Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40
- 59)
TUESDAY 1 MAY 2007
PROFESSOR SIR
HOWARD DALTON,
MR TREVOR
GUYMER, DR
PHILIP NEWTON
AND DR
MIKE WEBB
Q40 Dr Iddon: For how long is the
programme expected to last?
Dr Newton: It was bid for funds
for 2007 to 2012, so it is a five-year proposal, which was what
we asked for. In parallel with this, I think you are aware from
your previous inquiries that we are reviewing the way that we
fund our investments generally, the so-called FAB project, Funding,
Allocation and Budgeting, and through that we will be moving to
a case where we make investments on more of a rolling basis. Things
such as long-term observation facilities, what we call now national
capability, we intend funding for longer than a five-year period,
generally speaking; then maybe turning over some of our more research-oriented
programmes on different timescales. We structured the Oceans 2025
proposal so that it would help in transition into that new way
of working, so the way they set up the proposal, in response to
an invitation from us, will make it easier to transition into
this new way of working. For example, it is very clear, from the
proposal and the funded programme, what is the national capability,
what is the research programme, where the knowledge transfer is,
where the science in society is; we can see all that very clearly.
In the past, asking for proposals, we would have had to bundle
up all those things together.
Q41 Dr Iddon: Initially £120
million has gone in; presumably that is not new money, it has
been shifted from somewhere else. Was that money already being
spent on marine science which has just been collected together,
or is there new money in Oceans 2025 for marine science?
Dr Newton: NERC Council has a
current policy, when an investment in a research centre comes
to an end, of inviting a proposal at ten per cent more than level
funding plus indexation and then making a funding decision in
the context of that proposed work. Oceans 2025 proposal came in
at ten per cent over the money the seven component institutions
were getting already, so the money it was getting already was
already in planning in NERC. In your terminology, that is not
new money. They bid for ten per cent more than that, and it depends
how you count things, but the increased funding was probably somewhere
between about three and a half and six per cent, depending on
what you count; so there is an element of additional funds in
Oceans 2025 which was not there previously.
Q42 Dr Iddon: Were all the relevant
universities involved in the decision-making process, and are
they are able to bid for funding from the programme?
Dr Newton: In terms of the set-up,
the Oceans 2025 directors, when they were developing the proposal,
had an open consultation to try to answer our question of what
needed to be in it, and that involved the universities, as well
as the various agencies and departments could play a part in trying
to shape what was in it. There was that in it, then, Mike, perhaps
you can comment on the decision-making process and the SOFI scheme.
Dr Webb: The proposal itself for
the new programme was peer reviewed extensively, which included
university academics from this country and abroad. On top of that
we had a moderating panel which had on it academics from both
this country and abroad, and senior directors from institutes
from abroad as well. As part of the Oceans 2025 settlement, there
is going to be a Strategic Ocean Funding Initiative (SOFI), which
will fill the skills gaps, if you like, within Oceans 2025, hopefully
with university academics, basically to encourage the collaboration
between the universities and the marine centres. That initiative
will have about £5 million worth of funding.
Q43 Dr Iddon: When we visited Plymouth,
and indeed this is a constant theme of this Committee's investigations
in this area, we heard again that researchers are finding it difficult
deciding which research council to head their bid, and often are
turned away, saying, "No, that's not BBSRC, that's NERC,"
or, "No, that's not EPSRC, it's NERC," or vice versa.
We thought that Universities UK had been set up to squeeze those
silos together and make interdisciplinary research much more successful;
we are not picking that up in this area either, there seem to
be tensions between the research councils. How is this new programme
going to get over that?
Dr Newton: In terms of RCUK activities,
this problem has been addressed over the last three to six months.
