Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
LORD SAINSBURY
OF TURVILLE
21 NOVEMBER 2007
Q40 Dr Turner: One very much hopes
so. Say an emerging energy technology company who has done its
proof of concept then needs capital grant funding towards its
first commercial demonstrator, there are obvious link-ups there
and if they go wrong, then things may not happen which should
happen.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: That
is as much about process as about structure.
Q41 Dr Turner: You have recommended
an annual innovation report from DIUS which I think everyone would
agree is very sensible. Can you say a little more about what sort
of performance indicators might be built into that report to give
some realistic idea of progress? The simple setting of targets,
which is a popular activity in Whitehall, may not be the whole
answer.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: You
get enormous sway by reporting what has happened. For example,
we now have very good statistics on university performance. We
know how much licensing, how much industrial consultancy they
do, how many spin-off companies, how many patents granted and
so on. Putting all that together in one place, together with what
support for science innovation each RDA is giving and against
what particular projects, would be hugely helpful in terms of
government departments. What has actually happened on their R&D
spending? Have they raided this year the R&D budget to help
with immediate operational problems? Are they doing SBRI? Have
they produced their science and innovation report? There is a
lot of material which needs to be put on public record so that
one can monitor their performance. I think over time out of that
you might then develop some metrics of performance but you get
a huge way by finding out what is happening and exposing that
to public scrutiny.
Q42 Dr Turner: I was going to ask
you about government departments R&D budgets and you have
already referred to the fact that they regrettably get raided
from time to time when something else goes on in the department
which is not ideal in a country which is trying to proceed by
scientific and technological advance. Do you think that the current
system of having individual departmental R&D budgets is entirely
sensible, especially as often R&D work is cross cutting? More
than one department, more than one area, will benefit from the
work. Do you think we might look at a different way of financing
government research, a different budgetary structure?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The
original concept, which as a whole is right, is that the research
that government departments do to support their policy and operations
should be run by them. Someone sitting somewhere else trying to
guess what they need is not a good way to do that. I think the
system could be vastly improved. We need to be much clearer about
producing science and innovation strategies. We have put in a
system whereby chief scientific advisers advise government departments.
If the budget is being raided, they can go to the chief scientific
adviser and he can go to the Treasury to have this stopped, it
just has not been operated very well. Secondly, there is a real
issue about coordination across departments, because something
like climate change or energy involves a whole series of departments.
Again, as we have said in the report, this is kind of basic management
stuff and it is really about the chief scientific adviser getting
his chief scientist in each department working together. There
is nothing more complicated than them getting together and saying
"I am doing some work in this area, what are you doing?"
and where there is cross-departmental themes working together.
That is what they should do because that is what chief scientific
advisers are supposed to do. They do not require vast amounts
of money or structures to do it, they should just do it.
Q43 Dr Turner: There is nothing in
the structure to stop them.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No,
they should just sit down every so often and say "This is
what I am doing, what are you doing?" We set it out in the
report and when you read it you think really I should not have
to spell out that what you have to do is sit down together and
see where you are doing the same thing then appoint one of you
to look at it across government and get on and do it.
Q44 Dr Turner: Obviously you have
some inside knowledge from your experience but are you sure you
do not get occasions when departmental bean counters say "You
cannot do that, it is not been spent exclusively on the work of
this department."
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Yes,
but the chief scientific adviser has to stand up and say "Get
real. We are trying to run a competent outfit and we need to work
together."
Q45 Dr Iddon: I want to turn now
to science education. Like you, I am concerned about careers advice
given to young people with regard to STEM subjects. It used to
be done by a specialist advisory service in local authorities
and then we set up Connexions and I think things went horribly
wrong when we set up Connexions. You have recommended that STEM
careers advice should be introduced into the curriculum in this
report. Should that be done by STEM teachers or by specialist
careers advisors re-introduced into the school? Could you elaborate
on that?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: You
are quite right, the careers advice we are giving kids at the
moment is really appalling. It stems, in my view, from two things:
one is the setting up of Connexions. I think it should be an integral
part of what goes on in the school. Someone coming from the outside
on occasions and doing it is not the right way of doing it. It
should be an integral part of school life. Equally, it should
not be done at 16 and 18. The evidence shows kids make up their
minds about these things not at the moment which is convenient
for the educational system but in many cases quite early. There
is some work the Royal Society has done which shows that a lot
of kids have made up their minds by 14 and beginning to think
about which way they want to go and whether they want to do science
or not. I am afraid the second thing was there was a heavy emphasis
then put on that it was not just careers advice that the kids
could get from Connexions but should more generally be about their
life in all its aspects and that has meant the careers advice
has been focused on the less able pupils rather than the more
able pupils who are getting very little careers advice. I think
you have to do careers advice to both lots of people and not try
to do everything with the careers advice service. This issue has
now been tackled but DCSF and they are going to appoint someone
to co-ordinate the careers advice. There should be guidance. Without
telling a school you have got to do two hours or three hours at
this point, we should be giving indications at what point in their
careers and what kind of advice should be given to them. We are
suggesting that there should be CPD for teachers so that they
can give careers advice and also that it should be part of classroom
work as well as interviews or different points. There is huge
scope to improve that and to improve the careers literature and
so on. It is really what the problem is because if you look at
the supply of young people doing science and technology at universities
actually the numbers are very good. The numbers are going steadily
up as the number of young people go into university goes up. It
has even increased as a percentage of the student population but
there are real issues about the subjects they are doing. There
is a serious mismatch between the subjects they are doing and
what you might think are the needs of the economy. There is a
lack of people doing chemistry I suspect because they think the
chemical industry is what it is about all about which does not
look a winner, whereas there are lots of opportunities in pharmaceuticals
and chemical engineering and so on. Engineering technology, the
numbers have declined although now stabilised. You have huge growth
in three areas: forensic science, sports science and psychology.
