|
UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 491-i House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL: INTRODUCTORY HEARING
Wednesday 19 October 2005 PROFESSOR ALAN THORPE Evidence heard in Public Questions 1 - 55
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Science and Technology Committee on Wednesday 19 October 2005 Members present Mr Phil Willis, in the Chair Adam Afriyie Mr Robert Flello Dr Evan Harris Dr Brian Iddon Mr Brooks Newmark Anne Snelgrove Dr Desmond Turner ________________ Witness: Professor Alan Thorpe, Chief Executive, Natural Environment Research Council, examined. Q1 Chairman: We would like to welcome Professor Alan Thorpe to the first of our evidence sessions in terms of actually looking at the new chief executives of the research councils. Welcome to your post, Professor Thorpe. It is the role of the Committee to look at the work of each of the research councils and it has been general practice that when we have a new incumbent - and you have been there for six months now so your feet are firmly under the table - we are able to ask you the sorts of interesting and gentle questions which this Select Committee is famed for. Why did you want this particular post? You were very happy at Reading working away as an environmental atmospheric physicist. Why this post? Professor Thorpe: I had been involved with NERC over many years because of getting funding from them for my research programme and laterally I had become Director of their Centres for Atmospheric Science, which was across university activity. I kind of already had made a move into a leadership role in terms of the atmospheric science community and I was enjoying that and felt the importance of that leadership and also the importance of the environmental science research that could be done. I saw it as a real opportunity to broaden myself into the much wider arena of the natural environment as a whole but still take that leadership role because of the scientific excitement and challenge of doing that. Q2 Chairman: You have obviously been involved with NERC before. What is the vision you have for the next three years? What is going to be different with you? Professor Thorpe: I suppose to answer that I need to say how the previous world was. Over the last few years NERC has made an important transition to focusing on the whole earth system. Obviously a natural environment figures right from the bottom of the oceans to the top of the atmosphere and everything in between. There had been a noticeable move towards trying to understand the whole global environment and obviously what happens in Britain and elsewhere is part of that, but you need to put all the components together and that is an excellent agenda and one that I support. For the near future I think what I have been focusing on with my team and others is to think about what really is the use of the knowledge that we are generating. If we really just set ourselves the question how can scientific knowledge in the natural environment be used for the benefit of society and the economy then one of the main uses actually is to give an early warning as to what is likely to be round the corner in terms of environmental change, be it climate change or other aspects of environmental change. Having that early warning of what is on the horizon ten, 20 or 100 years ahead allows society and the economy to react and to have the benefit of that knowledge so that they can figure out what to do. Q3 Chairman: Does that imply that we were not doing this before? Professor Thorpe: No, not at all. It is just emphasising the focus of the use of the knowledge which is a nuance but it is nonetheless important. Recent history, with the number of natural hazards and disasters that have happened, unfortunately has reminded us, if we needed it, of the importance of actually being able to translate the knowledge for the benefit of society. So often prediction/early warning is actually the important output of the knowledge, it is just a reminder of what we are doing the research for. Q4 Chairman: What qualities does an atmospheric physicist bring to that? It is not the normal sort of territory, is it? Professor Thorpe: It is really. I would argue that atmospheric science has been at the forefront of this because of the need for weather prediction and the need for climate change prediction. Atmospheric scientists have been at the forefront of that kind of modelling, prediction, early warning setup both from the research point of view but also operationally as well in the Met Office and other places. As you probably know, for three years I was at the Met Office as a director. I think atmospheric physics and science is an excellent background for that. Chairman: You would say that! Q5 Adam Afriyie: How do you understand the relationship between science and government policy? Professor Thorpe: It is complex and multi-facetted. In the natural environment a lot of the research that we do almost by definition is policy relevant because of the accepted importance of environmental change particularly but also the use of resources for energy and other means. With the natural environment we start from a position of realising that the research is highly relevant to policy and I think over the years I would like to see a strong connection between the research output and feeding that into the evidence base that goes into policy. That is one facet. The other facet is that NERC as a research council carries out independent research so that government does not dictate the research that we do. As I say, the very nature of the type of research that we do makes it policy relevant and so there is a direct feed that way. It is a multi-facetted relationship, but I think it is important to realise both of those aspects. Q6 Adam Afriyie: You said, "It is absolutely