Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
SIR JOHN
CHISHOLM
20 JUNE 2007
Q1 Chairman: Could I welcome this morning
Sir John Chisholm, Chairman of the Medical Research Council, to
this one-off scrutiny of the role of newly appointed Chairman
of the Medical Research Council. Sir John, this is one of our
tasks, and a very pleasurable one, which is set by the Liaison
Committee to look at new appointments and indeed to get a flavour
of what you see is the relevance of the job and what is your vision
for the Medical Research Council. Could I start by asking what
attracted you to become the chairman of the MRC?
Sir John Chisholm: First of all,
I was delighted to be asked to do it.
Q2 Chairman: Who asked you, by the way?
Sir John Chisholm: I think probably
Keith O'Nions.
Q3 Chairman: Could it have been somebody
else?
Sir John Chisholm: No, I think
it was Keith O'Nions. Sorry for my new inexactitude. Put simply,
it seems to me that whereas the latter part of the 20th Century
was all about electronics and computing, the first half of the
21st Century the opportunities are in biomedical science. That
is going to make such a tremendous difference to the world and
it was a rare privilege to be asked to play some role in that.
Q4 Chairman: Do you feel your past
experience equips you for that role?
Sir John Chisholm: I do not claim
any special knowledge of biomedical science but I have encountered
some experience of the management and policy making in scientific
institutions.
Q5 Chairman: I am interested in how
you actually came to be approached for the role. There is a suspicion
out in the community that perhaps it is the Treasury who wants
a very successful businessman to come and lead the MRC but that
is not so. Can we rule that out?
Sir John Chisholm: If that did
happen, they did it in a very covert fashion.
Q6 Chairman: We know how it all works.
When you took up your new post, what was your mission for the
MRC? Your comments within research also indicated that you had
a bit of a mission here. What did you feel you could actually
bring? What do you want to achieve?
Sir John Chisholm: I started by
saying most of it, which was that it seems biomedical science
has the biggest opportunity to contribute to mankind in the next
25 years and the Medical Research Council has an unparalleled
record It is known absolutely globally as a beacon of research.
Q7 Chairman: It did not need you
really.
Sir John Chisholm: Probably not
but I am delighted to be doing it nonetheless.
Q8 Dr Turner: Your background is
very much in engineering as a discipline. How do you think this
affects your role as chairman of a biomedical research council,
there being quite a lot of difference between the nature of engineering
research and development and basic biomedical research? Do you
think you bring a useful angle to it?
Sir John Chisholm: I do not want
to overstate any particular disciplinary angle I bring to it but
it is true to say that a lot of the breakthroughs do come from
the intersection between sciences. One of the opportunities that
is available in the biomedical field is drawing in particularly
information sciences into the biomedical arena as a means of gathering
and coherently analysing a vast amount of information; drawing
it together using statistical tools but also mathematical modelling
tools, drawing in engineering disciplines in sensing what one
could do. Imaging is a classic example of that. There is a lot
of fruit to be garnered from the intersection between sciences.
I do not want to claim that as chairman I have the opportunity
or the responsibility to inject that, but it is very interesting
for me to see that happen.
Q9 Dr Turner: There is a long tradition,
as I understand it, of the MRC, certainly in its intramural activity,
of bottom-up direction of sciences as opposed to top-down. How
do you feel about that? Would you wish to retain that sort of
culture or would you rather prefer a top-down approach.
Sir John Chisholm: In the biomedical
field where there is so much opportunity for discovery, the knowledge
holders are the scientists and therefore most of the invention,
most of the discovery and most of the direction is more likely
to come from the principal investigators putting forward their
propositions. That has been the tradition of the MRC and the evidence
is that is the most fruitful way of pursuing the funding of biomedical
science.
Q10 Dr Turner: You will continue
that tradition?
Sir John Chisholm: Certainly that
is the policy of the Council.
Q11 Chairman: I think you rightly
opened your remarks this morning by saying how successful MRC
has been. It has been an incredibly successful research based
organisation in funding and supporting research. What assessment
have you made about its effectiveness as an organisation when
you arrived? Is it an effective organisation?
Sir John Chisholm: I cannot claim
to have myself made such an assessment. As you know, the Council
agreed to set up a review of its processes and that was conducted
by a joint team of Ernst & Young and the MRC staff themselves
and that made certain recommendations.
Q12 Chairman: I will come onto that
in a minute but in terms of your first assessment of the MRC,
did you feel it was an effective organisation?
Sir John Chisholm: In so far as
I have been able to make an assessment, it clearly has been extraordinarily
successful. Like every organisation, no matter how successful,
there is always the opportunity for improvement.
Q13 Chairman: Your role as chairman,
I looked briefly at your incredibly successful past history and
you have been very much a hands on chairman. You have been very
much involved in not only setting vision and strategy but driving
it through. That has been the hallmark—and you can disagree
with me if you like—in terms of your professional career.
How do you see your role as chairman of MRC? Do you see yourself
as executive chairman or how do you see yourself?
Sir John Chisholm: Certainly not
as executive chairman, no. Since you mentioned my career, what
you would have read in my career thus far is largely as chief
executive. I only entered the era of my chairmanship pretty much
with the appointment to the MRC.
Q14 Chairman: That is the point I
am making. Do you see yourself as an executive chairman rather
than as simply a chairman?
Sir John Chisholm: I am clearly
a chairman, very much a non-executive chairman. I am chairman
of the Council of the MRC. The Council of the MRC is an oversight
Council. It has a chief executive who himself runs a management
board and therefore the executive function of the MRC is conducted
through that route.
Q15 Chairman: You do not see any
changes to those relationships?
Sir John Chisholm: Certainly not
in those terms, no. The report recommended some clarification
of that. Amongst the clarifications was the clarification of the
Council becoming more strategic and less executive and that is
certainly a direction that I would endorse.
Q16 Chairman: One of the key tasks
early on in your chairmanship is to oversee the appointment of
a new chief executive.
Sir John Chisholm: To be precise
about that, it is not the chairman that makes that appointment.
Q17 Chairman: You oversee it.
Sir John Chisholm: I do not even
oversee it. I am a member of the committee that is chaired by
the director general of the Research Council.
Q18 Chairman: What is the Council
looking for in its new chief executive.
Sir John Chisholm: We have published
what are the main terms of reference.
Q19 Chairman: I know that but what
are you looking for?
Sir John Chisholm: We are looking
for an outstanding individual. If you look through the history
of the chief executives of the MRC we have been lucky to have
a succession of outstanding individuals and we absolutely aim
to keep up that standard.
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