Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240
- 259)
MONDAY 10 JANUARY 2005
PROFESSOR ALAN
NORTH AND
PROFESSOR NANCY
ROTHWELL
Q240 Mr Key: And on the Forward Investment
Strategy, they had fair consideration?
Professor North: They had similar
consideration to the Directors of the other Institutes.
Q241 Dr Turner: How does the process
that you have been involved in square with the Quinquennial Reviews
of the Institutes because we have two quite different processes
going on here? Just how do they relate?
Professor Rothwell: The Quinquennial
Review is largely an assessment of the quality of the science
and the future proposals and that had been undertaken, and we
are currently in another cycle. Indeed the last Quinquennial Review
commented on the excellence of the science at NIMR, which was
never questioned by the Committee that I sat on. The Quinquennial
Review does, however, often look at long-term infrastructure issues—not
in detail—and the last Quinquennial Review did raise these
and there were some very specific comments about concerns. In
one of the sub-committee reviews the minutes state concerns raised
about isolation and about clinical translational research. But
the Quinquennial Review is a very different and separate process
undertaken by a group of scientists, often several from overseas,
whose job it is to assess the quality of the science. That was
not our job; it was very different.
Q242 Dr Turner: Was that difference
clearly understood, do you think, by Mill Hill staff?
Professor Rothwell: We repeated
it time and time and time again, so I hope so.
Q243 Dr Turner: So you can say with
hand on heart that the quality of the scientific work carried
out at Mill Hill was not a factor in your considerations?
Professor Rothwell: It was a very
strong factor in our considerations in that it was the excellence
of that science that led us to spend so much time and effort on
trying to ensure its future.
Q244 Dr Turner: How much did your
view of the rationale for moving from Mill Hill change over time?
Professor Rothwell: It became
stronger in my case.
Professor North: How much did
the rationale change?
Q245 Dr Turner: Yes.
Professor North: I think the rationale
was there from the very first discussions of the Forward Investment
Strategy Group, so I do not think that changed very much. The
desire to give it an exciting relocation alongside basic scientists
of other disciplines and alongside clinical colleagues was pretty
much formulated at early meetings of the FIS group.
Q246 Dr Turner: So as far as you
are concerned there is nothing which FIS did which should have
given anyone involved with Mill Hill any reason to doubt that
there was a long-term future?
Professor Rothwell: No. I realise
that there have been discussions about this—I have seen
in the Press—closure of Institutes, but that was never ever
part of our discussion, never part of the thinking of anybody
that I spoke to on that Committee, and still is not.
Professor North: I suppose it
is fair to say that when the draft document for consultation came
out one end of the spectrum could be to interpret that as a closure
of Mill Hill. The other end of the spectrum is to interpret that
as an exciting opportunity for relocation of an extremely strong
and thriving Institute.
Q247 Chairman: I want to ask you
about the question of the new Director and the current Director
retiring in 2006. Why does that have to be a major feature of
the rationale for change, a new strategy of looking at it all
and so on?
Professor Rothwell: I do not think
it was a major feature.
Q248 Chairman: The literature that
we have had, Nancy, it keeps coming up time and time again.
Professor Rothwell: It is an
issue. The Director of an Institute is a critical position. They
need to lead what is a very large group of people and the Director
of any unit or institute within MRC is extremely important; they
are not a manager they are a leading scientist. So that position
is extremely important and recruitment to those positions is treated
very, very seriously.
Q249 Chairman: I guess I know and
you know of many situations where a Director does not have to
be going before you put pressure on the change of scientific direction
and I am just wondering why in this case that things that had
to be done that should have happened 20 years ago, 10 years ago,
10 minutes ago, whatever, why did it not happen before? Why was
this made to be the key feature?
Professor Rothwell: I think probably
a combination of factors of which the change of Director was only
one and not the most important one. I think the formulation of
MRC's Ten Year Vision, the fact that all of the Research Councils
are now taking much longer-term views at their institutes—BBSRC
is doing the same thing—I think a general coming to the
point of "We must do it now"; it has been talked about
quite a long time. So I suppose you could ask the question would
we have done this had the Director not been retiring? It is impossible
to answer but I suspect probably we would.