essential that the research that is done by NERC scientists is translated into the evidence that the government needs". My question really is, should you not be funding best science rather than following government priorities? Is this a change in policy since you arrived? Professor Thorpe: I do not see it as a change of policy from NERC. We do fund internationally the best science that is done in the UK in collaboration with others. What we are talking about is how that science is used. Often the motivation for generating that knowledge is that this is important knowledge for society and the economy. It is natural and important that that knowledge is followed through, where it is useful, to form an evidence base. What is done is not driven by the requirement of that but where we do research of the highest quality and it has policy relevance; that is what I was talking about. Q7 Adam Afriyie: You are saying that the Government has no influence over the research that you are undertaking, are you not? Professor Thorpe: Only in the very broadest sense. It has no role in determining particular aspects of our scientific strategy and which areas of research we are going to have in directed programmes or which grants are supported from individual researchers. Q8 Adam Afriyie: Is there an element where the grants that have come from government or those kinds of sources to researchers may be influencing the research that is undertaken? Professor Thorpe: I think overall the researchers are doing natural environmental research because often, not always, they themselves as individuals see the relevance and importance of the research. In that sense this is why there is a good match, but we are not being driven by government in terms of the agenda of the research we do. We fund research in areas of excellence. It would be naive not to notice the fact that internationally as well things like climate change is of critical importance to society and the economy. This is what motivates and allows us to devise our strategy, because we see the relevance and importance of it. I do not think that is the same as government telling us what to do. Q9 Adam Afriyie: So in a way the political agenda does determine to a certain degree, although maybe not directly, the routes that you may give priority to? Professor Thorpe: It is almost inevitable in as much as the scientific research that people want to do and are good at doing they have multiple motivations for doing. Q10 Adam Afriyie: What is the relationship between Defra and the Chief Scientific Advisor in your view? Professor Thorpe: The Chief Scientific Adviser, Howard Dalton, sits on the board of Defra and provides information on that board about the opportunities and the science evidence that is needed within Defra for policy making. He is not a budget holder. Q11 Chairman: I think we want to know what your relationship is. Professor Thorpe: My apologies. Howard Dalton is a member of our council and I am an observer on the Science Advisory Council that Defra has that Howard is on for advice to the Chief Scientific Advisor, so there is cross-representation on those two councils. Q12 Adam Afriyie: Would you say that QUEST has been successful in its aim to produce science to inform evidence-based policy and, if so, how is it doing that? Professor Thorpe: We funded a large programme called Quantifying and Understanding the Earth's System (QUEST). QUEST has started relatively slowly so the outcomes of the research are not quite there yet. We have been putting in place a number of largely consortium grants within QUEST to carry out three or four of the major components. We recently had our first stakeholders public event in London about two months ago so that we could start to engage with the wider stakeholder community but also business as well and others so that they are involved as early as possible in understanding what opportunities there are for all that knowledge to be used. QUEST, like a number of other NERC programmes, is active in various forms in stakeholder fora both with business and government. Q13 Adam Afriyie: So there has not been much of an outcome yet but it is under way? Professor Thorpe: Yes. Q14 Dr Harris: You say that government does not directly influence your approach, but in other research councils, for example the Medical Research Council, the government says, "We want to do stem cells, do it," and the MRC says "Yes Sir" and sets up an allocation from its grant to do that specifically on the basis that that is what has been called for. In terms of your directed programmes, is there a mechanism whereby government can inform and advise and recommend? Professor Thorpe: There is. When we are, as we are at the moment, devising our overall science strategy, which tends to be set and major changes are made every five years but there are changes in the interim as well, we have a strong stakeholder consultation and that is with the public, business and government departments so that we listen to a large number of voices as well as devising that science strategy on the basis of the input from scientists. That is one direct way in which our long-term trajectory in terms of what we do is informed by the knowledge of the stakeholder community. Q15 Dr Harris: You have said in answer to my colleague that you want your research to feed into the evidence base that policy is made on. How do you evaluate whether policy is being made on the basis of an evidence base in your areas let alone the evidence base that you have contributed to? Professor Thorpe: It is a very good question. I think the area that is most obvious and which is easier to answer is climate change because of the existence of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which has been in existence since 1990. There is a very direct connection there because the