APPENDIX 28
Memorandum submitted by The Geological
Society
The Geological Society, founded in 1807, is
the oldest geological society in the world. It has almost 9000
members worldwide, and is both a learned and professional body,
recognised by the DTI as the chartering authority for appropriately
qualified Fellows.
1. The Society's evidence focuses on:
— the Government's strategy for science
— the public understanding of science
THE GOVERNMENT'S
STRATEGY FOR
SCIENCE
2. The extractive industries in the UK (including
hydrocarbons and coal) accounted for 1.7 per cent (£12.75
billion) of the UK's GDP in 1998. Geoscientific knowledge and
expertise underpins much of the work of these industries, and
also has a major role to play in addressing environment issues,
such as the restoration of the contaminated land, waste disposal,
water supply and quality, coastal retreat and climate change.
3. In its recent evidence to the Committee's
inquiry into "The Scientific Advisory System—Scientific
Advice on Climate Change", the Society drew attention to
the need for a stronger geoscience perspective to be included
in government research into the effects of global climate change,
and the need for more studies of the consequences of volcanic
winters. These are two examples that illustrate our general concern
that government needs to pay more attention to the contribution
of the geosciences to policy making concerning sustainability
and the environment.
4. We are concerned that the 1993 White
Paper, with its focus on wealth creation and the quality of life,
has resulted in under-investment in the acquisition of baseline
data collected by the British Geological Survey, research institutes
and universities. Such information is essential to formulate and
implement policies concerning sustainability and the environment
at national and local levels. Examples include:
— Maps of geology, hydrogeology and
potential hazards (due to natural geological conditions and mining).
— The acquisition of time-series data
showing changes in climate, groundwater conditions, coastal retreat
and advance, and ecological change, not only in recent and historical
times, but also over much longer periods of time (thousands to
millions of years) before the impact of major anthropogenic changes.
Without such data, there is little, or no, objective basis on
which to measure change, and to begin to separate out anthropogenic
from natural changes.
5. Many advances in the geosciences in the
last century contributed to wealth creation and the quality of
life in a long-term strategic fashion, but might well have failed
this test of success if the originators had not been free to undertake
"blue skies" research. Many of these advances were interdisciplinary
in nature, and the same will apply in future. It is important,
therefore, that future research funding is not "discipline
blinked". Competition between individual scientists and groups
may be healthy, but competition between grant giving Research
Councils based on pre-judged "areas of science" may
not be the best way of achieving value for money.
FORESIGHT
6. The Society has the impression that so
far Foresight outputs have had a rather limited impact on geoscience
related business, and that they are not widely known amongst our
membership, 60 per cent of whom work in industry and commerce.
Not surprisingly, therefore, in 1998, in its response to the OST's
consultation on the next round of Foresight, the Society expressed
strong reservations about the wisdom of combining the Energy Panel
with that dealing with Natural Resources and Environment. The
relatively new Energy and Natural Environment Panel has, as far
as we know, yet to act on suggestions for geoscience-related topics
to address, such as aggregate production and use, and landfill
siting and containment strategies. Such problems once again highlight
the difficulties of expecting research to yield immediate effects
on wealth creation and the quality of life (see paragraph 4).
7. In its 1998 response to OST, the Society
proposed that the panel addressing "Education, skills and
training" should consider the implications of sustainable
development. We suggested much more needed to be done, particularly
at school level, to ensure that all citizens have a broad knowledge
and understanding that our quality of life and that of future
generations is dependent on the wise use of renewable and non-renewable
resources. Foresight outcomes, therefore, should provide a business/industry
perspective on the changes needed to school and university education
and training, and to the provision of life-long learning, in order
to achieve sustainable development. We are not aware that the
panel has pronounced publicly on these issues.
PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
OF SCIENCE
(PUS)
8. Realising our Potential gave a
most welcome fillip to the standing and practice of PUS activities
and charged the newly formatted Research Councils with providing
financial assistance to that end. However, the paradigm remained
unchanged from the Bodmer Report (1985) of the Royal Society—scientists
communicating to the public. The world has since moved on. What
is required now, as Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal, said
in opening Science Week in March this year, is a process that
will enable the average citizen to feel that the products of research
and science will "empower, not imprison them". This
will need a genuine dialogue involving a willingness on both sides,
to address, as it were, the other side's examination paper as
well as answering their own.
9. The geoscience community has long experience,
through public enquiries and the like, in understanding public
reactions to the exploitation of their subject in new proposals
for quarrying, for radioactive waste disposal, for new transport
routes, etc. and in providing a sound basis for informed debate.
These examples are all issues with which Government and Parliament
are much concerned. The challenge, as we see it, is, therefore,
to find the appropriate national and local institutional framework(s)
through which scientific, social and political inputs to major
public policy issues can be discussed in an open, responsive and
non-adversarial manner. To do this requires new kinds of PUS activities
aimed at developing dialogue both between scientists and the public,
and scientists and government.
10. The Geological Society plans to increase
its educational activities in collaboration with other organisations,
and the delivery of these will be designed in the context of the
comments in paragraphs 4, 8 and 9. We look to government and to
non-governmental organisations alike to help develop a genuinely
two way dialogue. Museums and Science Centres, consensus conferences
and internet exchanges could provide some of the more obvious
vehicles for the dialogue, given the necessary resources. But
it will be active encouragement by a Government genuinely seeking
transparent debate and policy input, from public and science together,
that will be the key to dialogue.
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