Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-277)
Dr Alf Game, Mr Steven Visscher and Professor Alan
Thorpe
6 MAY 2008
Q260 Lord Krebs: I just had a couple
of supplementary questions to those asked by Lord May. Dr Game
said that if you get a taxonomic application how do you know whether
taxon A is more justified to be funded than taxon B. I would have
thought that might be something that the research councils have
a strategic view on; you take advice and you understand where
there is a lack of knowledge. As an ornithologist, I would say
it is unlikely there is a lack of taxonomic knowledge of birds
in the UK but I can imagine other groups where there is a lack
of taxonomic knowledge. Is that not something which it is your
job as a research council to have a strategic view on? My second
supplementary to Professor Thorpe is: in deciding not to continue
the taxonomy training initiative did you or your predecessors
come to the view that there was a sufficient number of taxonomists
as a result of the training initiative and therefore it was no
longer necessary?
Dr Game: I would accept the point that you make
that it is our job to have a view about the strategic relevance
of proposals that are put forward to us. I feel that we also rely
on the applicants to have some view themselves about it.
Professor Thorpe: We have a strong thematic,
directed programme of strategic research and so we absolutely
would ask the questions that you raised. We would have a view
via the advice that we get, as I have already outlined, from our
theme leaders in the theme action plans and through our Science
Board on the areas of strategic priority. Set against that, we
also have a completely open responsive mode for the best ideas
judged via international peer review to be the best-quality science,
and it is the quality of the science that is critical here. I
think we have both of those methods available. In terms of picking
up on the previous initiative that Steve mentioned, I think Georgina
Mace mentioned when she was here that that had been influential
in training up and developing expertise and it is one of the reasons
why we wanted to look again in this skills review as to whether
that needed to be followed up, and that is part of the reason
why I wanted one of the foci of that review to be in this area.
Q261 Baroness Walmsley: Does that
mean it is possible there may be a new taxonomic training initiative
as a result of this?
Professor Thorpe: Absolutely.
Q262 Lord Krebs: I think this really
builds on something that we have already been discussing but perhaps
I could phrase it in terms of the words of another witness that
we took evidence from who is a very distinguished taxonomist and
who said that bodies like NERC do not hand out money for grant
proposals that are primarily taxonomically aimed and he speaks
from personal experience that you have got to hide the taxonomy
away by cunningly concealing it under a scientific hypothesis.
Do you think that is a fair comment or do you think that is going
too far?
Professor Thorpe: Personally I think, as Lord
May has said, when one is writing a grant proposal one tries to
provide the best possible case for the science, making it attractive
at the cutting edge of frontiers of knowledge so it will appeal
to and be judged highly by the peer review system. Our success
rate is 25 per cent or so, so it is (I come back to it) very competitive,
and proposals need to be written so that they are seen to be high-quality
science addressing what the peers of that area judge to be high-quality
science, and I think there is clearly a skill in being able to
write proposals in that way, and we are all aware of that fact.
I would not regard that as covering things up, I think it is writing
a good proposal.
Q263 Lord Krebs: But it does come
with a problem and it relates to the question I asked Dr Game.
If part of your strategic remit is to ascertain the coverage of
the waterfront in taxonomy, it may be easier to conceal taxonomy
under a scientific hypothesis for certain taxonomic groups than
for others and therefore, inadvertently, gaps will appear in knowledge
and expertise in the country. Would you not agree that it is your
job to be aware of that and be proactive in dealing with it?
Professor Thorpe: I absolutely accept, and I
have already said, this is why NERC is structured around having
a very strong and large strategic priority-driven and directed
programme so that we can target. That does not mean to say that
we cover everything and our strategy actually is quite focused
and definitely does not cover everything, so that is not to say
that, but we do take a strategic view as well as having a scheme
that is fully open to the best ideas via our responsive mode.
Q264 Lord Krebs: Do you as councils
currently have a view as to which areas of taxonomy, which groups
need particular bolstering by strategic investment?
Mr Visscher: For BBSRC at present we do not.
We are about to enter into the development of a new strategic
plan which will give the opportunity for us to look across the
whole portfolio of activity of BBSRC, and we will go through the
usual consultation process in that so there will be the opportunity
for interested groups to put forward the case alongside other
considerations.
Dr Game: I think it would be fair to say that
one or two areas have emerged relatively recently which we need
to look at, one of which is marine micro organisms, because of
the rising interest in those from a commercial point of view.
