Select Committee on Public Administration Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witness (Questions 180-199)

5 FEBRUARY 2004

PROFESSOR SIR DAVID KING FRS

  Q180 Mr Trend: All right; okay.

  Professor Sir David King: And I am being absolutely straight with you.

  Q181 Mr Trend: We talked with Blakemore about the populous, and we used the example of the English rugby football team, something which was clearly popular, in which there was a huge interest and, the country would agree, was richly deserved. I was just wondering whether those sorts of things occurred in science and technology. Perhaps they do not?

  Professor Sir David King: I have given you my example of the Foot and Mouth Disease Science Group who helped me. I must say, I am a great fan of rugby. It is the sport I follow and the English team is the team I support, so I was absolutely delighted with that Honour's List.

  Q182 Mr Trend: Can I tease you about the Royal Society. Can you reveal if you are a Fellow of this organisation?

  Professor Sir David King: The Fellowship of the Royal Society is a published list, Mr Chairman.

  Q183 Mr Trend: We asked Colin Blakemore about this and, as you know, the Science and Technology Committee here was rather critical about the way in which Fellows were appointed and that there was no attempt to give it a balanced, or there appeared to be no mechanism whereby a more balanced, ethnic and gender basis could be achieved; it was rather like a "golden triangle" boys only club?

  Professor Sir David King: The Royal Society?

  Q184 Mr Trend: Yes; and the Committee here was critical about this. Is it that they use a completely different system from the one which you used? You said you were proud that your practice was to include a woman in your selection process?

  Professor Sir David King: The Royal Society system is similar in some ways and inevitably is different in others. I think there may be lessons that could be learned for Government from the way the Royal Society operates, both good and bad lessons perhaps. The Royal Society has a bunch of sectional committees—I believe it is nine, but I am not absolutely sure—nine sectional committees, covering all areas of science, medicine, technology, etcetera, and each of those sectional committees has a membership of around eight or nine people who are drawn by the Royal Society as the academic experts in their field, who again would be highly regarded by the scientific community in their field, starting from mathematics, physical sciences, etcetera[4]The Royal Society has a procedure, which involves a box for each nomination being developed in the Royal Society so that any members of that Committee can pull down the box and look at the nomination of a given member at any time at their leisure. That box is updated for each member year on year and it contains the top 20 publications of that nominee. So the process is subject to much greater scrutiny, in the sense that the individual members of the sectional committee can, if they so wish, put a lot more work into going through the top nominations they wish to consider, but, in other respects, I think, the process is rather similar, because at the end of the day each sectional committee is only going to get two or three Fellows through in a given year out of quite a long list that they are considering. So it is highly selective, and the discussion is not divulged at all.

  Q185 Mr Trend: I understand that. So it is a system done on merit and receives merit on peer group preference, but its profile, the Royal Society's profile, is subtly different, but importantly different, from the profile of people who tend to be awarded state honours. There is a greater mix?

  Professor Sir David King: Yes.

  Q186 Mr Trend: Should these not be roughly the same? Which system has got it right?

  Professor Sir David King: I think the Royal Society, as you just said, looks strictly at your contribution to the discipline. It is the same as the American academies, or other academies around the world. It is a group of scientists who everyone would recognise as the top British scientists, and it does not mix in this question of, for example, good citizenship. Who has gone out of their career and made a real effort? So somebody who has contributed to the foot and mouth disease epidemic, their work in the epidemic might be evaluated as part of their contribution to the science of epidemiology, but they would not rate for a Fellowship of the Royal Society simply because they put that enormous effort in. Therefore, I do think there is a proper difference between the two.

  Q187 Mr Trend: I will end here, if I may, but what I am slightly working towards is a quota system, on which we will all have our private views as to whether it is desirable or not; but there is no doubt that the Government tries to run some sort of quota system for the Honours List as a whole. A Commons Committee on the Royal Society felt that the Royal Society might look at that. It is the Royal Society's business, nobody else's. Do you feel that to a certain extent you are helping that quota system in the selections you put forward for the unofficial committee?

