Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
PROFESSOR COLIN
BLAKEMORE, PROFESSOR
IAN DIAMOND,
PROFESSOR KEITH
MASON AND
DR RANDAL
RICHARDS
9 MAY 2007
Q20 Chairman: Who determines the
role?
Professor Mason: I think government
needs to get some clarity across the whole piece about the importance
of international collaboration and what the drivers are and take
ownership certainly of the strategic and economic reasons for
promoting collaboration.
Dr Richards: I do not dissent
from anything that has been said so far. The FCO has been particularly
helpful in making the contacts to set up the offices in Beijing
and Washington. There does need to be some joined-up work. From
EPSRC's point of view, what we are trying to do is to advertise
or make known that the UK is an attractive place to do research
and development. That means across government trying to connect
up with UKTI so that you get international collaboration, which
will continue in the future and lead to wider collaboration and
investment in the UK. I think the FCO has been particularly helpful
in that respect.
Q21 Dr Turner: Keith, within your
research council, you have some particular issues. The kind of
gear that you are dealing with tends to be intrinsically international
and there tends to be an advantage to be the country which is
hosting that facility. Culham is a good example, for instance.
The next generation spallation neutron source is another example
of something which might be highly desirable for this country
to host but is the Government dragging its feet in promoting that
bid?
Professor Mason: I do not think
they are dragging their feet. One of the issues which internationally
people are trying to deal with, and it is not simply a UK problem,
is quantifying the magnitude of that benefit. The empirical evidence
is that hosting large facilities on national soil is a benefit
and is quite large, but quantifying that is something much more
difficult, which nobody really has got to grips with. One of the
things we are starting off with the new research council is to
try to improve our quantification of those benefits. Not all facilities
will have equal benefits. Clearly we need to go for those that
have the maximum benefit for a hosting premium.
Q22 Dr Turner: Are you not worried
that by the time we have quantified the benefits, we will have
missed the boat?
Professor Mason: Indeed, and I
think that is one of the messages that I am trying to get across
to government, that we will work on quantifying the benefits but
you have to go with your gut feeling as well. The empirical evidence
is that it is of benefit and we should be putting resources into
trying to host such facilities. The benefits are coming from (Diamond)
already, for example; you can see the excitement that has generated
and interest that is generated in that site in the people wanting
to use it and the interest from abroad, and the same with ISIS,
even more so with ISIS because of the international collaboration.
We will work on quantifying the benefits but you are absolutely
right that we cannot miss the boat while we work on that because
nobody has really tackled that problem. It is a very difficult
issue.
Q23 Dr Turner: How useful do you
think the Global Science and Innovation Forum is going to be?
Is that going to improve the scene?
Professor Mason: Yes, it is useful.
It is finding its feet. This is a very complex area to work in.
You cannot expect it to be perfect first off. I think it is making
real progress, particularly in the area of bilateral collaboration
and interactions. If there is an area where GSIF needs to focus
in the future it is how to deal with multinational collaborations,
how to influence multilateral collaborations to do what the UK
wants them to do, and how to interact in that way. Full marks
for a good start but we need to keep up the momentum.
Q24 Chairman: Would any of the others
like to comment on that?
Professor Diamond: I think GSIF
is a really important group which I believe as it matures will
have a role to play. I would echo what my colleague has said.
There really is a need for government across the piece to have
one view in particular areas. It is not terribly helpful where
there are four or five different views and one has to go to four
or five different people in order to work things out. When one
does go on the ground sometimes, the people in the embassies are
fantastically helpful and really useful to us in taking forward
a whole series of initiatives.
Dr Richards: GSIF is a good start
at trying to get interaction with what is a complex area. It is
a bit like being a child on Christmas Day and you do not know
which box to open first. It needs to focus on a few areas rather
than try to open everything.
Q25 Dr Turner: That leads me neatly
on to asking all of you if you would make a comment on where you
think we should be going in the immediate future on international
collaboration. I am sure you all have your pet hobbyhorses. Would
you like to ride them?
