APPENDIX 67
Memorandum from Professor Jim Smith, Cambridge
University
1. The success of the National Institute
for Medical Research is due in large part to the interdisciplinary
nature of the work being carried out. Few Universities or other
Institutions within the UK can match the range of research being
carried out at Mill Hill, and it is important that this interdisciplinary
culture is maintained and encouraged. The financial and intellectual
arguments for moving NIMR to central London are weak and unconvincing,
and the option of remaining in Mill Hill should be included in
further discussions. Finally, it is important that the future
of NIMR is decided soon. I, and presumably others, became aware
of the idea to move the Institute to Cambridge in 2000, and this
long period of uncertainty must have been very damaging to Mill
Hill.
2. I write as a former member of NIMR. I
joined the Institute in 1984 as a tenure-track scientist, was
awarded tenure in 1988, and became Head of the Laboratory of Developmental
Biology in 1991. I then became Head of the Genes and Cellular
Controls Group in 1996. I left in 2000 to become Chairman of the
Wellcome/CRC Institute (now the Wellcome Trust/CR-UK Gurdon Institute)
and the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Developmental Biology
at Cambridge University.
3. As a former member of the Institute I
know that NIMR provides a superb environment to become a successful
and productive scientist. When I told Martin Raff (University
College, London), over 20 years ago, that I was going to NIMR,
he said "if you can't succeed there, you won't succeed anywhere".
He was right.
4. The success of the Institute depends
in part on the facts that the scientists have a superb research
infrastructure, they have very little administrative work, they
do not have to write grants, and they are not obliged to teach.
More important, however, are:
(i) the depth and breadth of the research
that is carried out at NIMR;
(ii) the fact that there are critical masses
of scientists working on different yet complementary problems;
and
(iii) the opportunities to collaborate. During
my time at the Institute I collaborated and published with virtually
all the developmental biology groups and had many productive interactions
with members of the other "supergroups" (as they were
called in my time).
5. Since my departure from the Institute,
with more genomic sequences becoming available as well as the
advent of "Systems Biology", the importance of these
interdisciplinary collaborations has increased enormously. In
my subject of developmental biology, I need increasing access
to expertise in imaging, cell biology, microarray technology,
bioinformatics, proteomics, novel fluorescent molecules, physiology
and mathematical biology, to name just a few areas. These techniques
are all available at NIMR, but most University researchers, even
those in the best Universities, do not have ready access to them,
and certainly not on a daily basis, as is possible at Mill Hill.
6. Interdisciplinary interactions of this
sort frequently lead to the establishment of new collaborative
projects, and another strength of NIMR is that, with the Director's
support, such projects can be initiated immediately, rather then
having to write a grant and wait for the outcome of the application.
7. I believe these arguments strongly favour
keeping NIMR as a single multidisciplinary entity. To break it
up, presumably into units whose remits would be those of the existing
four research areas of Mill Hill, would be to take a huge retrograde
step that runs counter to all the prevailing trends of biological
research. These trends are illustrated by the establishment of
systems biology institutes around the world, the expansion of
the Sanger Institute, the founding of the Janelia Farm research
community by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the requirement
of the HFSP that their research grants are multidisciplinary in
nature. To deny NIMR scientists the opportunity to participate
in this new and exciting style of biology would be very unfortunate
indeed.
8. I have heard, informally, some of the
arguments against maintaining NIMR as it is. One is financial.
I can't speak to this because I don't know what the numbers are,
but I do know that it is difficult to put a price on successful
science, and that successful science can, sometimes, generate
enormous income. A second reason (and I hear this argument more
often now that I have left Mill Hill) is that some people are
concerned that NIMR scientists have too good a deal and that they
reduce funds available to universities through MRC project and
programme grants. In response to this I would note that the Wellcome
Trust, the BBSRC, CR-UK, NIH, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
and many other agencies also have both Institutes and response
mode funding. The important thing is to get the balance right
and to make sure that the Institutes are rigorously reviewed.
9. Any discussion of the future of NIMR
should indeed review the balance between direct support and response
mode funding and consider the whole of the MRC's portfolio, including
other Institutes and Centres.
10. I can see no strong reason for moving
the Institute to central London. First, the Institute has the
necessary critical mass to function as an independent entity.
Little would be gained on a day-to-day basis by moving to University
College or King's College London, and NIMR in its present position
is close enough to collaborate efficiently with scientists in
both these colleges. Second, the move itself would be very expensive,
and one advantage of staying in NW7 is that it is much easier
for people (especially non-academic staff) to live locally. I
know how important this is from my experience in Cambridge, where
very few of our animal technicians, for example, or secretaries,
can afford to live near the Institute. This makes recruitment
and retention very difficult. I believe it is very important to
keep open the idea that NIMR stays in Mill Hill.
11. Finally, I believe it is very important
to make a decision about NIMR as quickly as possible. I was made
aware of the possibility that NIMR might move to Cambridge in
2000, shortly before I left the Institute. It took over two years
for the proposal to appear in the draft MRC Forward Investment
Strategy document of April 2003, and 18 months later all that
has happened is that Cambridge has been ruled out and University
College and King's College have replaced it. NIMR has thus suffered
a prolonged period of uncertainly, and this must have hindered
recruitment and damaged morale enormously.
22 November 2004
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