Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 10 MAY 2000
PROFESSOR MICHAEL
WILSON, MR
PETER SIDDALL
AND MR
DAVID TEMPERLEY
20. Let me explore one strategic difficulty
you may have. You say that while your objective is: "to meet
the particular needs of the United Kingdom horticultural industry
and policy requirements of Government", those are not necessarily
consistent, are they?
(Professor Wilson) No.
21. How do you balance that?
(Professor Wilson) There is more than that to balance.
22. Indeed so.
(Professor Wilson) The pressures of commerce and legislation
as well.
23. How do you balance that within a complex
organisation?
(Professor Wilson) To a large extent, I empower those
groups, which are progressing programmes and bringing in money,
to balance it themselves.
(Mr Siddall) There is a very clear distinction between
sources of money that we get. You will be aware that the Levy
Board is an important link with the industry, which we take very
seriously. It is there that we keep the ear open to the needs
of the industry; and they are very acute at the moment, we understand
that. There is a very definite group of people who focus on that
side of the needs process, and the LINK programme is part of the
integration with MAFF there. Another dimension is BBSRC, where
we have another more scientific focus. So the nature of HRI is
that we face outwards to a number of different constituencies,
who effectively bring in revenue and create work for us in different
ways. Therefore the integration takes place. They are the ears
and the listening, that comes into the middle. The Executive Committee
and Science Committee effectively deal with integration and trade-offs.
That is the great strength of HRI. It is all about horticulture.
24. What do you think the policy requirements
of Government are in this area? You say that you are trying to
take those into account. What do you think they are in horticulture?
(Professor Wilson) In horticulture I would say that
our role, at the moment, is to provide scientific information
to underpin policies on reduction of pesticides and chemical use;
to protect the environment; to provide healthy nutritious foods
at the right time of year, the right quantity and so forth; and
to provide crops, particularly ornamentals, demanded by industry,
to improve the quality of life for our consumers. So there is
a whole lot. In terms of policy also, we do work on risk assessment,
on gene flow, and these sorts of things.
25. How do you measure success in your objectives?
(Professor Wilson) In many, many ways. We have many
different performance indicators but there is a very mixed economy
and different sponsors. All have different forms of performance
measurement. Predominantly, of course, the science is measured
by outputs; in terms of papers, patents, varieties, and so forth.
We also have, every four years, a visiting group organised through
the BBSRC, and measures of esteem and international recognition
of our staff are tabulated. In fact, these visiting groups are
becoming increasingly formulaic. The forms and the work that goes
with them is quite daunting these days.
26. You say, I will repeat the phrase: "Our
aim is be the first choice supplier in the United Kingdom and
international market for `research and development for sustainable
horticulture'..." Who are your competitors?
(Professor Wilson) The main competitor would be the
University of Reading.
27. To where your Chief Executive departed.
(Professor Wilson) But no ill feeling! And, I suppose
the Scottish Crop Research Institute from whence I came. Those
would be the main ones. ADAS, to a lesser extent.
28. What are your strengths in relation to them?
(Professor Wilson) Well, apart from the strength of
scale, the mix, the breadth, I can speak with some authority comparing
and contrasting with SCRI, that HRI has obviously a much broader
base of crops on which it works. It has more modern facilities
and resources. Because of its very mixed economy, its very mixed
make-up of scientists and their backgrounds, they have more weight.
There are more of them, and more contacts.
29. What do you think their strengths are? Have
you done a competitive analysis to show where you are performing
best and where their strengths are, and where they seem to be
beating you to key contracts?
(Professor Wilson) SCRI and particularly Reading?
30. Your competitors. You named those two.
(Professor Wilson) In terms of work in genomics and
plant pathology in general, in plant pathology we are fairly even.
SCRI is very strong in nematology. We are much stronger in mycology.
There is a deal of complementarity. In genomics they are beginning
to work on potatoes. We already have extensive programmes and
a lot of funding to work on brassica vegetable crops. So again,
complementarity. Reading: I am not too familiar, I have to say,
with all of the activities of the staff at Reading. I am only
beginning to meet a few of them. We collaborate with these people
as well. You have to appreciate that it is not all competition.
Scientists do collaborate. I know that their Soil and Environmental
Science Group collaborates with our people quite regularly. So
judgments are made in different areas by scientists. It is not
a confrontational thing. The funding bodies and the UK funding
group really determine where the focus goes.
