Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-266)
PROFESSOR SIR
KEITH O'NIONS
20 JUNE 2007
Q260 Dr Turner: What you have not
told us, Sir Keith, is whether we are likely in the foreseeable
future to be hosting any of these facilities, such as the spallation
source that CCLRC wanted.
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: As
we go into the future, I believe that we will host additional
large facilities. There are some big beasts in the road map, like
the fourth-generation light source aspiration—a successor.
We are already investing heavily in upgrading the capability of
the ISIS neutron source at Harwell—the Rutherton Appleton
Laboratories. That is the right thing to do. We need to be looking
very carefully at where we invest very large sums of money elsewhere.
Increasingly, where relevant, we must look very hard at the broader
economic benefits of doing so; not only the direct benefits to
potential business users, but the economic impact that this would
have on innovation.
Q261 Linda Gilroy: In a way, we have
already touched on a number of occasions on the role of Research
Councils and international research activity, and the funding
of it. Can you bring that together by commenting on this: should
they prioritise the funding? How do you respond to the concerns
that have been expressed to us, by the Royal Society particularly,
that individual Research Council strategies are not well enough
aligned to make sense of the funding issues?
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: Let
me start with the latter. I think that they are a bit better aligned
than the Royal Society have suggested, but there is a great deal
of room for improvement. Let me deal with that part first. The
science budget has been settled and Research Councils are now
preparing draft delivery plans for an allocation of funds to them
at the back end of this year. We have asked each Research Council
to produce a very clear international strategy as part of that,
and we have not asked them to do that before. So that is a
response to that. RCUK will produce an overarching international
strategy; and the RCUK offices around the world which I have already
mentioned are part of that. I think that will make some change
but it will also introduce some clarity and guarantee a better
degree of alignment than we have perhaps had before, and I hope
will address those comments from the Royal Society. In terms of
funding and priority, I go back to my first point. Nearly half
of everything that we do has an international dimension. Clearly
that is already embedded as part of the activity, therefore, and
the strategy should make that clearer. As to the issues to be
dealt with in terms of funding—I go back to my point—I
would like to see sufficient flexibility in funds, such that Research
Councils can find those, often quite small numbers of millions,
to make a bridge or a connection with a country on an opportunistic
basis. I think that is easily within their capability. The other
area is the time effect and the issue of double jeopardy. We could
have a perfectly lubricated system that dealt with joint projects
with another country very swiftly, but if it is out of phase with
the decision-making process there, then the whole thing can collapse.
I think that there is a lot of scope there.
Q262 Linda Gilroy: You see the solution
to facilitating international collaboration more as being flexibility
rather than dedicated funding?
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: Yes,
I do. Given that half of everything we are doing is international
anyway, I think that it is a bit beyond the wit of man to say
at this point, "We need X per cent of Research Councils'
budgets available for international activities". Over the
period of the next two or three years, however, there will be
opportunities that can be met with some flexibility in resource.
Q263 Linda Gilroy: Again, I know
that follow-on funding has been mentioned, and it does seem to
be the one thing that we keep coming across. We have come across
it in our investigating the oceans: that people can take part;
they can go to things, but it is the actual follow-on and making
the linkages there that seem to be the weak point.
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: We
use follow-on funding in two ways. We use follow-on funding for
knowledge transfer, commercialisation—
Q264 Linda Gilroy: Yes. This is follow-on
to having established initial links through international one-off
or perhaps one or two events that they have been to, and then
following through on links that they have made there.
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: By
and large, if you are making links, for example with the United
States, as a result of some initiative on climate change and so
on, if that research is going to get funded it has to be of top
international quality, and it should not just be earmarked so
that, whatever the quality is, we will do it. The bigger risk
there is the double jeopardy issue. On the last trip I made to
the US, I was talking to the National Science Foundation about
trying to achieve an overarching MOU for collaboration with the
National Science Foundation, for example, that removes some of
those things and avoided our having 30 or 40 different MOUs for
every project we were trying to achieve.
Q265 Chairman: I think that the one
key thing we would take out of this session, Sir Keith, is this
issue of co-ordination and the need to drive it. What we constantly
come back to with our oversight of the Research Councils is how
do we bring these things together, and is RCUK effective enough
in driving that co-ordinated, collaborative approach. You seem
to be very conscious of that as an issue.
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: I
am conscious of it. I am conscious of the critical remarks, that
have some justification. RCUK was the right move to build that
overarching body. It has found its feet very well and I believe
that it will produce a "strategy of strategies", if
you like, which will move things along. I am conscious of it because
it does put the onus on RCUK to produce that level of coherence.
It is now quite a well-established body, but quite a lot is hanging
on RCUK's ability to pull that off.
Q266 Chairman: You are confident?
Professor Sir Keith O'Nions: Yes,
of course I am.
Chairman: On that very positive note,
we again thank you very much indeed, Sir Keith, for coming before
the Committee.
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