APPENDIX 69
Supplementary memorandum submitted by
the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
Following our earlier correspondence, I am writing
to offer brief comment in connection with your review. As I indicated
at that stage, the EPSRC is a directly interested party and I
hope that as a consequence, you will excuse us from making a lengthy
response. There are however, two points where the experience of
the EPSRC may be of value to the Committee, since these points
arise from experience with the inner workings of the systems set
in place in 1993-94.
The first relates to the structure for the senior
management within the newly organised research councils. Here
I would wish to emphasise that the experience of the EPSRC has
confirmed the value of the arrangements proposed in the White
Paper. The combination of a part-time industrial Chairman and
a full time academic Chief Executive has been found to be most
helpful. The strategic directives imparted by an industrial Chairman
can be of the greatest value; they have been particularly useful
as the EPSRC has established its patterns of operation during
the first years of its existence.
A second issue relates to the structure of six
research councils, which resulted from the White Paper. This has
been found to be successful in allowing specific missions to be
identified and organisational structures developed to fulfil them.
Thus, major international collaborations can receive concentrated
attention in the programmes for particle physics astronomy and
space science (PPARC); underpinning conventional scale science
in the university sector can receive concentrated attention (eg
EPSRC). As with any structure which seeks to identify divisions
within the fabric of science and engineering, there have been
interface issues, but the individual councils working with the
Director General of the Research Councils have given specific
attention to managing such interfaces. Notable examples of initiatives
of this kind are the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
(jointly funded by NERC, EPSRC and ESRC) and the Interdisciplinary
Research Centre for Tissue Engineering (jointly funded by EPSRC,
MRC and BBSRC).
12 January 2001
|