31. It may not be confrontational but it is
certainly competitive. One of the measures of competitiveness
is presumably the contracts that one succeeds in winning. You
are obviously struggling in that regard, although in a market
place which may not be handing out as many contracts as it used
to do. Do you think there is room for three key scientific players
in this market place in the United Kingdom?
(Professor Wilson) A very good question. There is,
as long as the money is there to keep us going. That is the natural
selection process. Some of the areas, as I said, are determined
by the public sector—at least, very much determined by the
funding. If you want a real comparator of where this natural selection
comes from, it is from the commercial end. There, HRI is doing
better, I have to say, than SCRI, with some of the contracts and
some of the connections that we have now. That is where I want
to take us in the future. I want to really exploit those opportunities.
As for Reading, universities have an inside track because they
seem to be able to invent overhead rates. Procedures do not match
up to the rigour with which we have to do it.
(Mr Siddall) If I may add a further point. It would
be important for you to realise that this is not a uniquely British
problem. We are in competition with similar providers of the sort
of expertise that we have from, let us say, Holland, which is
particularly strong in the area of plants and flowers and things.
I think in terms of HRI's competitiveness, I would really like
to point out to you that we have been very successful in the Framework
V tenders recently. In fact, we have been the most successful
of all of the British institutes in this respect. That plays to
our strength.
Chairman
32. Sorry, you will have to tell me what Framework
V means.
(Mr Siddall) The European Commission. Framework V
is a whole new series of funding, which is related to the broader
based application of science and technology in the market. This
is particularly important for HRI. We are rather good at that.
We are not a uniquely academic institution. We are a good combination
of the "R" and the "D" and the near market.
Framework V is about closeness to market and application. I think
it is very interesting that this is a very new initiative this
year, it has only just happened.
(Professor Wilson) Some groups and institutions, who
may have been perceived as our competitors in the past, have fared
very badly in Framework V because it is market driven and problem
solving. That is why HRI is playing to its strength. In the last
round we got five out of 14 bids, which was a remarkable hit rate;
better than any other organisation I have heard about. During
the period that you referred to in your opening remarks, Chairman,
about our funding going down, it is true that our MAFF commission
money has gone down by something like 33 per cent over the decade,
and our BBSRC money is going down a little bit as well, but during
that same period our commercial or competitive income has gone
up by over 60 per cent. It is just that we are starting from smaller
absolute numbers; that we cannot fill the gap fast enough because
we are starting from such a low base. But in addition to European
Framework V, we have begun to get significant sums of money for
overseas projects, from the UK Department for International Development.
We are getting grants from DETR and others on gene flow initiatives.
In HortiTech activities, in the commercial trading activities,
we have performed reasonably well in those trading aspects and
in produce. The next phase is to capture the bulk of the scientific
base of the organisation (the R&D part) and move into scientific
exploitation: as I said, biotech and all the other opportunities.
That is the threshold that we are sitting on now.
Mr Drew
33. To finish off Mark's line of questioning.
Can I be clear as to what relationship you have with John Innes.
Also, with the other university departments. Reading may be the
leading exponent but there are a number of other universities
which have very strong horticultural research interests, do they
not?
(Professor Wilson) There are plant science departments
up and down the length of the country, yes. We have memoranda
of understanding, collaborative agreements at that sort of over-arching
level; but, in reality, on the ground, it is the scientists who
dictate the functionality of these relationships. We do have relationships,
collaborations, joint grants, and all the rest of it, with just
about every institute: that is, the BBSRC institutes and the SCRI.
Also, we have links with many universities. Wellesbourne's convenient
proximity tends to dominate in these selections, so Warwick and
Birmingham are the universities to which Wellesbourne has close
connections. Our East Malling site has close connections with
Wye College, which is soon to become part of Imperial College.
I had lunch last week with Sir Brian Follett, the Vice Chancellor
of Warwick University, discussing even closer relationships between
ourselves. So these things are always evolving.
Mr Jack
34. I was looking through the report which you
have sent, the Horticulture Research International Company Report,
1997-1999. Given that you boast to be the largest world collection
of scientists, where is the reference in this report to international
success? I struggled to find any example in here of successes
outside the United Kingdom.
(Professor Wilson) As I said, our work with DfID and
connections with organisations in New Zealand, America and elsewhere
are only beginning to come on-stream now. The international part,
like the scientific part—raising the profile and the impact
and the quality of the science, which was given to me when I walked
through the door, by Chris Payne—likewise has to be emphasised.
