Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
PROFESSOR JOHN
MURPHY, MRS
BARBARA DOIG
AND PROFESSOR
RICHARD BROOK
OBE
29 MARCH 2006
Q100 Bob Spink: Yes, but could I
just ask one question on this little bit. Were you aware at the
onset that RCUK were reserving the right to amend your report
or ask you to amend the report?
Professor Murphy: No, I was not
aware of that.
Q101 Bob Spink: Thank you. Would
anybody else like to comment on that?
Professor Brook: I think this
is the first time a Panel has tried to look at knowledge transfer
as an activity in this way. My own view is that you cannot apply
the processes that you would apply to looking at a research programme
to the knowledge transfer activity in the same way. When we came
to look at what we were required to do, as it were looking at
the granularity of what they were doing, it was hard to assess
the impact without going back up to what the overall strategy
was. That is where I think we found we did not have enough on
the overall strategy to know how well the individual granular
programmes were working, so the Panel started to move its attention
up the scale towards higher level strategy. I do not think that
was where RCUK originally anticipated we would go, but we felt
we could not do our job without doing that. I think everyone has
learned a lot about what knowledge transfer is and how you do
it from this exercise and I think one would do it and organise
it a bit differently next time.
Q102 Bob Spink: A little tension
can be very constructive at times.
Professor Murphy: Yes.
Professor Brook: Yes.
Mrs Doig: I would certainly reiterate
that it was an exponential learning curve for the members of the
Panel, not just about knowledge transfer but about the various
disciplinary approaches and the various conjoining of disciplines
which make up that whole spectrum, so I think there was a lot
of ground to be cleared before getting on to the business. I would
also like to draw attention to the fact that I personally was
delighted that RCUK, the councils, came back and resolved factual
material. Because I certainly felt I was having to comment on
factual material, and obviously I only have a certain span of
knowledge of the detail on knowledge transfer activities of either
the ESRC, AHRC or, indeed, any of the others, so I think it was
helpful to the process, to make sure there was a good factual
base.
Q103 Dr Iddon: Do you think that
RCUK want to paint the Research Councils in the best light or
are they looking for constructive criticism? Which end of the
spectrum is it?
Professor Murphy: That is a difficult
one, because actually I think there is an element of both. Obviously
they want to put it across in a good light, but at the same time
certainly I have had feedback from different representatives of
the Research Councils that they welcome constructive feedback.
However, in reality, that is mixed, because we have also had some
aggressive feedback on what we have put into the report.
Q104 Bob Spink: Do you feel the report
remains an independent document?
Professor Murphy: I think it does,
because the way we have done it, as I said just now, is to correct
inaccuracies that really preserve the messages and there are some
fairly strong messages in the report.
Q105 Bob Spink: What were the most
significant changes, not in terms of inaccuracy—that is
a given, that is fine—but philosophically, in terms of views,
opinions, ideas which RCUK tried to coerce you into?
Q106 Chairman: We think you have
been beaten up, you see, around the back of the bike sheds.
Professor Murphy: There might
have been an attempt to do that.
Q107 Chairman: Oh, good!
Professor Murphy: But I think
we have resisted fairly well.
Q108 Margaret Moran: You have come
out bruised but unbowed. How far is the difference which you have
been describing to us a difference in understanding between your
view and the RCUK view of what knowledge transfer is?
Professor Murphy: This is really
at the heart of the problem. One needs to be very careful of putting
forward today's knowledge transfer professionals because my experience
is they only cover a narrow subset of the topic in its entirety
and that could lead to some very significant misunderstandings.
That is one of the key messages we try to get across in the report.
I do not believe the Research Councils and, indeed, many people
have a thorough understanding of this topic in its entirety. That
is worth some attention in its own right.
Q109 Chairman: You said in the report
that you had real concerns about the Research Council's visions
and goals. Could you explain that? What were those main concerns?
Professor Brook: It varied from
council to council, I think. This bears upon what John has just
said: our view of knowledge transfer is rather wider than the
view which sometimes you find in Research Councils, which is maybe
more limited. I think we would say there is still a tendency to
think of knowledge transfer as one way: outward, as opposed to
two way: transmitting and receiving. In some places there is still
a degree of conventional approach to technology transfer as opposed
to knowledge transfer and the community which is being addressed
is probably still largely business, whereas I think we felt there
was a role for the informing of public policy and a range of other
stakeholders as well as just business. Obviously the whole scene
is evolving. There is an issue of perception here, in my mind,
because the effectiveness with which you can transfer information
and get it converted into new knowledge depends upon the perceptions
of the person who is receiving the knowledge. I think that it
is fair to say that probably most stakeholders' perceptions of
the Research Councils will be behind where they are, so people
will think of anybody, even an industrial company probably, as
they were five years ago, rather than where they are now. I think
there are some outdated perceptions and I think the Research Councils
should look at how they project themselves and get that message
across in the PR sense as well as doing programmes of actual detailed
knowledge transfer from particular research programmes.
