APPENDIX 121
Supplementary memorandum from Dr Jonathan
Cooke
Having attended the evidence session at Westminster
yesterday, I should like to place on record some short remarks
about instances, during the hearing, where I felt that a distorted
impression might have been conveyed given the enormous amount
of material that committee members have had to absorb on this
issue.
1. During questioning of MRC officials (part
1 of hearing), it was stated at one point that "many prominent
scientists from around the world" have been upset by MRC's
plans with regard to Mill Hill. While this is not literally untrue,
as witness the letters that are doubtless in hand, the enormous
distorting effects in a case like this must be borne in mind.
That is, most research scientists, even good ones, just resent
disruption of the flow of their ongoing work for any reason, and
empathise with those they feel are their personal friends in a
worldwide community. Most do not think, or feel, strategically
in terms of the long-term optimal use of resources that are put
into science (though many are trained to mouth the right catch
phrases). It is these "friends", whether spontaneously
writing or (in more cases) lobbied to write by their Mill Hill
associates, who express outrage or negative concern. The greater
number are silent, even though aware of the MRC plans, because
they recognise their appropriateness, even long-term inevitability.
2. Professor Blakemore indeed seems to have
pushed at the limits of permissible managerial tactics. But as
emerged in his first submissions, he came into post inheriting
an almost impossible decision-taking procedure, in the form of
a task-force including members (NIMR staff) whose mind set was
going to render them irreversibly partisan in relation to certain
of the options, together with some requirement that each step
of the decision-tree was to be sanctioned unanimously by the members!
In his defence, this is a recipe for the sort of extreme managerial
exasperation that leads to tactical unwisdom.
3. The ultimate differences between MRC's
hierarchy of preferences for the future and current NIMR sentiments
seemed insufficiently explored at the hearing. That is, MRC believes
that while preservation of an entire broadly inter-disciplinary
institute would be "nice", appropriate future location
for each major grouping of scientists must take precedence over
that if it cannot be achieved. Although the overall peer-review
standing of NIMR scientists has been high within recent years,
this has not been universal across the board or over time. Despite
Sir Skehel's remarks, few are convinced by the arguments that
the whole has been scientifically (as opposed to sentimentally
or socially) greater than the sum-of-parts as across the major
groupings (known technically as supergroups) within NIMR. The
case for preservation of most of the groupings as more focussed
"institutes" is much stronger.
4. Sir Skehel's representation of (a) the
physical appropriateness and (b) his experiences of recruitment
across the years at Mill Hill, were biased to his cause to say
the least. I understand the viewpoint, that the current building
is irremediably out of style for the future, to have been represented
in the session immediately prior to the public one. On recruitment,
I respectfully suggest that selective memory is in operation.
NIMR's current reputation, at least in basic cell and developmental
biology, rests largely on a generation of scientists who were
recruited there in the late 1980s, did the work and have recently
left for "peak of career" posts elsewhere. That was
in an era largely before such environments as those offered by
eg the Wellcome specialist institutes for recruits of elite standard,
were in existence. Without wishing to disparage in any way the
very good younger scientists and others currently remaining at
NIMR, one has to point out that it has not been possible to secure
the equivalent of the workforce of that time, in these areas;
the "style-conscious" generation now on the scene (see
my earlier submission) does not choose positions there so readily.
5. On outreach programmes; if educational
community outreach is to be a major facet of any renewed institute,
as would indeed make great sense, this also weighs in against
continuing on the Mill Hill site despite the current director's
plans. Educational "days out" tend to involve combined
visits to one or more other, metropolitan attractions. The location
is a quiet, outer suburban one whose transport infrastructure
counts greatly against it for this sort of role, as indeed it
does in general. That could not be altered without a degree of
government intervention going altogether beyond what I imagine
possible, and this would still leave the eccentric location itself.
December 2004
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