party meetings, for example, are set up specifically to form assessments of the science so that there are authoritative assessments of where the science is and that is in the same forum where the Kyoto Protocol is being negotiated. So you can see the pull through very easily. Q16 Dr Harris: I understand in that area there is an independent view as to whether the Prime Minister has it right more than his friend George Bush, but what about other areas, how do we work out whether policy is being made on the basis of the evidence? Do you have a role in auditing that in any way or is that for someone else? Professor Thorpe: There are a number of consultations between departments such as Defra when and as policies are being formed. Those consultations request input and we would give it. We also provide information on things like the Science Advisory Council for Defra. Have I answered your question? Q17 Dr Harris: Would you agree that someone independent should be doing a judgment in these areas as to how much policy is being influenced because otherwise why we are wasting our time to a certain extent? Professor Thorpe: You are right, we have no direct role in auditing that process. I suppose one would argue that the chief scientific advisors that are in many government departments are there to ensure that that role of making sure that the proper science evidence is made into policy happens. Q18 Dr Harris: How independent are they? Professor Thorpe: My experience of those individuals is that they are very free thinking, independent scientists, but that is a personal view. Q19 Chairman: You say you listen to a large number of voices, but the impression that has been given in the six months you have been in post is that you listen to the Government's voice which is much larger than anybody else's voice. How many times do you meet the Minister for Science and indeed government officials? Professor Thorpe: I am meeting the Minister for Science three times today. Q20 Chairman: That is normal, is it? Professor Thorpe: That is not quite normal. The numbers of interactions directly with Lord Sainsbury have been few in my six months. Where it has happened it has been connected with the UK Space Board. At one of our meetings we are discussing with him the ministerial negotiations for the ESA budget. I suppose the Government Chief Scientist is another point of contact. I have had regular meetings with Sir David King. I have had relatively few thus far with ministers other than Lord Sainsbury. Q21 Anne Snelgrove: You will know that I visited the research councils earlier this month before Parliament returned. I was very comforted about the peer review process that research projects have to go through as it seemed to me extremely extensive. I would have thought it would be very difficult for Government to interfere. I wonder whether you would comment on that. Professor Thorpe: I absolutely agree with you. It is very much the core business. The peer review process underpins all of what we to, so we have extensive international and national peer review. We have a peer review college in NERC which is a group of about 280 UK scientists who assist us with assessment and come together in what we call moderating panels to look at the grades that the international reviewers have come up with, to moderate those and prioritize the proposals. I think the process is very extensive and I would say, if that is your direct question, it is independent of government interference. Q22 Dr Turner: Professor Thorpe, you have been personally involved in raising the profile and knowledge of climate change. I would like your view on whether you see a genuine global consensus emerging on the importance and the mechanisms of global change - leaving out George W - both in the public domain and in governments around the world? Professor Thorpe: I think you have to start by asking the question whether there is a consensus view from the scientific community. I think the existence of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in making now their fourth assessment on the science of climate change has been incredibly important in answering your question. There is an absolutely extensive and wide ranging and rigorous analysis of where the science is from time to time. Their fourth assessment is due out in a couple of years' time. Consequently I think one can say that there is a consensus of scientists worldwide on this problem. That is not to say that there are not parts of the system where there are still significant uncertainties and where you will have strong scientific debate, but in terms of the overall picture of whether there has been global warming and whether that is likely to continue and what the cause of it is, in my view there is a scientific consensus on it. We then make the transition as to whether governments are listening to that. I think the fact that the Kyoto Protocol was ratified and came into force this year is an important step. It is a very small step from the point of view of making a substantive change to the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but it does show that a significant number of countries are coming on board and, of course, the UK has taken a leadership role in that. Of course, one of the challenges is the developing world and the developing countries that are outside of the Kyoto mechanism at the moment and already discussions are starting about that, which is going to be a critical issue in the future. Q23 Mr Newmark: I am curious about this because I spend a lot of time in the US and there is clearly a different perception within different parts of the community there on the impact of all that. What do you see as the reason why there is this perception in the US they will not sign the Kyoto Protocol and George Bush's proclamation that he does not necessarily