Dr Richards: Speaking for EPSRC,
we have an international collaboration line. This year, because
the Beijing office will be opening, we will be focusing on trying
to get research collaborations going in the area of energy sources
and renewable energy. To add to that, this weekend I was at a
meeting of what is known as the G8-HORCS—heads of the research
councils in the G8 countries. There is a common feature coming
across all those countries that were there—Japan, Canada,
the US, Italy, Russia and the UK—with the focus on young
researchers starting research careers. It is internationally common
now. I think all the research councils are paying attention to
that now. How do you start off young people, young research careers,
in the best possible way and give them the push they need?
Professor Mason: As I said at
the outset, I think the STFC is in a slightly different position
in that the majority of what we do is very strongly embedded in
the international arena. Everything we do virtually has an international
flavour to it. In terms of our international strategy, what we
need to do is to make sure that we up the game in terms of getting
the benefits from those collaborations. Part of that is demonstrating
leadership in international collaborations and that is helped
by forging bilateral relations with target countries to leverage
what we do in the more general collaboration arena. Certainly,
in common with my colleagues, there is a great deal of interest
in promoting work with China and India and the USA has always
been very strong but we are building that up. We have just signed
a bilateral agreement for example to work on space exploration
with the USA and that is a very important step in leveraging what
we are already doing and getting more benefit from it. The third
point which leads on from that and which fits very much within
the STFC's agenda is to derive economic benefit from the collaborations.
I think we have a good record in the past but we can do better
and, particularly with devolvement of the science and innovation
campuses, we need to be attracting people to invest in the UK
rather than the UK investing abroad. That is something we shall
certainly be working on in the next years coming up.
Professor Blakemore: As far as
MRC is concerned, certainly we will continue to encourage MRC
researchers to collaborate with their more traditional contacts
in the United States, in France and in Germany, but I would highlight
a number of areas where we would like to see more progress. One
is in the area of emerging infectious disease. We already have
two research units, one very large in Africa, which are devoted
to the issues of tropical medicine, including infectious disease.
But we have been moving towards more active collaboration in the
field with China. We have done it in one way already through the
call for proposals for research on influenza of pandemic potential.
Some research grants that were given under that call have Chinese
collaborators. We are in active discussion and have been for some
time with the Chinese Academy of Sciences about the possibility
of making a direct investment of some form in China in the area
of infectious disease. In Africa where we have longstanding investment,
(the larger of our units just celebrated its 60th anniversary
last week), we are now considering our future strategy. We have
just completed a workshop which is leading to a report on an African
strategy for the coming 20 years. We want to look for opportunities
for more direct involvement with investment in African institutions—research
institutions or universities—to accelerate the efforts to
build capacity in Africa. I will also mention as Keith did the
importance of not forgetting the innovation agenda and the translation
agenda. For the biomedical sciences, there are considerable opportunities
for international collaboration in population studies, particularly
genetic studies, and clinical trials which have ultimately a translation
objective, I can give another example. We have recently completed
our first collaboration with the national drug screening facility
in Shanghai using their resources and their compound collection,
which is significantly different in its make-up compared to Western
compound collections, to screen a potential target for malaria.
Q26 Dr Turner: Finally, did the Year
of Science scheme add any value to your work and what was the
research councils' involvement?
Professor Blakemore: The Year
of Science in China: Yes, all the councils contributed very energetically
to that. Obviously I can report with most knowledge about the
MRC's contribution, with several delegations. We held a workshop
on cancer in Beijing. We also had meetings and interactions in
the areas of neuroscience, collaboration in innovation and technology,
and infectious disease, with groups of experts visiting China
looking at opportunities for collaboration. That has certainly
had a string of consequences. During and since the Year of Science
in China we have signed four new memoranda of understanding with
Chinese agencies. Our interaction is extremely close and to a
large extent that is attributable I think to the links that we
have built up during the year.
Q27 Dr Turner: That is something
you would need to continue and build on?
Professor Blakemore: And we are.
