Memorandum submitted by Professor Leslie
Ann Goldberg (FC 07)
"What evidence there is on the feasibility
or effectiveness of estimating the economic impact of research,
both from a historical perspective (for QR funding) and looking
to the future (for Research Council grants)"
1. The most important thing for the committee
to appreciate is that it is simply not possible to accurately
estimate the socioeconomic impact of research in advance. Often,
it takes a long time (decades, even centuries) before impacts
become apparent. Thus, impact assessments are not reliable.
2. In addition to being unreliable, allocating
research funding on the basis of perceived socioeconomic impact
is positively harmful.
(2a). It diverts scarce funds from excellent research
to less excellent research.
(2b). It drives the best researchers out of the country.
The result of (2a) is fewer top-quality research
results, hence (ironically) less socioeconomic impact.
The result of (2b) is that the research that does
have economic impact will be done elsewhere, in other countries.
3. There is ample evidence to support these
points.
(1) The history of science is full of examples
of scientific discoveries which had huge impacts, but for which
no impacts were apparent at the time. I work at the intersection
of pure mathematics and computer science, and here the examples
are ample. Essentially all major mathematical discoveries fit
into this category, for example calculus (a necessary foundation
for essentially all of engineering), number theory (a necessary
foundation for all modern cryptography and computer security),
and algorithmics (which underlies all of the internet tools such
as Google, which we take for granted). The best models that we
have for understanding and influencing economic interactions on
the internet come from game theory, a branch of pure mathematics
and economics whose fundamental discoveries are the result of
curiosity-driven research. The best error-correcting codes that
we have for use in scientific applications result from group theory—from
decades of curiosity-driven research in discrete mathematics.
Such examples exist throughout the sciences. For example, it is
well-known that the laser, the x-ray, and semi-conductors, all
of which are completely essential for modern technology, all resulted
from curiosity-driven research whose applications were not apparent
at the time and could not have been predicted at the time. There
are examples everywhere you look—the discovery of the electron,
the discovery of DNA, the discovery of positrons (a completely
curiosity-driven discovery that turns out to be useful for medical
technology), the discovery of liquid crystals (well before LCDs
were envisaged). None of these discoveries would have been judged
to have substantial impact at the time of discovery.
4. Unfortunately, there is also plenty of
evidence for statement (2) above. It is self-evident that introducing
criteria other than "scientific excellence" into the
process of determining which scientific work to fund results in
less focus on excellence. More concretely, a recent study at MIT
found that innovative research is more likely to stem from funding
regimes which are long-term in nature, and which require researchers
to give fewer specific aims. In addition to stifling innovative
research, the new proposals are likely to drive much of this research
from the UK. As a result of the proposals, morale amongst UK scientists
has become extremely low. Over 18,000 academics have signed
the UCU petition against the "impact" assessment as
part of the proposed REF. In a recent UCU poll, a third of the
600 professors polled said they would consider moving to
another country if the changes came into effect. I feel sadly
confident that this will happen. Other countries are not using
perceived economic impact as a criterion for science funding—for
example this flawed criterion is entirely absent from the current
US National Science Funding processes. Both the US and Germany
have recently announced increased funding for scientific research
(during a period of cuts here in the UK). British academics are
following the issue closely—for example the recent CaSE
debate between Lord Drayson, the Conservative Shadow Minister
for Science and Innovation and the Liberal Democrat Science Spokesman
was oversubscribed. If the ill-advised policies persist, the best-qualified
academics will simply leave the country. We have plenty of examples
of leading academics who have already done that (Harry Kroto,
for example). In my field, many of the brightest British PhDs
moved to the US anyway. The current policies may force the rest
of us to go with them. (Ironically, I moved from the US to the
UK during a period in which the UK was better at supporting fundamental
scientific research, but the tables have turned.)
5. I thank the committee for investigating
this important issue. More evidence is available at my website
http://www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~leslie/impact/impact.html
Declaration of interests: I am a professor in
the Computer Science Department at the University of Liverpool.
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