see the impact in the same way that we do and the solutions to things in the same way that we do? Professor Thorpe: I am not sure I have an answer to that. The US climate scientists that I interact with and that are involved in the IPCC are of the consensus mind that I have described. The translation of that into influencing government policy is another matter, but I think the US scientists to my knowledge are part of that international consensus. Q24 Dr Turner: The schism between American scientists and the grand old parties is fairly familiar. Do you think your predecessor was right in attributing Hurricane Katrina as a climate change event? Do you think that this and Hurricane Rita might serve as something of a wake-up call to the White House? Professor Thorpe: The issue with climate is that the climate is the average across weather systems. What one should say rather than Katrina is or is not climate change is the frequency of category four or five hurricanes is increasing under climate change; that would have been my way of describing it. The science has moved on. There have been a couple of important papers in Nature and Science this year that show that the strongest hurricanes, the category four and five ones, have actually increased in their destructive power and their intensity significantly over the last 50 years, actually tracking quite well the influence in sea temperatures which in turn is because of the global warming from greenhouse gases. The evidence is beginning to emerge that some of the most intense and damaging hurricanes are becoming more frequent. Where there is uncertainty for the future is that those systems are relatively small scale and the current generation of climate prediction models are represented with a significant amount of uncertainty. So the outlook for the future is actually one of the frontiers of the science: are hazardous weather systems going to increase in frequency or not? I would not like to be categorical at this stage about that because I think it is one of the areas of uncertainty and it is one of the areas we will have to do more research on. Q25 Chairman: There is no causal link at the moment between global warming and hurricanes, is there? Professor Thorpe: There is a causal link, yes. As the atmosphere warms that heat goes into the surface temperatures of the ocean. For example, in the tropical Atlantic we have detected that the surface temperatures are increasing slightly, which is what we would have expected. Hurricanes draw their energy by taking heat from the surface layers of the ocean. So there is a direct causal relationship between the warmth of the ocean, the warmth of the atmosphere and feeding the energy into hurricanes. It is much more indirect in a lot of other weather systems which is why it is a difficult problem to answer, but for hurricanes the causal relationship is relatively straightforward. Q26 Dr Turner: The insurance industry certainly knows the answer because it has seen its payouts on severe weather events going up progressively over recent years. We have had the Gleneagles Summit - it was perhaps slightly overtaken in the public mind by 7/7 unfortunately - and the plan of action that came out of that summit in the communiqué. How seriously do you take that? Do you think this is going to be a real political impetus? Do you think it is really going to lead to any substantial difference in global behaviour? Professor Thorpe: I hope that it is. I think the dual focus on Africa and climate change in the Gleneagles Summit was very appropriate. As you may or may not know, I, amongst others, represented the opportunity for science to help in developing countries to make them more resilient to changes because of climate change which is critical, for example, in Africa for agriculture and the sustainability of food, etcetera. There is an awful lot that could be done in terms of the science that we currently have and the science that we could do to help substantially in the developing world. One of my hopes from that G8 Summit was that the environmental component of the problem in Africa would come to the fore. I did not feel that it did strongly come to the fore, but I still feel that this is a critical part of what should be done. I am having, and have had, extensive discussions with the Department for International Development specifically on this issue and with their Chief Scientist Gordon Conway. With Gleneagles, I think a lot of expectation was there, particularly in the scientific community that I know about the potential opportunity of taking to the next level and accelerating what we could do in the science both in climate change and Africa and linking them. I am not convinced I have seen that that aspiration of the scientific community has been realised yet. Q27 Mr Flello: Across today's newspapers is a Greenpeace report about the developments in China. One of the things that caught my eye particularly was the calculation that oil use by China in future years will exceed current production. Obviously the impact of that on climate change and things like the Gleneagles Agreement will be quite fundamental. Do you have a view specifically on China's progress? Professor Thorpe: As I said earlier, the agenda needs to and is moving strongly from the Kyoto Protocol in the developed countries to the developing. We know that India and China and a number of other emergent economies are growing rapidly, are using fossil fuels and consequently are going to be contributing substantially. The other side of the coin is that those societies are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change as well. So in China in particular flooding, dust storms and extreme weather events are becoming increasingly a severe hazard. If you buy the connection between that and global warming, which has got to be