But I guess, because changes have been made to the process to
avoid the problem of one council coming back to bidders and saying,
"No, it's somebody else," we deal with that problem
in a systematic way and we tell the proposer basically how we
are going to handle it and that they should not have to worry
to which research council they submit it. They should be able
to put in their proposal and get it dealt with fairly. We have
made changes to the processes through RCUK but they will not have
filtered back to the community yet, because those changes have
been made only in the last three to six months. I would expect,
say, if you asked the same questions in six to 12 months' time,
that the community would have more positive experiences of the
way in which their proposals were handled. There is a system now
which decides not only which council would handle the proposal
but also, based on the fraction in different remits of the different
councils, whether it would be co-funded or funded by one council.
This is now clearly laid out.
Q44 Dr Iddon: Are the members of
your peer review panel sympathetic to this new idea, are they
sympathetic to interdisciplinary research, do they understand
it and do they sympathise with the people wanting to do this kind
of research?
Dr Newton: Yes, they are, but
we put quite a bit of effort into training the panels, because
of the way that we run our peer review system now. It used to
be with fixed panels of a period of maybe three or four years,
but now we have much more of a rolling and large college that
we draw on, so every year there are training exercises, and the
need to be able to be aware of and how to deal with interdisciplinary
proposals is part of that training. We are going to be reviewing
the success of the college at some point in the near future and
I would expect that to be one of the aspects we would look at.
Q45 Chairman: Can I take you up on
an issue that you mentioned in reply to Dr Iddon, and that is
the involvement of the universities. Professor Henderson, of Oxford,
said to us, and I quote: "The Oceans-2025 document was prepared
in secrecy without public consultation nor the open-involvement
of marine researchers from the university sector. Requests for
draft copies of the Oceans-2025 document were turned down during
the writing of this important strategic document." That flies
totally in the face of the evidence you have just given to this
Committee?
Dr Newton: My understanding is
that the proposal was subject to an open consultation. Obviously,
we would need to check that as a factual piece of evidence. I
do not know if you can help with that, Mike?
Dr Webb: I confirm, that is as
I believe it to be.
Q46 Chairman: I am sorry; are you
confirming that what Dr Henderson says is right, or what you have
just said to this Committee is right?
Dr Webb: What we have said to
this Committee is right. I believe the timescales were somewhat
compressed, so the amount of time available for consultation with
stakeholders was quite small.
Q47 Chairman: Why were they not given
copies of the draft document?
Dr Webb: The actual proposal itself.
I cannot answer that question. I suspect the reason was that the
full proposal itself was not written until right at the last minute.
It was a developing document and so the scientists were writing
the science case as they went along.
Q48 Dr Iddon: How long was the consultation
period?
Dr Webb: I do not know the answer
to that, I am sorry.
Q49 Dr Iddon: You are aware that
the Government lays down limits for its own consultation processes,
which I think is three months?
Dr Newton: Yes. I should stress,
just in case it is not clear, we specified that we wanted a proposal
as I described from the Oceans 2025 directors; they wrote the
proposal, they conducted the consultation, it was not something
that we were involved in, which is why we cannot give you direct
answers to these questions. To the best of my awareness, it was
an open consultation. Certainly I know that a number of government
departments and agencies had specific meetings with the Oceans
2025 directors on what should be in it.
Q50 Chairman: As you do not know,
could you provide us with a written note on that? It is really
quite a fundamental issue, because if universities were not involved
in the consultation then that is something perhaps which should
have happened?
Dr Newton: Yes, we will provide
that.
Q51 Linda Gilroy: I am particularly
interested in the interface between health and the oceans and
the research associated with that, and it is a pretty new area.
I would like to ask you if what you have been saying about addressing
the difficulties of research between the different research councils
will be addressed there? Certainly it is something which I think
is a strong strand emerging in Plymouth between the new medical
school and the scientists in the marine science community and
I wonder if you think what you have said will address the difficulty
of getting these issues onto the medical research agenda?
