Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-279)
PROFESSOR PATRICIA
NUTTALL AND
PROFESSOR MIKE
HULME
12 DECEMBER 2006
Q260 Dr Iddon: Mike, what about your
reviews; are they helpful?
Professor Hulme: Again, it is
important to distinguish that we are a time-limited collaborative
centre according to NERC terminology, although as Pat has already
alluded, we felt we got the full force of a research council institute
review and it certainly in our case did not feel fit for purpose.
The whole of the NERC machinery seemed to kick in and treated
us as though we were a £20 million or whatever research council
institute although we were not, and so we just did not feel there
was appropriateness. Again, we hammered that message back to NERC
and I think it has registered, and there has been a review of
the process, of course, now completed. It is also worth mentioning
in this context that the decisions about what are strategic national
capabilities and what are time-limited opportunistic capabilities
is an important issue as well. My expectation—and clearly
events proved me to be very naive in this regard—when I
established the Tyndall Centre in the year 2000 was that actually
inter-disciplinary climate change was being recognised in the
research councils as being something of a national strategic priority.
My expectation would be that we would not have had the struggle
for funding that we have had so far, and indeed the prospects
of maybe not even getting any further funding beyond 2009, because
climate change and doing interdisciplinary research on climate
change that is solutions-oriented was indeed a national research
priority. How those strategic priorities are decided—should
it be left to individual research councils to decide, should it
be RCUK that decides, should it actually be a science minister
or whoever that decides, or even this committee? Who is actually
arguing for what are the national, strategic research capabilities?
That is an important issue.
Dr Iddon: It is a good question, chairman.
Chairman: It is an extremely good question.
Bob Spink will ask an equally good question.
Q261 Bob Spink: Can I turn to the
relationship with Government, please, and could I start perhaps,
Pat, with you and ask you whether CEH has seen any difficulties
arising from Defra's funding crisis?
Professor Nuttall: We are holding
our breath at the moment. A major project is the Countryside Survey,
so this will be the fourth full survey of the British countryside.
It is an £8 million project, Defra would fund just under
£4 million and we are not quite sure whether it is caught
up in the funding moratorium.
Q262 Bob Spink: What are you doing
to get certainty on this, so you can plan forward?
Professor Nuttall: We are working
very closely with our colleagues in Defra.
Q263 Bob Spink: Do you see Defra—the
Government—as a customer of yours or as a partner in your
work?
Professor Nuttall: We see it as
a customer and as a stakeholder; a lot of what we do is policy-driven
science, so it is meeting policy needs such as the Water Framework,
directives such as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. So our
science is providing the evidence base so that government departments
can give advice to the Government.
Q264 Bob Spink: Mike, I wonder if
I could ask you about co-ordination mechanisms between different
government departments; are they well-tuned, are they sophisticated
or are they dysfunctional?
Professor Hulme: In relation to
research commissioning?
Q265 Bob Spink: Yes, and in relation
to the work that you do and directing the work that you do.
Professor Hulme: There are one
or two bodies that exist that I am aware of across departments
that have the intention of trying to take some broader, cross-departmental
perspectives on what is being funded and what is coming out of
research. There is the Environmental Researchers Funders Forum,
which has representation from government departments, there is
also a body that I think is unique to Defra—I am just trying
to think actually whether it has membership from other government
departments. It is the Global Environmental Change Committee,
chaired by Howard Dalton, and it maybe has observers from other
government departments. There are one or two mechanisms that I
am aware of that try to have some sort of loose exchanges between
government departments. Generally speaking though, of course,
from where I sit in the Tyndall Centre we do business with individual
government departments. We will do commissioned research for Defra
or commissioned research for DFID.
Q266 Bob Spink: Is it your staff
at the Tyndall Centre that do the joined-up thinking and pull
together the different government departments and their objectives
and make sure that you are meeting without gap and overlap their
expectations, or are they driving you, are they doing the co-ordination?