Professor Diamond: I might also
add there was a Year of Science in Brazil. David King led a delegation
which Philip Esler as chief executive of the AHRC went on and
the result of that is that there is now a proposal from all of
the research councils to our colleagues in Brazil for an entirely
joint peer review process across all areas of research for collaborations
between UK scientists and Brazil, which we are very excited about.
Dr Richards: What EPSRC gained
from that year in China was a workshop on spintronics which is
the next generation of electronics. Following on from that, we
are collaborating very closely with Arup on the eco-friendly city
which is being built in China with Arup as the design consultants.
UK academics are networking with Chinese academics in that same
area on that whole design. That will bring knowledge back into
this country that will affect design.
Professor Diamond: One of the
things in the social sciences is that Chinese social science I
would have to say is slightly less developed than some other areas
of Chinese science, but one which is expanding very quickly, and
we are working very closely both with the British Academy and
our colleagues in the Chinese Academy of Social Science to develop
our links and to collaborate very well, not only in research but
also in the provision of infrastructure. We are organising a workshop
on international social science databases which the Chinese are
hosting in Beijing next month.
Professor Blakemore: Could I add
to that and point out that one of the barriers to international
collaboration is differences in culture, attitudes to administration
and ethics and so on. Perhaps that is particularly pronounced
in parts of the developing world with which we are not as familiar
as with Europe and the United States. There is—I think right
now certainly very recently—an MRC delegation in China working
out the details of a conference that the Chinese have agreed to
on research governance and ethics—a China-UK Research Ethics
collaboration, (CURE). This I think will be very useful not only
in informing ourselves on the UK side about the attitude to research
ethics in China but laying the framework for facilitating collaboration
in future through the adoption of common principles of governance
and ethical principles of medical research.
Q28 Chairman: The point of this little
bout of questioning was really to ask if the Government is giving
a strong lead in supporting these international collaborations
or is it actually following the lead of the research councils?
You mentioned earlier how difficult it was putting all the bits
together. If we are for instance a ministry or a department of
science and innovation as a government department, would it be
easy to get these decisions made and would it be easy to get policy
direction?
Professor Diamond: I believe the
critical thing is that we simply have to have `joined-upness'
across those government departments which do have an interest
in this area. Certainly we are getting a very strong government
lead. It is difficult to say who is pulling and who is tugging
because we are all pushing at great speed but we are certainly
not dragging government along behind. We are very much getting
a lead from government. However the organisation of science and
innovation is within government, there still have to be strong
links and strong `joined-upness' for example with the FCO and
where we see that happening, then it is much easier obviously
to move forward. That is really what we need to happen. Also,
I stress one of the major partners with GSIF are the RDAs. In
government I believe it is not only central government but local
government as well which needs to be joined up because of the
initiatives for example around the siting of large facilities
or whatever.
Chairman: We keep coming back to that
central theme about how we get these things joined up and effective.
Q29 Dr Harris: International collaboration,
it is claimed by some people giving evidence to us, has not been
given a high enough profile by research councils generally. Do
you think there is something in that at all? Without repeating
everything that you have said in your evidence that you are doing,
do you think that is a fair point?
Dr Richards: Certainly from the
EPSRC's point of view, it probably has been a fair point but if
you now take our latest strategic plan, one of our strategies
in there is international engagement, so we are lifting the profile
on that. For EPSRC that is probably fair comment. We are now doing
something about it. I do not want to repeat myself. It is a feature
in our strategic plan. Our council has just discussed that. The
intention is that in a year's time that will be discussed again
and we will be asking what has moved on and what have you done
since then and what are your future plans. So it is moving ahead.
Q30 Dr Harris: Would anyone like
to disagree with my question?
Professor Diamond: I think I would
disagree with it. The whole initiative towards removing barriers
and removing double jeopardy internationally has come from the
ESRC. In the ESRC we have had a real lead over a long period of
time of making it a really important feature of our agenda. That
is not to say that we are complacent in any way because we are
trying to move it increasingly up the agenda and be seen to be
playing a real lead, not only in raising the profile in the UK
but playing a real lead in social scientific policy internationally.