The first decade was very much spent on the identity of HRI and
dealing with some of the turbulence of its settling-in period
and its restructuring during the 1990s. So we are now, as I say
once again, on this threshold.
35. If you are not successful in this field,
then a proper question to ask is whether one can justify having
an organisation of this size in the United Kingdom in relation
to the size of our horticulture industry.
(Professor Wilson) I take the point entirely. We are
making a lot of effort to make connections. We are about to sign
up with the Sugar Research Institute in Mauritius, which is supplying
brown cane sugar to Europe. They have a problem with pathology.
Again, this week, there is another initiative starting. We have
opportunities, through our commercialisation, to go into what
has been referred to as a global portal: to set up teams of scientists,
engaging HRI scientists with international scientists around the
world, in teams which exist to undertake particular contracts
for governments, for companies, to address particularly relevant
problems in crops with which we have some experience or utility.
36. Finally, looking at questions of aspirations
and objectives in broad terms, may I ask you: you have clearly
indicated to us that you have been going for a decade. Part of
the list of the priorities, which you kindly gave, were ones that
pointed in the direction of survivability in the United Kingdom
of our horticulture industry. I looked at page 90 of your report,
where you talk about top fruit for the future. The United Kingdom
apple industry has been struggling to survive against a background
of an onslaught of products from areas where it is easier to grow
apples at lower costs, seemingly with varieties that the public
wants. Your contribution to this is a new selection with novel
taste, appearance, pest and disease resistance. There is nothing
in these pages to link up your priorities with what you are doing,
in a sense, of saying, "Here is a package of science which
will lead towards the further development and survival of the
top fruit industry." I pick that as one example because I
do not see a tie-up between the science direction and the aspirations
for the industry.
(Professor Wilson) I am happy to develop that point.
An apple breeding programme is, of necessity, a very long programme.
The variety to which you refer, which became known as Meridian,
was bred long before—
37. The consumer has 2,300 varieties to choose
from.
(Professor Wilson) Indeed.
38. Why do we have to go and invent a new one?
(Professor Wilson) That is exactly where we are changing
the emphasis. We are now going into a non-random, marker-assisted
breeding and using DNA fingerprinting techniques, to accelerate
the identification of useful genes and traits within apples, so
that we need do much less random serendipitous breeding and more
focused targeted breeding to produce niche market produce rapidly.
Also, hopefully, one day, (some day, if we are permitted), we
are also looking at adding truly beneficial traits: things like
work that we have been doing on a dental caries vaccine in apples
and other opportunities for nutraceuticals and functional foods
in fresh food and veg.
39. Do consumers want this? Who sets these priorities?
Have the industry told you about this? Is this as a result of
looking at markets, talking to people who eat the products, and
our horticulture industry? Is this science for the consumer or
science for its own sake?
(Mr Siddall) In the case of Meridian it is certainly
science for the consumer. I attended the launch of that at the
National Fruit Show and there is no question but that this was
one of the most intensively researched product developments that
has taken place. As Michael has pointed out, it did take years
from the time the first prototypes were developed. I do feel that
it is a two-way process. We are responding to the needs of the
particular segments of the industry. We work very closely with
them. Indeed, I am sure that in that particular case, the top
fruit industry is becoming much more market sensitive than ever.
That is the evidence of it. We are some way behind the game here.
We have to follow the lead times that are necessary in that respect.
The communications are open. If I could, perhaps, turn to an earlier
point you were making about the international side. I think it
is a very interesting point. It does, in a way, sum up the depth
and strength of HRI uniquely. When I joined I said, "What
is the `I' in HRI? What does it stand for?" They said, "It
is not `Institute', it is `International'." I said, "Okay,
but what does that mean?" Your question exactly. One piece,
which has been missed out of the answer you got, was that we are
actually increasingly—and particularly in terms of the future
biotechnology—dealing with international companies who are
driving the science in an awful lot of these areas. So there is
no question as to why they come to us. This is because we have
the leading expertise. This is a whole new area of strategic development
for HRI, which I do not think existed at the time when HRI was
formed, and has only recently been of serious economic benefit
to us. There is a link between that and the recruitment of the
scientists who bring the funding; so there is a whole area of
internationalisation which is coming into the future science strategy
here, which we need to be very conscious of.
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