Q267 Professor Hulme: I do not think
I could claim that we do that, certainly not to the exclusion
of Government, I do not think I am quite that presumptuous to
think that is our role, and actually the Stern review was a very
good example of a review rooted in one government department,
the Treasury, actually drawing upon expertise in other government
departments and of course drawing upon expertise from the research
and knowledge communities. Also, my understanding is that there
are good examples of collaboration between DFID and Defra in relation
to climate change, specifically with DFID in relation to developing
countries issues. There are exemplars, therefore, of where government
departments have indeed taken the lead for trying to connect.
I am not saying it is perfect, of course, but there are examples
of very successful types of inter-departmental collaboration.
Q268 Adam Afriyie: I just want to
explore this point a little bit further. Some of the evidence
that we have been receiving suggests that it might be worthwhile
actually if the Government and the research council institutes
had some sort of shared strategy for developing new research programmes,
especially the interface between, for example, Defra and the NERC
and some of the institutes beneath that. We have been talking
about part of the role that they play in helping to development
new research programmes, but do you think that it would be wise
or appropriate for the Office of Science and Innovation to take
a more high profile role in actually co-ordinating the research
that research councils and research council institutes? I am thinking
particularly of things like blue horizon scanning and that kind
of area?
Professor Hulme: If I understand
your question you have to go back a step and go back to the model
that we have in the UK of separation between government departments
and the individual research councils, that individual research
councils are established by a royal charter to be independent
of any particular government minister or the government of the
day, so there is a research stream that comes through government
departments and there is a research stream that comes through
the research councils, and of course where I am sitting, in a
university, we have also got another research stream that comes
from HEFCE.
Q269 Adam Afriyie: But in some cases
the majority of the funding is coming almost exclusively, in some
cases, from Defra or from a specific government department, so
in those kinds of cases where it is almost an extension of a government
department, being a research council institute—to a certain
degree, although I understand there is a technical separation—would
you call for any kind of an overarching, co-ordinating via a government
department?
Professor Hulme: What I would
say then is go back to one of my earlier comments, and that is
how actually are these national priorities established and are
they national priorities driven by the scientific knowledge community
or are they priorities driven by policy? Climate change is a good
test case really to explore that question because, as indeed is
now very well recognised in Government and in Opposition, you
cannot just fit climate change policies into a four year or five
year electoral cycle, you have actually got to have a very long
term view of what you are trying to achieve and you have therefore
got to have a long term view of what science and the knowledge
communities can contribute to that. Should it be left to, say
NERC, to decide what the research programme should be? Should
it be dictated by Number 10 or should there be other mechanisms
to try to reconcile those together? I am not providing answers;
it is not clear to me actually where those strategic priorities
are currently decided.
Q270 Adam Afriyie: The purpose of
the question is because from some previous evidence it did seem
unclear at the margins in particular where the Government's direction
or co-ordination ends and where the research council institutes
and the research councils themselves have their autonomy. That
is why we wanted to explore it with you.
Professor Hulme: It is rather
unclear to me as well, I am afraid.
Q271 Chairman: There are three conflicting
issues here, are there not? There is first of all the independence
of science, which I am sure you and Pat would also vigorously
defend, that we actually need to have an independent, scientific
thinking within the country. There is, secondly, the issue of
national policies and priorities and clearly the Government has
every right to make national priorities, and international climate
change is a classic example in terms of that. The third dilemma
is how do you create an overarching structure which allows both
those things to flourish at the same time. If I could just put
the question to you, whether you feel, for instance, that a ministry
of science would actually help in this, where you could have a
single minister within Government at Cabinet level, who would
actually be able to oversee all that. Do you think that would
be an advantage, or would that interfere too much with you scientists?
Professor Hulme: That is in contrast
to the system we currently have where, for example, we have a
chief scientific adviser; we have chief scientific advisers in
each government department that have the responsibility of ensuring
that science is brought to bear on policy debates within government
departments. You have to contrast it with something else, so would
a ministry of science be better than what we have got at the moment?
Q272 Bob Spink: It could surmount
rather than replace those existing structures, could it not, and
control those structures and make them work more effectively perhaps?
Professor Hulme: Through a ministry
of science and some such?
Bob Spink: Yes.