Dr Richards: It is not that EPSRC
did not work internationally. We have had collaboration with NSF
to the extent that we have said. Because of their regulations
we will let them do the peer review rather than having double
jeopardy but we are trying to raise the profile.
Q31 Dr Harris: What about the alternative
suggestion, which is not contradictory, that because there are
so many different research councils and so many different research
council schemes for international collaboration, the picture painted
to potential overseas collaborators is chaotic and complicated
and not as straightforward in comparison with other countries?
Professor Mason: To answer your
first question, very simply, in the case of the STFC clearly the
criticism is not valid because it is all to do with international.
A more useful comment perhaps is this. As someone interested in
that area, I do not see any lack of engagement or understanding
from my research council colleagues in the international agenda.
I think we are all moving forward in that and dealing with very
difficult issues. In terms of the profile that overseas potential
collaborators see, I think the reverse is even more so, that with
the various different ways in which science is organised in countries,
there is no standard and everyone works differently. That is one
of the barriers that we have to deal with, to understand how science
is organised in target countries and to work to get through those
barriers.
Q32 Dr Harris: The point I was making
was that if people wanted to collaborate with us, they do not
just have to work out how the UK works; they have to work out
the different approaches taken.
Professor Mason: My point was
that that problem is shared by our people wanting to work abroad.
It is not that everybody else has a much simpler system than we
do. I think they are all complicated.
Professor Diamond: Can I put this
in a slightly different way, without trying to appear trite? If
you were, shall we say, an economist in the United States of America,
you do not look at the UK and say, "Shall I collaborate with
a particle physicist or a social anthropologist or a medical person?"
You are more likely to say, "I want to work with an economist",
and therefore, as has already been said by Keith Mason, it is
about people-to-people links and so your links tend to be with
economists and they know that it is the ESRC and you are not looking
across the entire portfolio of Research Councils. However, we
are very clear in our minds that there is a real need sometimes
for there to be a one-stop portal if you like to enable people
to come from one place, which says `Research Councils UK' and
to be directed to the appropriate place, and that is precisely
one of the reasons why we are opening offices in Beijing, Delhi
and Washington.
Q33 Dr Harris: We do not need to
get into a tête-à-tête but one of the issues
is that there should be cross-boundary working between research
councils so that you can always choose the pure economist or the
pure medical researcher. It is the Royal Society and not me that
says: "the structure of the RCs is overly complicated in
comparison to scientific institutions in other European countries
and the USA, which are able"—in their opinion—"to
present a much more coherent face to the international community.
The research councils need to ensure this is not just about UK
science as a brand when working with overseas partners."
Do you think that is a fair statement which you have to overcome?
Do you argue with its premise?
Professor Blakemore: I hesitate
to contradict a statement from the venerable Royal Society but
I am the RCUK representative on the EuroHORCs and European Science
Foundation committees where the whole issue of the complexity
of funding institutions and portals for application and negotiation
with European agencies is recognised Europe-wide as an issue.
In fact, EuroHORCs has just produced a draft document to try to
guide overseas researchers, particularly young researchers, in
finding the right access point for their areas of interest. This
is recognised as a problem across Europe. I do not see in those
discussions the UK being singled out as a particular offender
but even say in France and Germany there is a multiplicity of
funding organisations.
Q34 Chairman: With respect, that
is not an acceptable answer, is it, Colin, because what we should
be doing is to say that we have actually solved this problem?
I think the question that Dr Harris is putting is: where are we
going to resolve this problem? When the Royal Society says that
overall it is not clear what the international strategy of the
research councils is, that is quite a powerful statement. That
is a reasonably intelligent body of people.
Professor Diamond: It suggests
to me that they have not read the individual international strategies
of the research councils.
Q35 Dr Harris: What they say is that
although the research councils have a sophisticated strategic
approach to their thematic priorities, it would appear that some
of the councils have yet to incorporate a coherent international
dimension into their overall strategy. I understand you are going
to plead not guilty to that and reject that but is it a concern
that a stakeholder like the Royal Society is of that view or are
you going to say that is typical Royal Society "never have
been, they want more funding directed through us for this"?