Q110 Margaret Moran: Obviously there
is a diversity of organisations offering knowledge transfer support.
How do you think the Research Councils compare to those other
sources of knowledge transfer support? Are they delivering value
for money? How would you know that they were?
Mrs Doig: Could I kick off, first
of all, on the question implying a range of engagement at the
public policy end, which Richard started off. I think it is fair
to say that the ESRC and AHRC are at one end of that. They have
more of a public policy element in their knowledge transfer activities.
Key to all of this is the ESRC's role, in particular, about rolling
out its knowledge transfer approach, and, indeed, the social sciences
ability to assist the work of the other Research Councils and
the natural and physical sciences. In particular, social science
can help about communication and about understanding the cultural
perspectives which Richard was alluding to and the behaviours.
Q111 Margaret Moran: I was asking
more about other organisations providing knowledge transfer support
rather than the councils themselves.
Professor Murphy: I can answer
your question with respect to value, or at least pass comment
on that. I am sure there just has to be more scope to get significant
improvements in value coming out of these large investments. I
think the days are gone when we can just throw £2 to £3
billion into the university sector on the basis that we hope something
useful will come out of it. Right at the heart of this is freedom
of research direction with funding. You hear people throw up examples
that orient you to one end of the spectrum or the other, such
as DNA fingerprinting, which came out through, if you like, unconstrained
research that led to something very useful. But, then, if you
look at something like NASA, ventures into space, there is lots
of truly significant science that has come out of that directed
research programme. So many people throw up examples to orient
to one or other end of the spectrum. You need a balance somewhere
in the middle. I think no one in business is saying that the whole
budget should be directed, but business is saying that we think
far too high a percentage of the budget is undirected, and that
needs some careful thought if we want increased value to impact
the economy.
Professor Brook: Effective knowledge
transfer is very hard. The Research Councils, in my opinion, are
not particularly less good at it than other organisations. I would
have some criticisms in areas for improvement, but I do not think
I would particularly say there was a problem other than you would
find when you get any bunch of scientists working on scientific
research. In the days when large industrial corporations had their
own scientific research laboratories, I think you would have found
accusations that those scientists were in fact more interested
in going off and being interested in science for its own sake
than serving the purpose of the corporation which owned them.
Wherever you have scientific research in a group of people trying
to advance knowledge in that way, I think they will be vulnerable
to an accusation that they are pursuing science for its own sake
rather than being directed for the purposes of wealth creation.
We have this on a "UK Limited" scale here, as opposed
to, say, British Aerospace or ICI (as it used to be). For effective
knowledge transfer I think you probably need somebody facilitating
it with a degree of neutrality. My experience is that you get
the best knowledge transfer when you have somebody who can see
what the transmitter is saying and how the receiver is responding,
and a facilitated dialogue with somebody who is trying to help
the communication and understanding is the best way of doing it,
I think. Neutral management of the knowledge transfer process
I think often works extremely well, as opposed to just throwing
two communities together sometimes and hoping that it will happen,
Q112 Margaret Moran: You are saying
that there is not sufficient in-house expertise in the Research
Councils to perform the knowledge transfer as effectively as you
think it could be done.
Professor Brook: I think that
is true, but I would have to say that I think there is a shortage
of skilled and experienced knowledge transfer people in the country
as a whole. You need to go through an apprenticeship. You need
to learn how to interact with a variety of different communities
which have different agendas, different languages, different ways
of approaching things, and that takes time. In relation to the
size of the task we have, there are relatively few people available
to do that.
Q113 Margaret Moran: Obviously we
are being told that people expect Research Councils' support of
knowledge transfer to increase as we go forward. You say that
you do not think more money needs to be thrown at it. We have
heard about intermediaries in this. Is there a single measure
which you think would make a step-change difference as far as
knowledge transfer is concerned?
Professor Murphy: One of the useful
examples to look at is the university hospitals, where I think
knowledge transfer takes place relatively automatically. To some
extent, the medical sector is in a privileged position to have
these, because you have the consultants driving the research.