There is a great deal of interest surrounding fungal pathogens,
particularly in plants, as a result of the effects of climate
change, and we are aware that there is a shortage of skill in
some areas of that. These are things which have come up through
the community and from talking to users and will be things that
will be taken into account.
Q265 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
The next question is on improving our understanding of the relationship
between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services
provision which is central to NERC's new biodiversity thematic
programme. We believe this will require new kinds of information
on taxonomy of microbes, fungi, soil fauna, marine invertebrates,
and so on. If taxonomy as a discipline in the UK is allowed to
continue to decline, how does NERC expect to be able to generate
such knowledge?
Professor Thorpe: This is exactly why we have
introduced a sharper focus of advice to NERC about how to develop
the priorities and the underlying skills that are needed for the
biodiversity theme, so we are beginning to have much better advice
in that direction and, as I have already mentioned, the theme
action plan is highlighting some of the areas, if you like, state-of-the-art
techniques in taxonomy, that need to be developed for biodiversity
research and ecosystem function. I think we have in place the
ability now to capture areas where we need to develop further.
The other area that we are working on is the significant part
of NERC funding that goes into maintaining a national capability
to do environmental science, so rather than in these thematic
areas that I have talked about like climate change and biodiversity
we look at whether we have sufficient facilities like ships, planes,
instrumentation, and laboratory instruments for the community
to use, so we call this "national capability", and again
we are just about to introduce a new advisory committee to our
Science Committee to look at this national capability that we
support, and this will be another way in which we will be able
to highlight areas where we think there are at the moment shortages
of skills and we need to enhance those. I do think we have in
place through the theme leaders and advice and also through this
national capability advisory group ways that we have not had before
to capture these shortages and be able to fill them.
Q266 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
Would this be on a competitive basis or would this be a non-competitive
initiative from NERC in terms of you having seen the need to do
some work on taxonomy and setting that in motion rather than waiting
for a proposal coming forward?
Professor Thorpe: Yes, in our strategic priority
area in developing these themes we will often have an announcement
of opportunity in a particular area, so we would specify a subject
area and ask for the proposals to be focused in that area, and
then we would have a competition amongst the proposals. Sometimes
if there is an obvious area where a facility needs developing
or it is already in existence and it needs further enhancement,
we would simply commission that to happen directly, so we have
a number of ways of funding these initiatives. We use the competitive
method a lot to test for quality but where there is an obvious
provider that is providing a facility long term, to pick another
example, running an Antarctic base for example, we do not ask
for competitions for new providers but we make sure that that
provision is high quality and developing in the best possible
way, and that is how we direct the funding.
Q267 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
I am reminded of many years ago now the all-Union Academy of Sciences
in the Soviet Union which would commission monographs on taxonomic
subjects of various kinds. This might be the life's work of a
scientist but at the end of it there was a monograph which was
a very definitive monograph, and when they were translated—I
speak Russian—into English, they were extraordinarily good
in terms of quality of life cycle, vector potential, all of these
things. We do not seem to have anything like that now. Is there
something that would replace that because the all-Union Academy
in the Soviet Union had this massive number of monographs that
will tell you just about anything about the morphology of all
the invertebrates in the Soviet Union.
Professor Thorpe: I am not sure that we would
support or fund the long-term writing of a single monograph in
the way you have described as a research council.
Q268 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
Is there anyone who could do that?
Mr Visscher: I suppose in a sense this is getting
down to long-term core funding-type activities, more of a scholarship
nature than research grants. I think if one looks at the way that
Kew is funded for example, with a core grant from Defra, then
clearly there is an opportunity for the director there to make
choices about how that funding is deployed. I do not know whether
he makes that choice to fund such activities but I think by its
very nature it is different in character to the mainstream funding
of the research councils and it is something where there is a
perceived need which could be funded from such a source.
Q269 Chairman: I have to say I was
mildly surprised to hear Lord Soulsby commending a Soviet-style
approach to things but then I had a second look and I thought
to myself, "What are we doing in Biobank?" We want to
have a major reference library of some kind, if I may use that
metaphor. Is there a need for any equivalent if one is thinking
about taxonomy, in which case it would be partly a research council,
but it may be there is no need for this, although it seems to
me our inquiry is suggesting perhaps that is what is lacking?