proven, they have a strong interest in the impacts of climate change. It is a key question and clearly energy policy and what they do in terms of their energy is going to be a critical aspect of this. Again, if the developing countries can provide leadership and help in that direction it would be useful. Q28 Mr Flello: Are the models that have been used in terms of prediction factoring in China's accelerating growth? Professor Thorpe: Absolutely. Climate models that predict and give us the outlook for climate change are global and so they include the developing countries and the scenarios for the production of CO2 includes a whole variety of scenarios as to how China and the developing world will actually develop in terms of emissions. We do have the scenarios to relate to where China seems to be going, for example the emissions that lead to low level ozone production. Research funded by NERC has recently shown that the levels of concentrations of surface ozone in places like China by the end of this century will far exceed the World Health Organisation's limits for safety, because ozone has a significant impact on human health. There are some real issues there. The climate models are definitely taking those into account. I should say that one of the things that China is definitely investigating in my view - and I am not an expert in this - is environmental technologies and a variety of technologies that are beneficial to the environment. I think the Chinese government is beginning to take that aspect seriously. Q29 Dr Turner: There is clearly something of a gap still between scientific knowledge and climate change and public perceptions. What do you think you and the NERC can do to contribute towards bridging that gap? Professor Thorpe: This is very important to the Natural Environment Research Council in the sense that science and society not just in climate change but across the board is a very important part of what we do. We engage with the public to make them aware and involve them, as I have already mentioned, in our strategies for future science that we do and also in the outcomes of what we do in a whole variety of ways and I could list those for you. In terms of climate change in particular, in Europe and in Britain I think there is emerging a strong awareness by the public about the issues, although not necessarily in other countries to the same degree. I think that the NERC has an important role to play because we engage both with schools, universities and with the public directly in trying to show in a variety of publications and interactive events what climate change is about and what the latest research is showing. Q30 Dr Turner: You must have been acutely disappointed by the loss of CyroSat. Are you going to be able to get a second mission up to fill this gap? Professor Thorpe: It is our intention to argue strongly for CyroSat Two. It was a tragedy for us and for the scientists involved. It is an ESA mission. We are discussing that already as we prepare for the discussions that lead into the ESA ministerial debate in Berlin in December. It has to be argued within the ESA context because we make a national contribution to ESA and CyroSat was part of that ESA mission. So we will be arguing strongly there should be a CyroSat Two and that we need to make the decision quickly because the industrial technologies and the teams are still there and they will disperse on to other projects. So we do have an opportunity now to strike while the iron is hot and NERC will definitely be pushing strongly for that. Q31 Chairman: Is there any funding in place at all for CyroSat Two or would you have to take it out of committed programmes? Professor Thorpe: There are various possibilities. Q32 Chairman: That is a very diplomatic answer! Professor Thorpe: Let me give you an obvious one. ESA has a whole sequence of earth observation missions planned for over the next ten years and those missions are paid for by national subscriptions. Those national subscriptions, although the level of them is subject to negotiation, are planned in terms of NERC's projects over the next years. One possibility for this kind of eventuality is the argument that we should slow down a little bit that progression of future satellite missions to allow space for the current expenditure to pay for a CyroSat Two. If that is not acceptable and we need additional funding then that will have to be sought from a variety of sources. There could be a mechanism of modestly slowing down the programme to allow space for CyroSat Two. Q33 Dr Iddon: Professor Thorpe, you have shifted funding recently to fund some of your priorities like the one we have just been discussing, climate change. I am very pleased to see that you have put an extra £1.9 million into blue skies research. With this shift in funding where is the money coming from, is it coming from your research centre funding or from your directed research funding? What is suffering as a result, if anything, or is this increased government funding? Professor Thorpe: It is a result of a process that we go through of reprioritising and we have done the most recent one in the last 12 months. It is really examining what our current investments are and were and where our new priorities lie. The outcome of this process was to move funding out of some areas that we had previously funded. Q34 Dr Iddon: Such as? Professor Thorpe: Our centres were one area. The British Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey are two examples. We also found some savings in our QUEST programme and in one or two of the other directed programmes that were coming towards their midpoint and towards their end. It was not one big hit if you like, there were a number of areas where we found some savings so that we could prioritise them into the new priorities, blue skies