Examination of Witness (Questions 280-295)
Ian Pearson
6 MAY 2008
Q280 Chairman: So in the end you
do not think that a single lead department would help things?
Ian Pearson: As I say, I would be interested
in the Committee's conclusions on this but it does not seem to
me intuitively right that there will be a single lead department
that would be responsible for the taxonomy aspects of the convention
on biological diversity—collections of the Natural History
Museum or Kew Gardens, or indeed taxonomy research that is ancillary
and related to other research that is conducted by different Research
Councils. I am minded to come to the conclusion myself that it
is better for each organisation to concentrate on the areas that
are within its current remit rather than to have one specific
lead that tries to cover such a broad territory.
Q281 Chairman: One of the issues
clearly is how one relates to and communicates with the community
out there, who actually do the work and see the need at ground
level, so to speak, and who give us various messages. It has been
suggested to us that this Committee is one of the few ways in
which there is a route in, and although we are flattered and delighted
and the work of the previous Committee under Baroness Walmsley
helped move that ahead, it is obviously not the appropriate mechanism
for the community to communicate with the sponsoring departments.
Again, this is coming back to the issue of whether it is a lead
department and a single point of contact and so on, because the
communication with the community is an issue that has come up.
Ian Pearson: I am not aware of an issue in terms
of lack of communication between the community and the Natural
Environment Research Council or the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council. I cannot obviously speak for other
government departments but from what I can see there does seem
to be good communication between Research Councils and the relevant
communities that cover their remit. I think some of the additional
evidence that has been supplied by the Research Councils, to answer
your question, shows the extent of Research Council funding for
research that does include taxonomy as part of its remit.
Chairman: In fact we have been discussing that
with officials over the last hour and a half, and had a useful
exchange. I will ask Lord Methuen to take up this discussion.
Q282 Lord Methuen: The Committee
has heard of difficulties in finding UK-trained taxonomists, leading
to the recruitment of specialists trained overseas for UK institutions.
Why is the UK university sector failing to produce sufficient
specialists with the skills to meet the UK's needs?
Ian Pearson: I do not necessarily accept that
that is the case. I am informed that HEFCE—the Higher Education
Funding Council for England—does not have an information
base that would enable it to take an independent and rigorous
view as to whether and to what extent the system is failing to
produce specialists. You will have seen the research evidence
that was submitted by Research Councils UK when it comes to the
issue of skills from, I think, paragraphs 84 to 96, which provides
some of the detail of what is going on. I would also like to quote
the Director of Science from the Natural History Museum who in
his evidence to you said, "In our experience it has not been
difficult to hire taxonomists." I think you also heard some
evidence from Nic Lughadha who has said, "We have looked
to change our recruitment model and we will recruit bright people
with an aptitude and provide training for them." I certainly
accept that there is an issue here and Professor Mace said to
you that NERC takes responsibility for ensuring that it maintains
the expertise base in taxonomy. When Lord Krebs was Chief Executive
of the Natural Environment Research Council he introduced a significant
training initiative, which I think has embedded a lot of trained
taxonomists into research groups in the research community. Of
course, this is not the level of detail that I as a minister want
to get involved in because I would always be conscious of wanting
to abide by the Haldane Principle, and it would be up to the Research
Councils themselves to make sure that collectively they are providing
sufficient support to enable a thriving research community, and
as I am sure you will have heard they will report annually in
terms of the health of disciplines. Also it is my understanding
that the Environment Research Funders' Forum is commissioning
a study shortly, which will be looking at skill needs in the sector
and I hope that that will be of benefit in the long term.