Professor Diamond: Clearly it
is a concern and that is why we are delighted that we have invited
Dr Cox to join RCUK, for a meeting in the next few months. I am
sure that we will be delighted to raise the points that they have
made with you with him to take them on further.
Q36 Chairman: We are actually trying
to add value to this process rather than just being critical.
Professor Diamond: We do not think
you are being critical. We just disagree with that.
Q37 Dr Harris: I am just reading
the evidence we have had. Could you clarify for the record who
Dr Cox is?
Dr Richards: He is the Executive
Secretary of the Royal Society. Just to talk about that forward
strategy and how it aligns with ours, we do not want to end up
doing things in duplication. That is exactly why Ian has said
it has come to RCUK to give a wider discourse so that again we
get a line in various areas.
Q38 Dr Harris: What approach do you
have and what mechanisms do you have for horizon scanning in respect
of subject areas of potential international partners for collaboration?
Dr Richards: Within EPSRC, each
of the research programmes has a strategic advisory team which
is drawn from researchers and industry but it is not necessarily
composed of, let us say, chemists. They meet three to four times
a year and advise the programme manager on what is breaking and
what is making and to whom we should be talking. We also talk
to industry. We have a user panel composed of industrialists.
We have a technical opportunities panel, composed of senior academics
who advise at executive level. So we get advice bottom up and
top down.
Professor Diamond: Certainly the
Research Directors' Group is part of RCUK, so RCUK has a whole
has been developing multi research council programmes; we will
be taking international advice on the best way to go forward and
always involving an international element. In much of our peer
review and commissioning panels we include international experts
and increasingly we are participating in partnerships with sister
research councils to take forward horizon scanning. So, for example
the ESRC, together with a range of European research councils
in a collaboration known as NORFACE, is now funding a joint programme
currently of research following horizon scanning of some of the
most important areas and discussing that. There is one programme
that is going to be funded on religion as an emerging social force.
There are other areas on population change and on the environment
where research councils together across Europe are saying, "These
are important issues to all of us. Therefore, there is much attraction
if we put the money into a pot and work together to collaborate
in that way".
Professor Blakemore: I want to
summarise as I see it the three levels at which the strategic
development of international opportunities is tackled. The first,
and it has been emphasised by Keith, is at the level of the individual
researcher. So much of the bottom-up triggering of interaction
with other scientists, and productive collaboration of high quality,
has to be generated from the interests of individual researchers.
Another is at the subject level, and I think it is quite appropriate
that individual research councils representing academic disciplines
broadly should be responsible for developing their own international
strategies. Just like my colleagues have said for their councils,
the MRC has an international group with a strategic advisory structure
that advises on exactly that. Third, I think we are increasingly
recognising the importance of working together within RCUK to
brand UK science collectively and efforts like the establishment
of the international team within RCUK, the development of a specific
RCUK international strategy this year and the collective efforts
that have led to the offices in China and in the United States
and almost certainly in India are very good examples of that.
Professor Diamond: May I quickly
add one other area, which is specific largely to ESRC and also
to AHRC and that is that we fund something called area studies,
which is actually where UK researchers and those from other countries
have a real study of international areas. That always tends to
involve collaborations with those people in those countries, and
it can have a real impact not only on the development of research
in areas internationally but also, if you like, a potential impact
on government policy by really understanding those areas.
Q39 Dr Harris: My question was about
horizon scanning.
Dr Richards: EPSRC has regular
and international reviews of aspects of the programme. We have
just finished one on information and communication technologies.
They very often point out to us what is lacking, what is missing,
what we need to address. Two years ago physics said, "You
are weak in quantum coherence, so do something about that".
At the end of this year we have the materials international review.
We respond to that with an action plan and if we have the resource,
we can do something about it.
Professor Diamond: It is exactly
the same for ESRC.
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