Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-93)
Dr Pamela Kempton, Professor Georgina Mace, Dr Colin
Miles, Dr Alf Game, Professor Philip Esler and Professor Brian
Cathcart
11 MARCH 2008
Q80 Lord Colwyn: I am thinking more
worldwide.
Professor Esler: The peer review system ensures
that every application is scrutinised by experts who will almost
always be of international standing, and it would be odd if they
were missing things. That is part of the peer review process.
Q81 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
My experience of the USA, especially with the National Science
Foundation, is that it is a single body in the sense that it is
not a number of different organisations that we have just heard
about in the last few minutes. What does this country need to
do to get to the stage, as this did, in this question of having
a National Science Foundation for the United Kingdom, for example,
taking forward this issue in a determined way rather than, as
it seems to me, there are a number of separate institutions—all
doing good work, all doing good research but not co-ordinated
as with the National Science Foundation—or am I wrong in
that assessment?
Dr Game: I would say that the situation in the
UK is different but not necessarily in the way you would describe.
One of the advantages of UK life sciences is that there is a plurality
of funding sources, which means there is no monolith saying "This
is the only way you can do work." That is one of the things
which contributes to the health and vitality of life sciences
generally in the UK. It is actually also true in the US. Although
the National Science Foundation would be regarded as the main
public body for the support of life sciences research, the amount
of funding going in from private foundations and endowments and
other activities in universities is huge compared to the investment
from the NSF. The NSF I do not think even in systematics would
consider itself to be the largest funder. The comparison is slightly
different. In terms of how we get to a situation where a body
like the NSF decided that it could put resources behind a big
area, as it is doing at the moment, partly it is able to do that
because it is not primarily responsible for the health of the
science bass in the area, I think. There is an issue there about
it being able to set priorities in a dramatic way because it has
a great deal of flexibility of its money, because there is state
funding into universities, there is effective endowment funding
into the great institutions and so on. So it can move money quite
substantially in different directions without causing damage to
the people from whom it takes away in the big sense of the effect
on the science base.
Professor Esler: Could I just add one piece
of information that relates to that question and to an earlier
question? In paragraph 32 of our Council submission, it is pointed
out that the BBSRC has agreed to grant independent research organisation
status on the National History Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens
at Kew and Edinburgh. This means that the researchers in those
institutions will now be able to apply to the BBSRC for responsive
mode funding, so they now do have a door open to them for considerably
more money than they have had hitherto.
Q82 Lord Krebs: My question really
was a follow-up to something that Dr Game and Professor Esler
said. The question is, do the research councils strategically
pump-prime areas that are currently weak but could potentially
be or are perceived to be of national importance, or do you simply
respond to current areas of strength? I ask this because in response
to Baroness Walmsley's question you said the problem with Kew
is that they are maybe not competitive in this area and that is
why their research is unfunded but, if the research was strategically
important but nevertheless the UK was not sufficiently strong,
would the councils have a view that you have a responsibility
to grow capacity so that it will become competitive? Are you entirely
reactive?
Dr Miles: I will answer on behalf of BBSRC to
say that there are particular areas in science where we can identify
particular issues and certainly communities of people we would
like to put together to evolve the science. There have been particular
examples, and Alf has already cited one, where a few years back
we identified systematics and computational approaches to serving
systematics as an area of potential strategic importance. We held
a workshop and groups of people from both communities came together,
and the product of that was a project to develop the software,
the underpinning of the Catalogue of Life. There are other examples
off the subject of systematics, for example, in bio-imaging, where
we have held workshops which have encouraged astronomers and particle
physicists to join with biologists to try and get the technologies
developed for those areas. Most recently we have held a particular
activity called CoSyst, which is a small strategic initiative
designed to put together people who are interested in systematics
research with the mainstream of biological research to encourage
the interactions between those groups of people. We are able to
offer small pump-priming grants to begin the process of establishing
the basic information to allow them to compete better in responsive
mode. We have had a number of successes already. We have held
two rounds of CoSyst, and this has been in collaboration with
NERC, and we have funded approximately 16 grant applications to
develop new technologies which eventually we hope will feed through
into responsive mode research grant applications. I know one has
already been successful which NERC has funded recently. The other
15 or so we hope very much that that will feed through too. We
also hope that following a review the system will prove to be
a useful one and that we will continue funding in that way. So
there are examples where we have taken a strategic approach and
decided where there is potential and then followed it up with
a special, albeit small, funding scheme.
Q83 Chairman: Is that effectively
ring-fenced money for that project?
Dr Miles: The funding that the BBSRC has offered
is essentially ring-fenced, yes.