For sure in the case of forensic science we do not need that number
of forensic scientists. We have talked to the forensic scientists
and they would say we do not want people who have done forensic
science at undergraduate level, we want people who have done chemistry
at undergraduate level and an MSC in forensic science. I think
it is debatable how many psychologists and sports scientists you
need. This is all about careers advice. We have a real responsibility
to give them really good advice because if you are doing physics
at a research university maybe it does not matter which subject
you do so much because what you are getting is fantastic training
in science and analytical science but if you are doing vocational
courses there is a responsibility on the system to give kids good
advice about what kind of courses are really needed by the economy.
That is why we both suggested more on careers advice and also
that the strategic and vulnerable subjects committee which HEFCE
has should be turned into a much broader committee which would
advise on supply and demand for graduate skills. They would pull
together (a) what is happening in the system, because that is
not well understood, (b) what industry says it thinks the needs
and where the shortages are coming up, and (c) the very good destination
data which could be much improved if it was done not six months
after the end of the year but much later, pull that together in
an annual report which then gives good information to both young
people, Vice Chancellors and everyone else, as to what the needs
are and what is happening. We could do a huge amount to improve
that.
Q46 Dr Iddon: When you have been
in front of the Select Committees previously, including the S&T
Select Committee, you have been quite excited by the rising numbers
of people studying science in university. You have just put your
finger on it. You have mentioned three subjects: sports science,
forensic science and even psychology. The problem is that in some
universities when they have been returning figures to you about
the number of people studying science in their university they
have included those three subjects. When we have been looking
at figures coming in from different universities, and indeed from
schools as well, it has not been easy to pick out who is studying
chemistry and who is studying physics, the core subjects. In a
speech you made to the Foundation for Science and Technology recently
you said there should be a standardised reporting system. Are
you back-tracking on your previous excitement in terms of the
rising number of science graduates now?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It
originated probably appearing before this Committee. Everyone
said there is a complete disaster, young people are not doing
science and technology and the end of the world has come. As a
result of that, I said can I please see what actually the figures
are but on a consistent 10 year basis, not switching between how
many people have graduated or how many people have applied to
university but a consistent basis. It took an enormous amount
of time and effort to get those figures, which tells you something
anyway. Then when we got them it was clear there were rising numbers
in spite of what everyone thought. I have to say I thought this
was rather interesting because we were all proceeding on the wrong
basis. I did always say there were problems in chemistry, engineering
and technology but the whole rising numbers you had to take that
into account. The Royal Society rightly pointed out that it was
coming in these particular subjects. They did more digging on
this and they are quite right. That is why in this report we do
say there is more of a serious mismatch even though the numbers
are rising.
Q47 Dr Iddon: I have been a great
advocate of the new syllabuses and recently I have been looking
at visiting schools where children have been studying 21st century
science and I have been quite impressed. In talking to the children
they clearly would like more practical work and the problem with
these new syllabuses is they have watered down the amount of practical
work children are doing in school now. This week I was lobbied
by the Field Studies Council who similarly regret that children
are not going out of the school now into the field to study biology,
zoology, mineralogy and all the other subjects. What can we do
to bring back the excitement that these lines of teaching bring
to students and encourage them to study the STEM subjects?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: This
is a problem and it is not absolutely clear what is the cause
of this. Everyone seems to agree that actually more practical
experiments are what excites kids. My own view has become that
probably the most important issue is actually the qualifications
of the teachers. There are one or two health and safety issues
but I suspect the real issue is about qualification of the teachers.