being one of them. As you can appreciate, this is not an easy process. It requires the research council and others to be flexible and agile. We have to move where the science is going and we have to have an organisation that is agile to do that. Our council, along with me and my colleagues, are really scrutinising very carefully whether our processes of funding both our centres and the universities are sufficiently flexible and agile so that we can move to where the priorities are. Q35 Dr Iddon: Government appears to be directing science more and more, it is more prescriptive. Are you in conflict moving money into blue skies research with any government aims? Professor Thorpe: No, not at all. There is an important overall perspective in the ten-year science and innovation funding framework that the Government published in 2004 for the health of disciplines, for example, and for the sustainability of the science base and that is very much what we hope will be one of the outcomes of increasing blue skies funding. There is no contradiction at all in my mind. Q36 Dr Iddon: You are supporting a number of inter-disciplinary projects and I mentioned sustainable energy and I mentioned rural land uses just as examples. Is this research that you are supporting running in parallel with some research that other research councils are supporting or are these truly inter-disciplinary projects, people working together supported by different research councils? Professor Thorpe: They are. We have a significant number of across-council research programmes. You have mentioned a couple of them. There is the UK Energy Research Centre working towards a sustainable energy economy, there is genomics, we are starting a new area of environment and human health, there is the RELU programme, the Rural Economy and Land Use programme, there is the Tindall Centre for adaptation to climate change and there is the area of e-science. All of these are across-council programmes where funding is provided from several councils and they are run as a joint activity. In terms of disciplinarity in general, I would argue that this is so important to NERC because of the nature of the natural environment and this holistic view of the earth's system that even within NERC we have put a lot of focus on bringing together the basic disciplines of maths, physics, biology and chemistry. Almost by definition environmental scientists tend to be scientists who are bringing disciplines together because they need these basic science disciplines. So that happens within NERC. Q37 Dr Iddon: Is this drive to do interdisciplinary research going to continue? Professor Thorpe: Absolutely. For NERC it has just simply got to be there at square one. When it comes to doing the kind of big science holistic earth system thinking, because the components of the system are interacting so much you cannot really address the real environmental issues that we have to within this. I would argue that NERC takes this on board first thing in the morning when everyone wakes up as it is so engrained in the way the science is done. Q38 Dr Iddon: Not surprisingly, a fair percentage of your funding goes into international activities. I know that you have mentioned an International Opportunities Fund. Could you just explore this a little further with the Committee this morning, please? Professor Thorpe: NERC has developed quite an impressive portfolio of international activities relatively recently and you have mentioned one of the funds. We host and fund six international project officers of major international programmes that are run by either the ICSU or other bodies. We are responsible for the subscriptions of the UK, for the ESA programme, for example, that is international. We are funding in collaboration with Japan to use the Japanese earth simulator between the UK scientists and Japan. Forty per cent of our output in terms of publications, etcetera is explicitly collaborative with international scientists. The International Opportunities Fund is funding for UK researchers to engage with international programmes and international activities explicitly. Q39 Dr Iddon: Can you tell us something about China, for example? Professor Thorpe: My Director of Science went to China recently to discuss with a number of bodies, including the academy, a memorandum of understanding between NERC and our relevant research funding bodies in China for collaborative research, so we actually are in the process of developing those strong links. Of course, because of activities like the IPCC individual scientists have those connections. Q40 Dr Iddon: What sort of money is available for this IOF? Professor Thorpe: I am not sure I can give you that answer immediately. Q41 Dr Iddon: In broad terms? Professor Thorpe: It is relatively modest. We are talking about hundreds of thousands a year rather than millions. It is to allow access to international facilities of UK researchers, to allow access to international programmes and also, as I mentioned, the international project officers. Q42 Dr Iddon: So it is early days by the sound of it. Professor Thorpe: On that particular component, but I think my slightly too long answer was to emphasise that that is not the only international activity. Q43 Dr Iddon: We wanted to explore that. Professor Thorpe: It is early days, but it is an important component of our international activities in the future. Q44 Chairman: It seems to me that there is a real contradiction between what you were saying in Planet Earth, where you said that the Government, rightly, expects to see real advances flowing into business and the public good from its investment in science, and the answer you have just given to Brian, which was that you want to redirect funds into more blue skies research. What misses out if you are doing both things in terms of a greater