Memorandum 50
Submission from the National Physical
Laboratory (NPL)
PUTTING SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING AT THE HEART
OF GOVERNMENT POLICY
— NPL believes that such a policy is
both necessary and desirable as it ensures a transparency and
scrutiny of investment of Government funding;— This
decision-making process is consistent with "industrial activism",
is well understood by NPL, and has been implemented to direct
our own funding for a number of years;
— NPL suggests the critical issue that
Government must debate is the required outcome of this investment
in science—it is vital that demonstrable evidence is provided
to support claims of economic and social impact; and
— NPL would support an increase in
funding allocated to near-market solutions to ensure innovations
make it over the final large hurdles to exploitation.
The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is one
of the UK's leading science and research facilities. It is a world-leading
centre of excellence in developing and applying the most accurate
standards, science and technology. NPL contains a National Measurement
Institute developing and maintaining the national measurement
standards, and supporting infrastructures required to ensure quality
of life and economic benefit. NPL is DIUS's largest directly-owned
science asset with world-leading experts in important areas such
as materials, the environment, healthcare, advanced manufacturing
and knowledge transfer that enable UK businesses to stay internationally
competitive.
To deliver this role NPL, via the National Measurement
System, has a limited budget to spend. Measurement can cover a
huge range of topics, so for many years NPL has found itself in
the position to make decisions about which research areas to invest
in. NPL has a sophisticated process to formulate programmes and
analyse them against potential impact, future and current market
requirements and sustaining world-leading positions. NPL use this
to inform our advisory panels of areas of research and potential
outcomes to aid the decision making process. We find this process
useful to help us challenge the reason for investment and believe
this makes our choices more robust as a consequence.
The consultation must address the issue of desired
outcome for the science; which will in turn dictate the balance
of investment between scientific discovery and the translation
of new science for economic and social benefit. Currently the
UK is seen as leader in science research but the government investment
in translational R&D is much less than our international competitors.
This clearly cannot be simply left to the market place. If the
UK wishes to invest in innovation to deliver economic and social
benefit then it will need to do more to see it through the expensive
final stages of developing products to reach the market. Clear
policy on the types and balance of investment and expected outcomes
would be welcome.
NPL has a small fund (Measurement of Innovators)
which is designed to help SMEs with near market products make
the final steps of product demonstration or innovation through
measurement by making use of Government funded assets (both facilities
and people). Over the past four years we have helped over 400
companies and the scheme is constantly oversubscribed. This is
money well spent; the first 200 participants of the scheme saw
a total annual increase in sales and profits of £10.3 million.
World-leading scientific teams usually make
ground-breaking scientific discoveries. These teams also attract
and support high value-added businesses to the UK. So the UK needs
world-leading science teams both to lead scientific discovery
and to deliver economic and social benefit to the UK. To be world-leading
requires knowledge of, and advantage, over competing teams elsewhere.
If the UK is to support such scientific teams, it requires focusing
investment on them, which inevitably means less support elsewhere.
This has a positive effect in creating centres of excellence attracting
clusters of innovative companies, and inward investment to the
UK. It also strengthens the UK science base and aligns skills
with economic opportunity or national challenges.
NPL broadly supports the focus on cross-disciplinary
areas such as the low carbon economy, data security, environmental
change, lifelong health, and advanced manufacturing (including
nanotechnology) already identified by the Royal Society, Research
Councils and other bodies as important; these are areas where
the UK can effectively exploit its competitive advantage. To this
list, we would also add measurement science that underpins many
of the other areas and provides the rigorous scientific infrastructure
to support cost-effective regulation and technical innovation.
It is important to provide clear evidence of the impact of the
proposed work; thus, for example, DIUS economists have shown that
a £6 million investment in the National Measurement System
gives a ROI of £410 million to GDP. We recognise that the
recession provides a particularly challenging environment and
believe that targeted funding is also required to preserve the
key science and technology skills needed to recover effectively.
April 2009
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