Dr Kempton: Can I follow on, just to say that
NERC also takes the view that there are areas that need capacity
building and pump-priming and there are several examples of that.
In recent years we have had capacity building programmes in nanotechnology,
the environment and human health. We had quite a big push to try
to bring genomic techniques into the environmental sciences. I
suppose that one is the best example in terms of the life history
that we expect from these things that we have ring-fenced funding
for environmental genomics and a programme that followed that,
post-genomics and proteomics, and having had those two programmes,
we felt that basically we have now built that community and they
need to move into responsive mode at that point, but these are
issues that have to be tensioned. If there are things that need
capacity building or some sort of help, that has to be viewed
holistically against NERC's whole remit.
Q84 Chairman: It is helpful to know
how you see it working.
Dr Game: I just wanted to say that, to avoid
giving the impression that our ability to intervene is only small,
if I take another area where there has been a dramatic decline
in university activity, which is integrative mammalian physiology,
the research councils, the pharmaceutical industry, got together
and have launched three centres which are of substantial size.
This is in order to deal with the problems in attracting enough
trained people to work en masse in drug testing and so
forth. The example of being able to ring-fence resources and nucleate
activity is well proven, and I think we could all cite other examples
as well. The point about this is really the evidence of need and
also the evidence of where the intervention needs to be made in
a way which is realistic and strategic in order to address it.
Q85 Lord Krebs: I know that NERC
is in the process of restructuring the Centre for Ecology and
Hydrology and as part of that the Monks Wood research station
is being closed down. I wondered if you could tell us what is
happening to the funding of the Biological Records Centre at Monks
Wood and also to the long-term datasets that are associated with
the Monks Wood research station.
Dr Kempton: I cannot speak specifically to the
datasets from the Monks Wood site but I do know that the main
purpose that we see for our research centres is for the care of
these long-term datasets and for survey and monitoring, and it
is an activity that we are now calling national capability and,
because that is the raison d'etre for these centres, activities
like the Biological Records Centre are protected.
Q86 Lord Krebs: How many long-term
datasets are you funding under this national capability funding
stream at the moment?
Dr Kempton: I cannot give you the answer to
that.
Q87 Lord Krebs: Would it be possible,
Chairman, for us to receive the answer in writing?
Dr Kempton: I can try to find out.
Q88 Chairman: Thank you very much.
Can I pick up a question about the New Perspectives project? Professor
Cathcart has been sitting there very patiently. It would be interesting
to hear from you how this might improve the general perception
of the importance of these areas, and then, as a follow-on, how
that can move from effectively an AHRC context more broadly into
the scientific community?
Professor Cathcart: As a first step, it can
improve the perception of taxonomy simply by improving awareness
of it. One of the striking things when you visit the museum is
that most people in the public who experience the place think
of it as a place of exhibition. By engaging scholars on one level
you inform the scholarly community and through their outcomes
you inform the public. We have made a priority in New Perspectives
that the outputs of the research that we are looking to foster
will be of high value to the public offer of the museum, the website,
the exhibition and so on. So on that level I think it can improve
perception enormously. This humanises the whole process, brings
it closer to the public, and the arts and humanities understanding
of these things I think we would all accept is probably more accessible
to the public and we can bring it to life, as it were, in that
way. Your second question, the benefits to taxonomy, I see that
really as a factor of the first, but I do not think it directly
feeds in in terms of money. I think that further down the line,
through interdisciplinary exchanges, perhaps it can generate some
additional funding but I do not think that is a priority. I think
it is better to think of it in terms of adding value to the taxonomic
effort that is already there.
Q89 Chairman: We are in favour of
education of the general public. Have no doubt about that. We
wish the project well.
Professor Esler: My Lord Chairman, I have sought
permission to tender some visual material that relates to this
topic. Might I do so at this point and then speak to it briefly?
Q90 Chairman: Very briefly, yes.
(Document handed in) Perhaps you could pass them out but
we have to be brief because I think we are running out of time.
Professor Esler: I am handing out, my Lord Chairman,
material that I have obtained from the Bodleian Library in Oxford
in the last couple of days, just to lead on from Professor Cathcart's
submission. The last item in the bundle really takes us back to
Linnaeus. The second one is Erasmus Darwin, whom you all know.