emphasis, ie responding to the public good and at the same time you are looking at blue skies research? Professor Thorpe: I would say there is a slightly false dichotomy there. The blue skies research is often producing outputs that can be used both by the economy and by government. Q45 Chairman: So there is no contradiction? Professor Thorpe: I do not feel there is a contradiction as long as we offer the opportunity for blue skies researchers to see the opportunity of using their knowledge. For example, we have a follow-on fund where researchers who have very directly exploitable outcomes for business can apply for some additional funding to make that connection and that has to come out of the blue skies research. I do not see it as a direct contradiction. Q46 Chairman: So those who accuse you of that are wrong, are they? Professor Thorpe: Yes. Q47 Anne Snelgrove: I would like to preface my questions by saying how much I enjoyed the visit to the research councils earlier this month and to thank your staff and the other staff of the research councils for making me so welcome but also for giving me such a lot of information in a very short space of time. Part of our discussions afterwards was about the issue of science and society and the general public's understanding of science. You said earlier that science in society is an important part of what you do in NERC. I just wondered what you think the challenges are when engaging with the public about science. Do you think there is a crisis in public confidence in science in this country? Professor Thorpe: It is not my impression that there is a crisis, no. In terms of public perception of scientists, it depends which polls you look at, but I think you can find polls that show that scientists are well regarded in terms of their professional input, etcetera. Also, if you look at polls about issues that worry the public, environmental issues are close to the top of the agenda. From NERC's point of view the engagement with the public often is greatly welcomed by the public because their environmental issues are very much to the fore. I think the dialogue is very much welcomed and I think we are pushing at an open door. It is a matter of finding the right mechanisms to engage with the public. We are thinking about it right from the school level, from such times often in schools when the schoolchildren will again show that they are concerned about environmental issues. They do not necessarily appear in the standard curriculum. We are running a scheme with other research councils called "Researchers in Residence" and that is where PhD students that are in environmental science go into schools for a week or so and show the schoolchildren the research that they are doing and they can come back into the laboratory. There are lots of mechanisms starting there and engaging through to debate, to publications and to the media. I think we have to explore all these opportunities because it is not a single facetted issue. In my view the fact that we are beginning to make this change towards the schools side of things is an important aspect. Q48 Anne Snelgrove: I just want to press you further about the challenges because we were having a discussion before the meeting started today about the way the media covers some science issues. I picked up one of the free sheets today and it says "The final report? MMR jab is safe". I think there were huge debates in the House before I joined about this and a debate in the media. That strikes me as being an issue where public understanding was not in line with what the science understanding was about the MMR vaccine. Professor Thorpe: You are hinting at the most critical part of this, which is to communicate a level of uncertainty in science. This is a challenge to all scientists, the public and policy makers. Certainly in my interactions with the media one is often being asked to be definite and even if you describe that, as I did earlier, weather systems in the future are the most uncertain parts of climate prediction, nevertheless you talk to a journalist and often the headline will be "Professor Thorpe says that weather systems will increase in the future". I think that agenda of risk, uncertainty and communication is at the core of that kind of headline and is at the core of where the Natural Environment Research Council is. Let us take as an example the weather forecast. Again, there is an opportunity where those forecasts of the future are really probabilistic, eg how certain are we that it will rain tomorrow or what have you. It is not going to be 100 per cent. That education of risk and uncertainty aspects of science is close to the heart of scientists but that communication is really difficult. Q49 Anne Snelgrove: One of the things I understand you have been doing to communicate with the public is on-line debates. How successful do you think those have been at engaging people who do not necessarily have a brilliant background? Professor Thorpe: My impression is that they have been good. We have had a number of these on-line debates using a particular group called "Spiked" and we have had them on climate change and health and a whole range of environmental issues and with the MRC as well. I think they are a component of this and clearly as the use of the internet and chat rooms, etcetera are extending then that would be an increasingly important mechanism. I was just looking at one yesterday and if you look at the number of people who are engaged, that can be disappointingly small. I definitely think it is going to be an increasing mechanism of communication. I am pleased that we have been in on that at the beginning and I want to see it increase. Q50 Mr Flello: Obviously NERC is a member of the Research Councils UK. What do you think about the role of the UK? Professor Thorpe: It is