  Professor Sir David King: I have never questioned that, but that is because I am only concerned to see that the listing I put up is a good compromise.

  Q188 Mr Trend: So it does not encourage you every month then to say, "Come on, we need one of this or one of that"?

  Professor Sir David King: I think I am quite well-known for having a good push for science and technology, and so, if there has been a slight increase in the number of science and technology people in the listing, that might just be because I have been putting pressure in that direction, but perhaps that is not surprising.

  Q189 Kevin Brennan: If I was a scientist and wanted get an honour, how would you advise me to go about it?

  Professor Sir David King: I would say, first of all, get on and establish your career as a scientist, and, secondly, if called upon to step outside your career and serve the country, then do that as well.

  Q190 Kevin Brennan: So definitely volunteer for public duties, committees and foot and mouth crises, and things like that, as well as your mundane day-to-day scientific—

  Professor Sir David King: Mundane!

  Q191 Kevin Brennan: You need to do a bit more than your day job—

  Professor Sir David King: Yes.

  Q192 Kevin Brennan: —basically, to get on?

  Professor Sir David King: Yes, but doing your day job well, exceptionally well, will also carry you through.

  Q193 Kevin Brennan: Does it help to know the right people, do you think? Would it be useful to make a few contacts?

  Professor Sir David King: Doing your day job. Is that not what Wilkinson was doing when he drop-kicked that . . . So I think I am not—

  Kevin Brennan: You see, I have a suspicion that Wilkinson and the English rugby team got their honours—that would not have happened if it had been Wales or Scotland!

  Chairman: He is a Welshman!

  Q194 Kevin Brennan: I have a suspicion it would not have happened so quickly.

  Professor Sir David King: Well, I hope we can test it.

  Chairman: It rankles, I am afraid.

  Q195 Kevin Brennan: I am afraid it is going to be a long time before we are able to test it. On a serious point, I think you are on this committee?

  Professor Sir David King: You think?

  Q196 Kevin Brennan: I think you are on this Science and Technology Committee. I know you cannot tell us that you are, but I actually think that you are. So if I was a scientist, you know, observing the empirical evidence in front of me, I would probably want to make sure that if you came along and said, "Would you like to help out on my foot and mouth work?", and everything, and I was a scientist who would like an honour—seriously, you have said that people do appreciate these things and value them—I think I would probably want to get to know you a bit?

  Professor Sir David King: I am going to take your question seriously.

  Q197 Kevin Brennan: It has a serious purpose!

  Professor Sir David King: Yes. I gave an example with the foot and mouth disease epidemic from my own experience, and I am simply saying that those people are examples of the sort of behaviour—they gave examples of the sort of behaviour that I think it is right for a country to honour, but it would be wrong if it was only the people who helped the Chief Scientific Adviser, and so my sifting committee does really try and look right across the board. I mean, obviously, this depends on how fair I am as a Chairman, but I do not think you are going to find complaints from the chief executives of the Research Councils on that score.

  Q198 Kevin Brennan: You see the serious point of my question, which I am sure you realise, is, is this not all a nonsense, this idea that you can keep secret the  membership of the Science and Technology Committee, when everyone knows—I am surmising, not everyone knows and it is wrong to suggest that—when I am suggesting that I believe, I have a strong belief that you are a member of that Committee, and people in the scientific community will presumably have a strong suspicion of who the other element of people are who may well be members of that committee. You are saying the reason why it is kept secret is so that you cannot be lobbied, but if everyone knew who you were, you could say, "If you do lobby me then you will not get an honour."

  Professor Sir David King: Yes. I mean, it is pure surmise that I am a member of that committee.

  Q199 Kevin Brennan: Absolutely, yes.

  Professor Sir David King: Pure surmise.


4   Note by witness: The membership of The Royal Society Sectional Committees is published. Back


 
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