Professor Thorpe: Research councils and certainly
NERC supports long-term facilities that are enduring that go on
in a number of areas. We have a large number of institutes that
maintain and develop facilities on behalf of the community, so
I would not want to say that we do not do long-term support. I
was referring particularly to the output being a monograph at
the end of a career, but certainly long-term support for facilities,
expertise and data sets particularly are critically important
to us.
Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior: Maybe I used
the word "long term" wrongly. What I was trying to get
at is a definitive monograph on whatever, if you wanted to get
to know anything about chironimids, flies, for example you would
go to this monograph and you would find everything you wanted
to know there.
Q270 Baroness Walmsley: Ecosystem
functioning and services obviously is a big interest to Defra
and yet both of your councils and others formally report to DIUS.
We were rather surprised to hear that Defra seemed to be unaware
that taxonomic needs are likely to change, presumably in response
to climate change and other things, so our question really is:
how do you, the research councils, communicate changing taxonomic
needs to Defra and why do you think they are apparently unaware
of the potential for major changes that could impact on their
ability to deliver policy?
Professor Thorpe: As a research council NERC
has very extensive interactions with Defra and I will not bore
you with the depth and breadth of those, so I am very surprised
to hear that comment coming from Defra. My perception is that
they do get feedback from the basic science community via a large
number of routes, not only bilaterals between myself and counterparts
in Defra but also in community meetings, science research meetings
where Defra-funded scientists meet with research council-funded
scientists, so I am rather surprised. Also Defra support a number
of activities within NERC institutes like the Centre for Ecology
and Hydrology on the Countryside Survey for example which is specifically
to look at elements of biodiversity across the UK countryside.
I feel sure (but it is just my perception) that they are aware
but I cannot really comment any further. Defra are very supportive
for example of a new policy research programme that we are developing
with a number of government departments and research councils
called Living With Environmental Change, which is angled specifically
at this issue of ecosystem services and the degrading of those
services as outlined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and
other assessments, so we find we have very close collaboration
with Defra and that is my perspective from the NERC side.
Q271 Chairman: Do BBSRC want to comment?
Dr Game: Really to some extent we look to Defra
to tell us when they have requirements that change in terms of
what they want from the science base. If you actually look at
what has been going on in recent years regarding BBSRC, they have
been good at that and they have told us very clearly that they
want a shift from a production focus to a sustainability focus
for example, and we have regular meetings with them about policy
and they sit all over the BBSRC system. I have to say that with
maybe one specific exception taxonomy has never really risen to
any prominence in their dialogue with us. It has to be said that
on the biodiversity side their dialogue would be expected to be
more with NERC anyway but there is evidence that when specific
requirements have arisen, as it did for example in mycology, they
respond and they let us know what they doing and talk to us about
it. I do not think there is any lack of communication; there might
be an interesting clash of priorities.
Q272 Baroness Walmsley: So whose
responsibility is it to look forward and anticipate the training
needs? Is it the research councils, is it Defra, it is DIUS, is
it individual universities? Who is it that has to look in their
crystal ball and say, "We are going to have a shortage in
that area; we need to do some training now"?
Mr Visscher: I think this emerges to some extent
from a dialogue between the parties and certainly you have heard
about across-research council discussions and many discussions
both with our community and with Defra and other interested parties,
and I think overall in a sense this is how our system of priorities
does ultimately work and things find their way to the top of the
pile through the force of the argument and showing that the need
that has been made. As Alf has said, with one or two notable exceptions,
such as mycology, areas have not really surfaced at the very highest
level in the recent past. Whilst we look, by and large, to Defra
because it has a lead in a number of areas on key committees,
on the Funders' Forum and the Global Biodiversity Forum and so
on, they also need support from the research councils and that
dialogue is very regular.
Professor Thorpe: My answer would be that there
are many people who have an interest in it and need to play a
role in training—research councils, the funding councils
of universities, universities themselves, all of the people you
mentioned actually, and we all take a view. I would hope that
we could perhaps link better together to take a collective view
but there is no doubt a lot of people have an important role to
play.
Lord May of Oxford: I am assuming we are near
the end. I want to air a reflection, in a sense, and see what
you thought of it. It is a much kinder reflection than some of
my exasperated comments earlier—
Chairman: Unaccustomed as we are, I have to
add!
Q273 Lord May of Oxford: I have just
finished writing the biographical memoir of Richard Southward.