Q250 Chairman: There is another argument
too that in a unit like NIMR some of the units within that either
he or she is not the actual Director of those units and the focus
and the direction of the research, so you are taking them on as
well in a sense if you are trying to modify the whole structure.
Is that a fair assessment of what was going on, because that could
affect the way that people felt about it, that not only would
the Director feel sensitive about what was happening but the individuals
in their units might feel that they were under some kind of attack
too? That is how I would feel if I were running a unit there on
stem cells, for example, I might feel that—we all go down
together.
Professor Rothwell: I can understand
the concerns; there are bound to be concerns. I just worry a little
about the terminology, "taking on" and "under threat".
Certainly that was not the intention.
Q251 Chairman: Not my words, I am
quoting. There is massive literature I have here.
Professor Rothwell: Inevitably
this is a period of great sensitivity and concern for the staff
and we recognise that fully.
Q252 Chairman: Do you have a view
about this, Alan?
Professor North: I do not think
that the retirement of the present Director in 2006 really played
a terribly strong motivating role in the deliberations of the
Forward Investment Strategy group, I think it was more the opportunity
to look at an Institute that was physically becoming isolated
and that in the next 10 or 15 years we thought that that isolation
would probably make it less competitive in an international sense
in science.
Q253 Chairman: You are aware that
there are different views about that time and why it is that time
and so on?
Professor North: Yes, of course.
Q254 Mr Key: What impact do you think
the current dispute between the MRC and Mill Hill has had on relations
between those two institutions? Has it been very damaging or is
it all about personalities and not science?
Professor Rothwell: It is quite
difficult for me to comment on because I am no longer a member
of MRC Council. Do you want to comment?
Professor North: I cannot say
whether it is about personalities but I do not think it is about
science. I think Mill Hill is full of excellent scientists who
have enjoyed very good relationships with other scientists within
the UK and I fully expect that that will continue.
Professor Rothwell: I think it
is unfortunate that we seem to be losing track of the most important
thing, which is the best investment for science for NIMR.
Q255 Chairman: Let us talk about
that. If you and I were working in the NIMR together and all this
was going on, we would say, "Sod it, let us get out of this,"
would we not? If we lost all that teamwork and that force and
that work it would put British science back quite a bit, would
it not?
Professor Rothwell: I do not know
that we would do that because I am not aware of any staff who
have left NIMR.
Q256 Chairman: Because it is still
up in the air at the minute with this whole thing. But that could
happen, could it not?
Professor Rothwell: But if I were
at NIMR I might—and I do not know because I am not, and
I think it is dangerous to speculate, look at massive investment
on a new site with a new building with fantastic facilities as
an opportunity. I could put it that way.
Q257 Dr Harris: You both said in
your written evidence—and I do not want to paraphrase it
so feel free to restate it yourself—but you feel that this
has now taken up too much time and money and really decisions
have to be made and we need to press on and put it behind us.
Is that an accurate summary of what you are saying? Or do you
think if necessary to make sure as many people are kept on board
as possible it could be looked at again in a different way, for
the sake of harmony?
Professor Rothwell: I think the
paraphrasing is a little extreme. I think we said it has taken
up a great deal of time and there is now some urgency to move
forward actually because of the new Director. But I think we have
to get it right.
Q258 Mr Key: Do you think that there
is any case for actually revisiting this whole decision or
recommendation—because of course a decision has not finally
been made by the MRC yet? If NIMR has really made such a strong
case that it has not had a fair crack of the whip should we as
a Committee be recommending that it all be reopened and started
again?
Professor Rothwell: There will
be a danger in doing that, I think, because it would mean that
any decision taken by MRC would be questioned- and I come back
to what MRC is, I presume you mean the Council, which are the
working scientists?
Q259 Mr Key: Yes.
Professor Rothwell: Some of whom
are funded by MRC, some are not. If the decisions of the Task
Force are overturned, it would be difficult for MRC to make decisions
in the future. So I think we would have to consider that before
making that decision. I would have concerns about the way this
has been done, about the Task Force representation and the independent
members of that Task Force acting, from what I have, seen in good
will to make a recommendation, to then overthrow that, I think,
could have serious consequences.
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