Dr Newton: Certainly developing
capacity in the environment and human health sector is something
which is very prominent in the strategy and was one of our priorities
in the last Spending Review. As a consequence, we led the development
of a cross-council and cross-agency programme, called Environment
and Human Health, which I think invested about £5 million
or £6 million, I could check the figure if you needed me
to, and basically that is stretched across about eight or nine
different funders, again the number may not be quite right but
a good number of funders. We have been building capacity and capability
in that sector, trying to form the links between the medical researchers,
the economic and social and the environmental scientists, and
so forth. In specifying what we wanted to see in Oceans 2025,
we encouraged them to develop the proposal in the context of current
NERC priorities, and, as a consequence, Plymouth Marine Laboratory
in particular introduced a theme on marine environment and human
health, but unfortunately that did not come through the peer review
process in a way which enabled us to be able to fund it. Certainly
we were delighted to see the ambition, implementing a new laboratory
in that sector, but that particular piece of work we were not
able to fund. My colleague mentioned the Strategic Ocean Funding
Initiative, which is designed as a way, and there is £5 million,
to be able to fund the work which Oceans 2025 should be doing
but it does not have the capability to do itself, for whatever
reason. This might be one of the areas for which that initiative
could be used. We have just made an announcement to use the initiative
for another area of Oceans 2025 which did not do particularly
well during the funding process, in the area of sustainable marine
bio-resources, and we have used the initiative funds we have just
talked about, put them against some funds from Defra and CEFAS
and from SEERAD (Fisheries Research Services) and from the Northern
Ireland Office (Agri-food & Biosciences Institute) to create
a sort of cross-partner effort on research policy, in sustainable
marine environment resources; so that is another example of the
way in which we are trying to fill the gaps, which ought to be
in Oceans 2025 but which are not there.
Q52 Linda Gilroy: Do you think that
matches up to the challenge which lies ahead, because climate
change is as big an issue as I think is emerging on the political
agenda; is the science in that interface responding quickly enough,
and the funding of the science?
Dr Newton: NERC is in the process
of developing its new strategy, which is definitely out to an
open consultation at the moment, and we would expect that views
which would help us form that opinion, when reflected in our strategy
implementation plan, would come through that strategy consultation.
It is clearly an area which is prominent in many people's minds.
Q53 Chris Mole: Professor Dalton,
earlier on you mentioned the importance of monitoring, global
monitoring in particular. What is your prognosis of the UK's capability
and effectiveness and what have you been doing to promote UK participation
in surveys amongst the Government and research councils?
Professor Sir Howard Dalton: In
many areas of science the UK punches very much above its weight.
In this area, I think, probably we do not. I think this is an
area where we do need to have a much more co-ordinated and sustained
effort, in terms of global observation systems. We do make our
contributions. I think the problem is that the way in which it
has been funded and resourced in the UK is fragmentary. We have
had real problems trying to raise sufficient resources in order
to be able to play our international part in being able to support
and encourage and develop global monitoring systems. I think there
is more that should be done. Personally, I believe that we might
need again some sort of central pot of resources which addresses
this issue. My colleague, Mr Guymer, mentioned the business about
Jason-2; that was an issue which we made a contribution towards
in the UK, other countries in the world made contributions to
it; it was very difficult to persuade different government departments
to come up with the money to be able to support that. I think
it is rather a sad reflection that often we have to go round with
a hat to different government departments asking for contributions
to support what are really important, international observational
systems. There has to be a stage, I think, where we have got to
consolidate that and say, "Actually, this is an important,
international contribution that we have to make and we should
resource it properly."
Q54 Chris Mole: Mr Willis mentioned
earlier the happy juxtaposition of our Space inquiry with this
inquiry. How do you think our position as a nation compares with
others, with respect to the use of satellite technology for earth
observation?
Professor Sir Howard Dalton: We
are part of a global earth observation system of systems; we have
been engaged in that actively for quite some time now. Certainly
while I have been Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra we have been
actively attending and being part of all of those various meetings
and making an active contribution towards it. As far as the UK
is concerned, I think we are not big players, we should be bigger.