extremely important. I personally valued it in my first six months in post. We have an executive group that meets monthly which is composed of the chief executives of the research councils and that is an important way of obviously sharing good practice and supporting other chief executives in their activities but also in identifying areas where we can take forward harmonisation of our processes, for example a joint electronics submission system, those kinds of areas where there is commonality of what we can do and be more effective by doing it. That is a very important forum for the chief executives to meet. We also have a joint strategy group where we meet with Keith O'Nions, the Director-General of Research Councils, to look at the more strategic input to spending reviews and other bigger picture across research council funding issues. I am sure that if it did not exist there would need to be the aspects that I have mentioned. I personally have found it extremely helpful. Q51 Mr Flello: Clearly you think that there is enhanced co-ordination. Can you give me some examples of the practice of enhanced co-ordination throughout the UK? Professor Thorpe: I gave you one, which was the joint electronics submission where we are looking at the next generation 'back office', which is to co-ordinate our IT and administrative systems across research councils. Obviously the majority of them but not all are in Swindon. We are looking at the area of HR because the research councils as a whole employ a significant number of people, NERC employs 2,600 people and other research councils employ people. So we are looking at a range of areas. A number of them are still under discussion and we have not yet implemented our plans, but they are beginning to get close to implementation. Q52 Mr Flello: What is the relationship between the Director-General of research councils and the research councils themselves? Is it a clear relationship? Professor Thorpe: It is a clear relationship, yes. I will perhaps tease out where that relationship expresses itself. Obviously I meet with Keith O`Nions regularly. In direct reporting terms, I report to him and also to the chairman of my council and that is the established way for heads of the non-departmental public bodies. That interaction is clear because of the overall argument to government, for example, in the spending review where the science budget as a whole will be discussed and argued for. The individual research councils have an input to Keith O'Nions. Keith O'Nions then reflects that interaction in the overall OST and DTI input to government in the spending review and makes the best case for the science budget as a whole. We are doing a considerable amount of work, for example, on a set of case studies to show what use the science budget has been put to in terms of the knowledge that has been generated, this is across the research councils, so that government can see what benefit research has produced. Q53 Mr Newmark: I want to talk about the full economic costs. My understanding is that in January 2005 it was estimated that the research councils paid an average of 63 per cent of the full economic cost of research but that from September 2005, in accordance with "The ten-year Science and Innovation Framework", research councils are expected to pay 80 per cent of the full economic cost. What has been the impact of the changes in funding with regard to full economic costing, specifically the number of applications? Professor Thorpe: It is definitely too early to say. We have just had the first set of applications after the change and I would not want to judge the statistics on the basis of one round. From NERC's point of view the numbers are, if anything, slightly down but not massively changed. There may be all sorts of reasons for that. People are getting used to the new system because it is a radical change to the process of application. So I think we will have to review this once we have had at least a few grant rounds. NERC at the moment has two rounds per year, so we need to have gone through a few of those cycles to be able to answer your question directly about the impact on the numbers of proposals. Q54 Mr Newmark: Do you believe that NERC will be able to maintain its current portfolio of research while paying an increased proportion of the full economic cost of its research? Professor Thorpe: We did an extensive amount of research and analysis and modelling prior to this being introduced with the touchstone being that we intended to keep the same research volume funded but base it at 80 per cent of the full economic cost. We received funding from the science budget in the Spending Review 2004 that corresponded to that calculation. So my hope and anticipation is definitely that we can pay that but we will have to wait and see. Q55 Mr Newmark: My final question then is could full economic costing adversely affect areas such as blue skies research, which I know we touched on earlier, where such costs are perhaps more difficult to quantify in advance? Professor Thorpe: The full economic costing mechanism is very much integrated with and geared up to the blue skies mechanism. I think there is a rather clear accounting mechanism for universities to capture their costs and for that to be expressed in various categories on the application. Again, there is no contradiction with blue skies funding. The system is designed specifically to translate from a 46 per cent overhead on staff costs to full economic costs for research grants, so it is designed to work smoothly in that particular funding mechanism. Mr Newmark: Thank you. Chairman: Professor Alan Thorpe, thank you very much indeed for spending this hour with us. We wish you well in your post and we look forward to having more conversations with you in the future. Thank you very much indeed. |