If you have not got people properly qualified in the subject they
are teaching, what happens is the bits that go are the bits which
make it exciting. If you do not know the subject very well what
you do is you get them to learn by rote the text book. What you
cut out is any kind of interactive dialogue with the kids because
that may reveal that you do not know the answers yourself and
you are only five pages ahead of them. You are a bit nervous about
experiments and things because you do not understand what is going
on. That is part of the problem. There is now some work going
on by various science teaching bodies to see what the problem
is and if it can be improved, if you can get some ideas from them
and use the CPD through the science learning centres to give people
more confidence in doing experiments. There is an idea of having
one place where you can have all the experimental material on
line so teachers can go and get it easily. I think you can improve
this quite dramatically but you have to have the qualified people
do it.
Q48 Dr Iddon: Is it not part of the
problem that the school laboratories are completely out of date
and unattractive compared to say the language laboratories which
have, on the whole, been kept up to date? We are short of technical
support for teachers in schools as well. Is that not part of the
problem?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The
whole building programme in schools is tackling this issue and
probably, at the end of the day, that is the right way to tackle
it. Almost certainly you could do more on those areas, yes.
Q49 Mr Marsden: As someone who sat
on the Standing Committee of the Bill that set up Connexions,
and one of those people who said precisely what you have now said,
it is music to my ears. I wish it had been listened to a few years
earlier. Can I pick up the thrust of what my colleague is saying?
You have, quite rightly, placed emphasis on careers advice as
a very important element of keeping students in science and going
onto science orientated careers. Is there not something that we
need to look at in terms of the syllabuses? Maybe one of the reasons
why fewer people are either doing science in the first place or
then subsequently taking it into a science career is there is
not enough connection in the syllabuses sometimes between pure
science and applied science. By that I do not mean I want to see
the pure science elements watered down but perhaps we should be
making more connections. Also in the context of what Brian was
also saying, is there not a role for bringing in some of the excitement
of people who are entrepreneurs in science and technology and
in business actually into the schools to talk to some of the students
at the formative ages you are mentioning?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: We
do have a scheme to do that, the Science and Engineering Ambassadors
Scheme, which is proving hugely successful. The last count I saw
we have 13,000 young people going into schools. I am very keen
that that is the level you should do it because that is the level
kids can relate to. Retired people going in is not necessarily
the obvious way to do this. We have got that. In this area, the
overwhelmingly important thing is we have three or four hundred
schemes to encourage people to do science and technology but this
is very disorganised, very poor value for money, and the real
challenge is to get 10 streamlined good schemes which everyone
unites around. The DCSF are now doing that. They have a very good
person called John Holman working on this. You will see we have
set down the 10 schemes we think should be done. Rather encouragingly,
industry is also saying we are getting poor value from all the
things we do, can we all work together to support the science
learning centres, CPD for teachers, a single big competition with
three or four prizes for all schools to go in for, the Science
and Engineering Ambassadors Scheme, just 10 schemes. The last
thing we need is any new schemes; we just need to focus on those
and get everyone working together.
Q50 Mr Marsden: I was very interested
in a section of your report, section 7.46, where you talk about
better awareness of the wide range of worthwhile careers opened
up by school STEM subjects leading students in. You said "Improved
awareness of the range of careers and the contribution they can
make to enhancing human well being into addressing major global
challenges would also help to stem the imbalance of participation
in STEM subjects by under-representative groups" and you
mentioned particularly girls and ethic minority groups. Does that
have some syllabus implications, whether at school level or university
level? Do we do enough in the context of our syllabuses about
the moral ethical dimension of scientific and technological activity?
Do we do enough on risk benefit analysis, for example, which,
it seems to me, every time you open a paper there is some scare
story. There seems to be very little sense of risk benefit analysis
either by the writers or by the commentators subsequently. Without
wanting to get the science syllabuses woolly, is there not more
we need to put in those areas?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: Having
done this for a number of years I come out with a couple of prejudices
about it and one is probably less alterations in the curriculum
is a good starting point. We change them too often. I am never
certain it is the curriculum that is the issue but the teaching
of the curriculum that is the issue. Secondly, I think there is
a real dilemma here, which is why you get different views about
whether 21st century science is right. You have to get a balance
between teaching the structure and rigour of scientific knowledge
versus relating it all the time to its relevance. If the structure
of classes and teaching is around the relevance, then you may
lose the understanding of the disciplines of the subject. If you
keep teaching bits of chemistry under different relevant subjects,
you may lose and make it more difficult for kids to get a basic
knowledge of what chemistry is about. You have to get the balance
of that right. I think overwhelmingly it is about how it is taught
and not about endlessly changing the curriculum.
Q51 Dr Iddon: 21st century science
allows teachers to do both because there are specific modules
for the depth, and for students who do not want to go into the
depth there is the syllabus you mentioned.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: This
is why there is 21st century science is right, with both sides
probably feeling that their way of doing it is not being treated
as seriously as it should. This is the problem and you have to
get the balance right. You may make it more difficult for the
kids to understand even though it appears to be more relevant.