You heard, of course, I am sure, at the inquiry on Space, that
there is a lot of extremely good technical innovation going on
in the UK in the satellite business and we ought to be bigger
players in that game, I think. At the moment, largely it is coming
from other European countries: France, Germany and Italy put a
lot more money into that than we do, but they have central government
funding to do it. They do not have to go round, like we have to
go round, with a hat, asking various different departments to
make a contribution; that is not the case in Europe particularly,
or in the United States. Though, I must say, the United States,
NASA, there is a strong indication that they may well be cutting
back significantly on their satellite programmes; they have announced
they will reduce it by half by 2015.
Mr Guymer: In terms of earth observation
for marine aspects, I think the general agreement around the world
is that France has a much more coherent approach to this and has
the lead, in many respects. It has an integrated approach across
its industry, which tends to drive the European Space Agency programmes,
and its user community; so they build excellent oceanographic
satellite instruments and they have the user community bolted
into that. The UK, apart from one particular instrument to measure
sea surface temperature very precisely, has not tended to go down
that route. The UK does have real, leading expertise in small
satellites and that is something really which could be exploited
much better by the UK. There is a real sampling problem with the
ocean, compared with the land, where you have got things changing
rapidly, and this can be overcome partially by having constellations
of satellites, equipped with suitable sensors. There is a real
opportunity there for the UK to carve out a niche, which would
be not only in line with UK technology and industry but actually
would meet a number of user requirements in the research councils
and in terms of meeting policy agendas of Government.
Q55 Chris Mole: What are you doing
to try to make sure that happens?
Mr Guymer: We have made that point
in helping submissions to that particular inquiry, although IACMST
itself did not; we put into that via other bodies. When there
are international meetings, we have tried to advance the usefulness
of the whole concept of small satellites and take the opportunity
there at those conferences as well. It is interesting that, ten
or 20 years ago, I remember standing up at a European Space Agency
meeting and being shouted down because the concept of small satellites
did not fit in with the idea of the big birds which the space
agencies wanted to have. I think we have seen a shift of opinion
during that time, but it is like trying to turn around a very,
very big ship and it is taking time; so it is concerted pressure,
not just isolated pressure.
Q56 Chris Mole: Can I ask everyone
then what are the known unknowns, where are the gaps in the collection
of data, with regard to climate change and biodiversity, as far
as the oceans are concerned?
Professor Sir Howard Dalton: In
terms of the known unknowns, I think we have got pretty much,
certainly on a global scale, most of the basis covered. We know
what we need to be looking at and we are doing it; the question
is, we do not have necessarily all of the instruments there to
be able to do what we want to do. We are measuring sea surface
temperatures; we have got floats which are out there measuring
a whole variety of different parameters in the ocean.
Q57 Chris Mole: Like Argo?
Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes;
like Argo. Those things are there, but getting all the measurements
right; we are measuring marine circulation, we are measuring a
whole variety of different parameters, we can look at the phytoplankton
in the oceans from space, we can identify pretty much what is
there. We have got all of the sensors in place, except that we
do not have enough of them necessarily and the level of detail
is insufficient. We have got some pretty broad observational systems,
which cover very large areas, but we do not get very much local
information. I think the problems really are trying to drill down
and get a higher resolution of what is actually going on, because
in order to make much better predictions for the future we need
measurements of much higher resolution.
Q58 Chris Mole: Is there any more
of that sort of detail perhaps with the Royal Navy you might have
access to currently?
Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Quite
honestly, I do not know the extra role the Royal Navy might play
here, because most of the sensing measurement systems are done
really quite remotely and, as we have mentioned, there is a whole
number of systems out there; the Royal Navy do help.
Q59 Chris Mole: They have got a lot
of sea-bed data and stuff like that?
Professor Sir Howard Dalton: Yes,
in getting sea-bed data and doing measurements beneath the waters,
which is largely to do with contour mapping, a very important
part of what we have got to try to do; yes, I am sure they could
help out there.
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