They are dealing with patients, they are practitioners, they are
driving the research, leading research teams and passing on the
knowledge, so that the whole process is closely integrated compared
to other sectors. If you look at industry, then there is a big
divide. To try to copy that in other sectors, then the answer
has to be something to do with people flow and secondments. At
the moment I think we are really only scratching the surface on
moving people. We need to ramp that up significantly. It is people
flow between all of the organisations involved, so that the cultures
flow as well as the knowledge flows. One final point is that we
cannot consider knowledge transfer without considering the knowledge
creation process. Businesses like mine have invested many hundreds
of millions into R&D. If you look at our product base, it
is enormous. Lots of academics heading off in all sorts of directions,
like headless chickens, whether or not their research output will
fit into what we have had, is highly debatable, and often we have
to repeat the research in-house to make it compatible. Again,
it is business engagement at an appropriate stage of the process,
but that is at the research stage, not at the end of it, which
is knowledge transfer.
Q114 Chairman: You paint a picture
here of a laissez-faire process, that the Research Councils
themselves do not have the relevant expertise. Indeed, some of
the written evidence we have from the Institute of Physics, QinetiQ,
CBI says we do not have that necessary expertise, and yet that
does not come over in your report as being a major concern for
you. Do we get value for money out of this, or should we look
to another organisation to add to the knowledge transfer in this
country?
Professor Murphy: I guess I would
be disappointed if that does not come out of the report. It is
definitely the case in my mind that the knowledge to do this is
distributed, so the Research Councils have some of the knowledge,
but there is absolutely no doubt that business also has some of
the knowledge. At the hard end, in business, you have to transfer
the knowledge. At the end of the day, we have to get a product
out the door or a capability in place to address the markets,
so we have no choice but to integrate all these research outputs
into our product and sell it, so there is lots of expertise within
industry and that is why I think the people flow is particularly
important.
Q115 Dr Iddon: It is coming over
as if there is not enough coordination between all the people
involved in knowledge transfer. Have you made recommendations
in your report as to how to improve the coordination of knowledge
transfer specialists?
Professor Murphy: We have certainly
put that message in the report but I do not think we have said
how to do it. I was at an event earlier this week on the same
topic, where a representative of the Russell Group said: "The
UK system is a mess."
Q116 Chairman: They always say that.
Professor Murphy: Also he said
that it is far easier for UK universities to team up with non-UK
European universities. This is just the funding mechanisms driving
it. Really he was saying the EU programmes drive the linkage between
universities and business better than the national programmes.
Q117 Dr Iddon: OSI (as we now have
to call it, instead of the OST) is putting immense pressure on
universities to go in the direction of knowledge transfer for
the reasons you have rightly suggested. We have put billions of
pounds into research in universities. Is there not a danger of
taking that exercise too far and taking the universities away
from what they are really intended to be, that is knowledge generators?
Is there not some other mechanism to transfer this? Could the
Research Institutes, for example, which many of the Research Councils
have, be a bridge between universities and industry and commerce?
Professor Murphy: I think that
mechanism is certainly worthy of consideration. One of the risks
in driving knowledge transfer too hard in its own right is that
within universities or within organisations knowledge transfer
is set up as a separate entity on the side of the university and
it is not fully integrated with these very special people who
have the ability to create the knowledge. We want these knowledge
transfer skills to be added on to the other skills; we do not
want separate teams of so-called knowledge transfer specialists.
I can see elements of that happening.
Q118 Dr Iddon: Have you looked at
the relationship between the incubators: the excellent one in
Manchester which has doubled in size on the university campus,
doing very well, compared with the one at Liverpool which is struggling
slightly in the bio chemistry spheres. We have this idea of spinning
out companies: the academic goes into the incubator and starts
a company; but there is no chance of the academic coming back
into the departments, as far as I can see. Do you think we are
innovative enough in the use of our academics to transfer the
knowledge through incubators to industry and commerce?
Professor Murphy: Again I think
there is definitely scope to improve. I am not too familiar with
the examples you have quoted.
Q119 Dr Iddon: The incubators have
not been part of your wider study.
Professor Murphy: No.
Mrs Doig: It is not on this particular
angle, but could I register concern. There was an implication
in the questioning from Ms Moran about barriers. My colleagues
did not go down the route of mentioning the Research Assessment
Exercise within universities and I think it is important to register
that as one of the things which hold academics back, certainly
at my end of the science spectrum. Even if they wish to participate
in knowledge transfer they cannot do so because it does not give
brownie points on the Research Assessment Exercise and that is
what is driving activities within the universities.
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