’s
failure to invest in closer-to-market applied research.’

Many submissions are not restricted to the narrow issue of the research
councils. The Royal Society suggests that the solution to Britain’s problems
lies not with Waldegrave and his Office of Science and Technology, but with
the government’s fiscal policies. ‘Failure to invest in long-term R&D
on an adequate scale distinguishes this country from its more successful
competitors. The government should consider what fiscal or other measures
are needed as a remedy,’ says the society.

Similarly, the aerospace company Rolls-Royce says the economic climate
for long-term research is of ‘overriding importance’. GEC Ferranti argues
that a strong disincentive to sustained investment in research is Britain’s
‘short-termist stock market’.

However, the Bank of England does not seem to have considered the possibility
of adjusting Britain’s financial system in a way that would encourage research.
In a brief note, the bank tells Waldegrave: ‘We are not close enough to
the issues raised to offer useful detailed comments.’

The cause of women in science is championed by Cambridge Women in Astronomy
and by MPs on the science and technology select committee. The Cambridge
group argues for more flexible career structures that would allow women
– and men – to rear children without having to drop out altogether. They
point out that Britain falls far behind many countries when it comes to
women’s participation in science.

Three of the MPs on the select committee are women, but all the people
they interviewed during the committee’s recent inquiry into the role of
the OST were men. Anne Campbell, MP for Cambridge, says the government must
find some suitably qualified women to fill the higher levels of science
administration. ‘We have to encourage more women to stay on as research
scientists,’ says Campbell. ‘The way to do that is to start at the top.
If you do not have women in those positions, the real problems tend to get
¾±²µ²Ô´Ç°ù±ð»å.’

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation observes that many of the issues raised
by the inquiry have been studied by social scientists for years, and suggests
that the best answers will be provided by objective research rather than
by gathering opinions. ‘If the OST is not already familiar with the work
that has been done in this area,’ says the foundation, ‘it suggests there
is considerable room for improvement.’

Copies of submissions can be viewed at the British Library’s Science
Reference Information Service, 25 Southampton Buildings, London WC₂
1AW.