Dr Iddon: I should point out that there
is even a module on applied science in the 21st century science
series of booklets which teachers can select.
Chairman: We are enthusiasts of 21st
century science unlike Professor Sykes.
Q52 Dr Blackman-Woods: In the Review
you recommend that Research Councils UK streamline its presence
into single points of contact in key countries. What would you
define as a key country?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: There
are two areas: one is America, which clearly comes out as an absolute
key area because we have strong relations with America but we
can make them more productive and valuable. Having one point where
the research councils are present in the United states would be
hugely helpful as well as what we are suggesting, which is research
councils together reach agreement with the funding bodies, the
National Institute of Health and Science Foundation, so that there
is one agreement about how co-operative projects between the two
countries are evaluated and you do not have to evaluate them and
have double jeopardy. China and India are other places where having
one presence from the research councils would be helpful. It is
also very helpful in terms of actually the other country understanding
that we are doing a lot of things. If you spread it over all research
councils acting differently and other bodies acting differently,
often you find we are do a lot of research with the country which
is not appreciated.
Q53 Dr Blackman-Woods: Are there
any drawbacks to that approach? Take America, for example, there
might be a lot of research taking place in Silicon Valley but
the policy is in Washington. Can you see any drawbacks?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No.
It is only about research councils working together so that you
do not have five or six representatives of different research
councils covering the same ground.
Q54 Dr Blackman-Woods: After the
USA, the UK research community does a great deal of work with
Japan but there is not a recommendation to have a UK office in
Japan. Why is that?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: In
terms of research, it actually does not come up as one of the
major collaborative partnerships. The point about Japan is it
has enormously good skills and incremental innovation but its
record of university knowledge transfer and radical innovation
is quite poor. We do have projects with them but I would not put
it in the same category as America or probably, as a long-term
bet, India and China.
Q55 Dr Blackman-Woods: The Review
recommended that the Science Bridges scheme be extended to India
and China. Why do you see this as so important given there are
specific schemes for those particular countries already in existence
such as Science Networks and UKIERI?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: There
are two views on this: one is that it should always be done on
the basis of individual scientist to individual scientist, and
the other, which was the traditional way, is you should put together
a fund between the two countries. Usually these funds are rather
small sums of money. Politicians love them because they go and
visit India and they sign a research fund project. Both sides
love this but actually it is very inefficient. You have the whole
thing of competition, special evaluation goes on and then of the
£100,000, £50,000 goes back to one country and £50,000
goes to the other. If you have really high level science collaboration,
both lots of scientists can get the money from their own countries
to do it. What you need is the networks between the countries
and I think the best networks are, in fact, university to university.
We have done enormously well. For example, one of the first was
we got links between SET Squared, which is four universities here,
with San Diego in America. That is proving hugely successful in
getting both science and innovation collaboration between the
two universities. That is a very successful way to do it and we
should build on it.
Q56 Dr Blackman-Woods: Is it not
working against the streamlining process you are arguing elsewhere
in this section?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: No,
it probably works for streamlining because you focus on the links
between the major players in the two countries and that is where
the effort goes and that is much easier to do than lots and lots
and small schemes with different universities playing. It is the
nature of the world we live in today that there are, in all these
countries, hi-tech clusters and what is happening is clusters
talk to clusters. You have a cluster at Imperial College which
will have big links with Bangalore and the Institute of Science
there. That is where you get the creativity and it is probably
much more efficient.
Q57 Chairman: Can I finally finish
with a couple of very brief questions. DIUS is going to lead on
the implementation of your Review. The Prime Minister has accepted
it in full. For the Secretary of State to have succeeded in a
year's time when we meet him, what would be two things that the
department would had to have achieved, or just one thing?
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: It
is one thing, which is to implement my report effectively and
well.
Q58 Chairman: How do you know if
he will have done that? You said they will have an annual report.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: They
have produced an implementation plan and they will probably be
published in the spring together with some further policy recommendations.
That will be visible for people to see. The back stop is the innovation
report which will come out probably in the autumn. That will say
to the extent that things are working well and whether the report
is being implemented. My real fall-back position is I, from the
House of Lords, will ask grumpy questions about whether they have
done it or not.
Q59 Chairman: So will we.
Lord Sainsbury of Turville: I
should say, because this is where we started from, what I think
is enormously encouraging is because we have involved all the
different players in the policy process there is a huge amount
of momentum and enthusiasm for this in the different areas. The
RDAs are very enthusiastic about moving in this direction. The
TSB is getting on already and doing lots of things. I do not think
there will be much resistance to the recommendations because there
is a lot of buy-in.
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