Another one is an earlier flora illustration. The point we are
trying to make by this is to say that the materials in the museums
and libraries, not just the physical material but this kind of
material, have the power to fire the public imagination in ways
that can very significantly enhance this area. We at the AHRC
regard the research landscape as a unified one and, by exposing
this kind of material to our community, we can have them working
on the history of science, on science and cultural history in
Britain, understanding British landscapes, British art, et
cetera. We feel that by pushing in these directions we can
touch the public imagination and build up support for the project
in ways that simply would not be possible without this. If you
think about Edmund Gosse's memoir Father and Son, you will
see the extent to which the public imagination can be fired by
the efforts of a naturalist to taxonomise around the coastlines
of Victorian Britain. We very much support our colleagues in this
and certainly Professor Cathcart's initiative is a pioneering
one, but we have funded other work. For example, we have funded
a project on John Walker, who was an early geologist in Edinburgh.
He was very interested in taxonomy. Our research community, we
submit, has a lot to contribute and certainly we are willing to
encourage our colleagues to become active in this area.
Chairman: Certainly your reference to Edmund Gosse
produces a very positive response from me, I have to say. I wonder
if we have time for one more question.
Q91 Baroness Walmsley: A few minutes
ago we were asked for some evidence of need, and this question
relates to the speed of digitisation and dissemination of biodiversity
information. We have had evidence from GBIF that the current rate
of digitisation is actually hampering work in the UK, and indeed
globally. GBIF urges the funding agencies such as yourselves to
actively collaborate to ensure that the full catalogue of living
things is completed. That, of course, would include retrospective
data, of which the UK has an enormous heritage. Could you tell
us what funding streams are available in the research councils
to support a strategically important initiative of this sort?
I understand that research councils are clear and recognise that
the editing process, which is so vital, the expert editing process,
actually lacks resources.
Dr Miles: Allow me to try and answer that one.
On behalf of BBSRC, I will say that there are no special funding
schemes at the moment that we are promoting but we are operating
a scheme to encourage longer, larger research grants. This requires
an outline application to start with, an approval of that outline
application, and the receipt of a full application, and obviously
the peer review and ranking of that application against all the
other applications received. In that particular context, we have
received a research grant application that aims to improve the
capture of data as a test, if you like. This comes from someone—unfortunately,
I cannot mention the name as the grant application is pending
at the moment—but essentially it builds on past support
provided by BBSRC and EPSRC, the European Union, the United States
and Japan. It is only in outline stage at the moment. When it
comes to its full stage, of course, we will be inviting our colleagues
to co-consider that application. It is designed to complete the
Catalogue of Life. Whilst I would accept the responsibility for
dealing with the technological aspects of that, the actual digitisation
of the collections themselves, we believe, in BBSRC, is the responsibility
of the institutions to carry out. We may settle the technological
aspects of it and prove that you can do it in that way but the
actual cataloguing of all the specimens, we believe, is the responsibility
of the institutions such as the Natural History Museum.
Q92 Baroness Walmsley: It is a massive
amount of work, is it not, when you have got an enormous heritage
of collections?
Dr Miles: Indeed it is, absolutely.
Q93 Baroness Walmsley: Do you think
it is really feasible?
Dr Miles: I think you might have to be a little
selective about how you go about it and you might start with some
important groups.
Professor Mace: Perhaps I could make a comment
on this one, too. I agree absolutely that there is an enormous
backlog in digitising really significant international collections
in the UK. I think this goal to create a catalogue of all known
life on earth is an absolutely enormous project, and if you look
back over the last few years you will see repeated failures to
devise plans and develop funding to achieve that goal. I think
we have to be very wary about embarking into saying that the funding
streams will be available for that because it is such a massive
undertaking. One of the key things that needs to be done here
is for the various communities that depend on this information
to set realistic plans for priority setting around what data is
needed first, perhaps some of these things that we have already
talked about, there are some that are very important to strategic
bits of UK science, there are some that are very important to
the amateur naturalist community, and some that are very important
to the museums and gardens themselves, but we need to see a set
of clear achievable plans and funding bids that are within reasonable
limits of what can be provided. Some of those may come from research
councils; some of them probably will not, but I do think this
task needs to be broken down into some achievable objectives.
Secondly, it will require collaboration amongst the institutions
and the major holders of this information who are the ones who
are responsible for digitising it. They are going to need to act
collaboratively and I am very pleased to see that things like
the EDIT programme in Europe has started bringing together the
big collections in a way that they will be able to collaborate
to develop those kinds of activities and actually make them more
achievable.
Chairman: Thank you all very much indeed. That
has been a very helpful hour and you have been very concise and
precise, which we appreciate very much. If on reflection there
are matters that you would like to expand on in writing in response,
and you have mentioned one or two on the way through, then we
are very happy to receive that. Thank you both for your presence
and for your written evidence.
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