Examination of Witnesses (Questions 740
- 744)
WEDNESDAY 16 MAY 2007
PROFESSOR IAN
DIAMOND AND
PROFESSOR OLE
H PETERSEN
Q740 Stephen Williams: The question
we have not raised at all in this metrics mix is the quality indicator.
What assessment have you both made of how that quality indicator
will work? When the Committee was in Australia in November last
year, we heard from the chief scientist about their impact assessment
on the impact of research. Do you have any worries or concerns
about impact or a quality indicator?
Professor Petersen: Impact is
very difficult. One of the basic problems is that it takes a very
long time from a basic discovery until you can see what the impact
is. When Einstein published his famous papers in 1905 it was not
easy to assess at that point what the eventual impact would be.
Eventually, it was colossal as we see every day when we fly around
the world and so on. We have GPS—Global Positioning Systems.
It was impossible at that point to assess the impact, so one has
to be very careful. We are not against impact assessment but in
very many areas of fundamental research it is not a very easy
task to evaluate in the relatively short term. We have to support
a considerable amount of basic research because our past experience
shows us that very often 10, 20, 30 years later it leads to some
fantastic development. To make an assessment within a five year
period is often exceedingly difficult and quite impossible. You
could jump to the completely wrong conclusion, saying, "This
is not very important," so it is a very difficult area.
Professor Diamond: Stephen, are
you referring to academic impact or non-academic impact, because
both of them are incredibly important? The bottom line is you
need brilliant science in order to have either academic or non-academic
impact. The measure of quality in the first place—the academic
peer review of the selection—has to be good. Having said
that, you then need properly to be able to measure and reward
both academic impact and non-academic impact. I get very nervous
about the use of simple impact factors because different disciplines
have different impact factors. You need therefore to have a disciplinary
approach to do that on the academic side. On the non-academic
side, there is an enormous amount of work going on to really understand
how to measure non-academic impact and I think that is something
that we really need to work on over the next little while.
Q741 Jeff Ennis: We are obviously
facing a future of increased international competition in research.
How much can that be nullified or countered by increasing international
cooperation?
Professor Diamond: I think international
cooperation is incredibly important. We have looked at the indicators
of collaboration between the UK and the US. If you look at the
citation indices, you find that where US researchers collaborate
with UK researchers they get higher citation rates than if they
do not and vice versa for the UK. We must remove the barriers
to international collaboration. Some of those are something that
is called double jeopardy. People are aware of double jeopardy.
I will not explain what it is. We are working very hard across
the Research Councils to remove double jeopardy. My own Research
Council now has 14 different agreements[12]
with different international organisations whereby we jointly
peer review and take decisions. In this country someone working
in Oxford with a team between Oxford and Liverpool can simply
come to one Research Council. If that person in Oxford is working
with someone in Mannheim, they need simply to be able to go to
one Research Council. Research Councils UK are working extremely
hard to enable that to happen. Research Councils UK are also working
extremely hard to engage with some of the emerging scientific
areas such as China, India and some of the other areas. Indeed,
we are opening offices in the next year in China, in the next
month or so and, later on, in India. We are also opening an office
in Washington really to be able to enable UK research to take
place. The EU is a critical area for us and we are working very
hard there too. The UK Research Councils have had an office in
Brussels for many years and it is important that we impact on
science policy. The other international area that is deeply important
is infrastructure. For many years the UK has contributed to CERN,
the huge particle physics laboratory in Geneva. Those sorts of
infrastructure are not simply in that area now. We go right across
the piece. I just might mention to you two things, for example,
the National Environment Research Council with its ocean going
vessels that researchers from many countries work on in a very
sensible way; or even in social science, where the European social
survey has been undertaken over the last few years. 20 countries
in Europe are undertaking a similar social survey at exactly the
same time. That has been led from the UK. Roger Jowell won the
Descartes Prize for Science, one of the foremost European science
prizes for that work. The only way we are going to maintain our
expertise is by ensuring that we continue to work to attract great
scientists to this country. We have to have the facilities for
them. We have to remove barriers to international collaboration.
We have to have access to facilities and we work through our political
processes and Research Councils to impact on the international
scientific agenda.
Professor Petersen: International
collaboration is incredibly important. There are opportunities
and I think we have to take them where we can but there are also
threats in that sense because it is a global market for scientists.
It means that outstanding scientists can move around. We are also
going to see some major changes in the higher education sector.
My own university has now built a university in collaboration
with a Chinese university near Shanghai and we may see in the
future globalised universities with campuses around the world,
which will again create a different kind of international competition.
The scenery is changing very rapidly but different research circumstances
in different universities will, in different parts of the world,
create the kind of transfer market we talked about before internationally.
From this point of view, it is very important that we have a sustainable
research base here that is sufficiently attractive to keep good
people here.
Q742 Chairman: The Committee is going
to China in June to have a look at what is going on there.
Professor Diamond: I trust the
Committee will find time to visit our office.
Q743 Chairman: We are already planning
to. Professor Diamond, you never commented on Professor Petersen's
remark that he would like to see a doubling of the research budget.
How big would you like to see it?
Professor Diamond: I am not going
to give you a number. I am simply very clear in my mind that there
is an enormous amount of world class science unfunded in this
country. While the increasing money has been very welcome, we
remain relatively lowly funded in world terms, particularly for
volume. All Research Councils could spend significantly more money
than they have on volume research that would be spent incredibly
wisely and which would have real, measurable impacts on the economic
development and the quality of life for this country.
Q744 Chairman: You would not turn
down a doubling?
Professor Diamond: I would not
turn down a doubling.
Chairman: It has been a pleasure having
two experienced and knowledgeable people in front of this Committee
and also two that are not afraid to disagree when they had to.
Sitting here, watching some of the body language of the two of
you was quite interesting. Thank you very much.
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