He is an interesting person who in his early years, from the age
of about three but right through his PhD and a little beyond,
he was doing pure taxonomics and then his horizons broadened and
he is one of the major figures in establishing what I would call
ecological etymology. It is interesting that even Dick himself
in his list of lifetime publications (and he continued to publish
little taxonomic notes in taxonomic journals) had the numbers
running one through to 245, and the little notes in taxonomic
journals he would call them 30a and 30b, as if they were not quite
real papers, and here is a person who was one of the doyens of
the discipline. Furthermore of course, you go back in time 50
years, the world was vastly different; there was less money and
fewer researchers and the competition was not as savage, and the
emphasis was more on trying to understand things and less on the
necessary, but to me sometimes exasperating, codification and
strategy reviews and all this stuff that sometimes seems to me
to verge on and trespass into bullshit. It makes everyone's life
difficult because in order to keep funding something that I really
do believe is at the foundations of thinking about climate change
and biodiversity and everything else, one has to deal with an
idiom that even some of the practitioners feel is not quite "honcho
papa"-ish science, and furthermore there is a muddle in the
funding agencies between government departments and research councils,
so basically I have a lot of sympathy for you but I have even
more worries about where we are going. We are a bit worse than
many other countries but we are not unique. I just wondered whether
you think that reflection has validity or would you politely like
to say you think it is nonsense?
Professor Thorpe: You call it the strategic
view, sorry to say what you said, but bullshit—
Q274 Lord May of Oxford: It does
shade into box ticking and stuff, you have got to admit.
Professor Thorpe: This in my view is profoundly
not correct. The scientific enterprise is huge. The sort of canvass
that NERC has to cover is huge. There are a lot of researchers
and a lot of areas of science and if one was to apply the method
that you described of supporting all of what you would regard,
or a collection of your peers would regard, as the critical sub-disciplines
within environmental science NERC's budget, however large it is,
would never cover it. NERC Council is in the position—and
it is a very real position—of having to prioritise and of
having to spend the £400 million a year that the taxpayer
provides, and I regard that as legitimate and absolutely critically
important to do, and that prioritisition needs to build on scientific
excellence and it also needs to build on where the scientific
community thinks the priorities lie. We do not invent these priorities
and these strategies ourselves. The scientific community actually
takes part itself in coming up with what it thinks are the cutting-edge
areas we should support. It is because we have to prioritise because
our budget, however large, still is not as large as it might be
to support all of the areas. That is the way I would characterise
it.
Q275 Lord May of Oxford: I would
say there is a germ of truth in this that if you do not do it
explicitly then you do it implicitly. At the same time, many of
the European research councils did not do a bad job of taking
about 1,000 applications and distributing a sum of money similar
to your total budget across all of science just trying to pick
the things that are most exciting, and of course that is back
to the implicit theme and you could argue—
Professor Thorpe: That is what we do with our
responsive mode and the success rate of the ERC was below 10 per
cent.
Q276 Lord May of Oxford: Much worse.
Professor Thorpe: Way below. That shows again
that a lot of people in a lot of sub-disciplines were not going
to be supported and could not be supported.
Q277 Chairman: Do BBSRC want to comment?
Dr Game: I wanted to go back to the example
of Richard Southward. I do think that one of the reasons—and
you are right that this is a problem for everyone—is that
there has been this change in the nature of life sciences and
the approach to why things are funded and so on, and it is causing
a difficulty for this rather special area. I did my PhD in taxonomy
but that was 25 years ago and life has changed a lot since then.
One thing I do think has caused a problem here is the combination
of the isolation of taxonomists out of the university system and
the partitioning of funding between the different agencies and
the playing between the two. The only thing I would say of the
discussions that we have been having that has really worried me
is the criticism of the efforts that we have been making to try
to get the taxonomic community to work more closely with the rest
of the life sciences system, because it seems to me that a lot
of the problem is the failure of fellow scientists in other areas
of the discipline to actually appreciate the value and potential
of what taxonomists are doing. So the notion that by pushing this,
investing money into this, which is what the Systematics Association
and Linnean Society asked us to do, is trying to force these people
to misrepresent themselves or shoehorn themselves into the wrong
holes, I think is really worrying and is actually a problem. The
rest of your analysis I would agree with totally.
Chairman: And we are looking forward to reading
the memoir about Sir Richard Southwood. Thank you very much indeed.
It is much appreciated, as I suggested earlier, you giving your
time and your expertise, and if there are any points upon which
on reflection you want to expand, do not hesitate to give us a
short written note. Thank you.
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