Q273 Chairman: It was just thrown
in the air, you just seem to want your cake and eat it at the
same time. You want your independence and yet you want this overarching
structure which gives direction and therefore brings the funding
bodies together. The climate change agenda is a classic example
where everybody is agreed that we need to have this as a main
priority and yet nobody seems to be taking overall control of
that agenda. Is that a fair assessment that I am making or am
I being desperately unfair on you?
Professor Hulme: If you look at
the UK as a whole, I do not think that we have worked out on climate
change how we co-ordinate the knowledge communities effectively.
There are too many actors and not enough co-ordination.
Chairman: Not enough directors.
Q274 Bob Spink: Can I just use an
example to develop this point? It is my understanding that the
UK Government has not even decided what target it will adopt for
parts per million carbon in the atmosphere that is acceptable,
linked to average surface temperature rise. Surely, if there was
one department responsible for science then that would focus on
that question and then you could gear all policy across all the
departments in order to deliver that target. At the moment we
do not even know what target we are aiming at, would that be a
fair summary, since you are for climate change and I have got
you in the chair?
Professor Hulme: If you have got
me in the chair I will give you an answer to that, and that is
I actually do not think that would be the right way of doing it
because I do not see a climate change target as being the responsibility
of the knowledge communities to pronounce on. What is "dangerous
climate change" is a political negotiation, political within
the UK and it is deeply political internationally. What the science
and knowledge communities can advise on is what are the implications
of different concentrations, but for the knowledge communities
to pronounce that two degrees is dangerous or that three degrees
is dangerous, or that any amount of climate change is dangerous,
that is not our role.
Bob Spink: But you are playing into my
hands in a way in that I accept that the target is political,
but you must set out the consequences. Surely we need a single
department, a minister responsible, who can set that target.
Chairman: Bob, I will leave that hanging
in the air because I should not have gone down this road, but
I was just interested in your thoughts as to how we actually deal
with these two conflicting objectives. We will move on to Dr Harris
who is much clearer in his line of questioning.
Q275 Dr Harris: Oh dear, high expectations.
I just wanted to follow up on the last set of questions to ask
both of you whether you have experienced cuts in Defra funding
and what the impact of those cuts in Defra funding has been, both
to your institutions and to the science base around your institutions.
Professor Nuttall: We undertook
a strategic review in 2005 which analysed our historical records
on external funding, and certainly it showed a decline in funding
from Defra and a very sharp decline from the Environment Agency
and also from DFID as well.
Q276 Dr Harris: And Professor Hulme?
Professor Hulme: I cannot say
it has been a big issue for the Tyndall Centre because, as I said
before, we have never had core funding from Defra. We have undertaken
a small number of individual pieces of commissioned research for
them, but we have not noticed the consequences of funding issues
within Defra.
Q277 Dr Harris: In terms of Defra
again and the moratorium, can you just explain again what impact
that has had in respect of how you function?
Professor Nuttall: It has not
had an impact yet but we are at the stage of having submitted
a tender for the Countryside Survey which will be undertaken next
year. This is a very labour-intensive survey; it comes down to
about 50 man years of work over the next three years. It involves
sending experts out into the field to survey 620 one kilometre
squares, and there is also discussion on producing a land cover
map which is based on satellite imagery. That will really depend
on whether Defra can come up with the funding for their share
of that exercise.
Q278 Dr Harris: The BBSRC funded
research institutes told us and have submitted to us that they
have had significant impacts on actual jobs because of both the
reduction in Defra funding historically, by a factor of ten over
30 years, particularly some issues recently, and the fact that
there is a moratorium on all new commissioned research. You are
insulated from that, are you?
Professor Nuttall: No, we are
not insulated from it, but we are not as exposed as BBSRC institutes.
BBSRC institutes have more than 15% of their funding that comes
from Defra; ours is less than 15%.
Q279 Dr Harris: If you were exposed
to the same degree as the BBSRC institutes you would have had
an impact in terms of redundancies directly because of this moratorium.
Professor Nuttall: I would think
that is very likely if we were exposed as much, yes.
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