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Britain’s science policy will now be run by a ‘troika’ made up of the
science minister, the chief scientific adviser and the new director-general
of the research councils, William Waldegrave said last week. But the current
science minister disappointed the House of Lords Select Committee on Science
by making clear that the director-general would have less clout than the
peers hoped.

Facing his first detailed questioning since publishing his White Paper on
science two months ago, Waldegrave said the triumvirate would give
scientists greater direction than in the past. ‘This structure will deliver
more steerage,’ he said.

Central to Waldegrave’s plans is the director-general, whose role will be to
update ministers about the affairs of the research councils. ‘He will have
direct access to me and will be the principal adviser to me on policy and
the division of funds,’ said Waldegrave.

But according to Brian Flowers, chairman of the Lords select committee, the
purely advisory nature of the director-general’s job is a weakness. ‘That
means the heads of the research councils can bypass the director-general
and go straight to the minister.’ Flowers suggested the research councils
ought to be directly accountable to the director-general. ‘The minister is
the executive power,’ replied Waldegrave.

Waldegrave indicated that in practice big decisions would be made by
ministers rather than research councils. ‘We were asking the chairman of the
Science and Engineering Research Council to make such spectacular judgments
– for example, between CERN (the European laboratory for particle physics
near Geneva) and small science. It was just unfair to devolve decisions like
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Over the past ten years, the proportion of research funds going to each of
the five research councils has remained roughly constant. But as the key
decisions on funding are passed up to ministers, Waldegrave suggested there
is likely to be more shifting of money from one research council to another.