Q283 Baroness Walmsley: I think on
that last point we are comforted to hear that but I do not think
we should be deceived when we hear the Natural History Museum
say that they do not have any difficulty finding taxonomists because
it is a world famous institution and taxonomists from all over
the world want to go and work there, and most of the ones that
they are recruiting are not from this country, so it is the UK
capacity that worries us particularly. One thing that worries
us particularly is that when you find that you need a taxonomist
and you cannot find one, that is too late because it takes years
to produce a good taxonomist, and the output of work that the
rest of the scientific community need. So it really requires somebody
to be looking forward and taking that responsibility to do that
and taking the action to train the people that we are going to
need in this country, not just relying all the time on people
from abroad—wonderful though they are. So who is taking
that responsibility?
Ian Pearson: There are two points I want to
make in response. The first one is very much the fact that you
do have some figures about the number of doctorates in PhDs in
this sort of research area that have been provided by the Research
Councils, and undoubtedly you will want to come to a judgment
as to whether that is sufficient given the circumstances, and
I hope that the study that I was talking about itself will want
to have a look at that. As I say, my responsibility overall as
a minister is that I want to be assured that the Research Rouncils
are paying sufficient detail to the health of key disciplines.
It is not my role to interfere and to specify what those levels
should be, or to tension the systematics and taxonomy community
against other particular research communities. It is my role overall
to ensure that as a government we feel satisfied that there are
sufficient people. The second point I would want to make as well
is that it is not only world class institutions such as the Natural
History Museum that draw on the best people internationally. We
do have a global labour market in these areas but in other areas
as well and it is absolutely right that in the UK we should have
the ability to attract the brightest and the best wherever they
come from. Of course we want to train our own people as well,
but I do not know what the right figure is—whether 50% should
be home-grown, whether 10% or 17%, or what that figure should
be. I think you have to rely on the recruitment practices of individual
organisations and it is my understanding that HEFCE itself does
not consider that a case has been made as of yet that there are
strong skill shortages in the areas where it provides support
in terms of research training. Undoubtedly the study will help
to contribute to the knowledge which will enable more informed
decisions to be taken.
Q284 Lord Krebs: I would like to
pick up on this point about collective responsibility that we
discussed a few moments ago and I want to make two points and
I would be interested in your response. We have heard from each
of the players, government departments and Research Councils,
at different times the comment that they are users of taxonomy
rather than generators of taxonomic knowledge; so we are concerned
that maybe everybody sees that they have an interest in taxonomy
but they do themselves as having a primary responsibility for
generating taxonomic knowledge or skills. That is point one. The
other point that has come to us is that in this collective responsibility
we have sometimes gained the impression that different players
are thinking that another player in the collective group is responsible
for an activity, and if you look at it from both sides it may
be that things fall through the gaps. I will give you an example.
In the written input from RCUK they say that the AHRC's remit
includes maintaining collections, including taxonomic collections,
their presentation, interpretation and management. When we asked
the AHRC about that and those collections in regional museums,
their role in teaching, AHRC said, "This is the role of HEFCE."
So there are really two players batting the ball between them
and then maybe it disappears down the plughole between them, if
I can mix my metaphors!
Ian Pearson: My understanding is that it was
seen more as a transition from AHRC funding this area to HEFCE
taking over funding of this from 2009 onwards, and obviously it
would be a matter for HEFCE and you might want to talk to them
about the extent to which they are going to be providing funding.
But I agree with you that there is always a danger that things
might fall between the cracks when you have lots of different
organisations involved, and that is why having coordinating groups
that come together to discuss these issues and to, if you like,
manage the discipline across boundaries, is I think, important,
which is where things like the Environment Research Funders' Forum
come in, and also where, for instance, the Biodiversity Research
Advisory Group I imagine would have a role. Again, I see it very
much as my role to ask the Research Councils to provide me with
assurances that this issue is being addressed rather than for
me to micromanage the delivery of particular solutions. I do not
think that is what you would expect a minister to do and I think
we need to be very careful in ensuring that we do not have ministerial
decision-making when it comes to what research is conducted. We
take decisions very much at a strategic level and it is really
up to the Research Councils and the peer review process to decide
what is the best research and what should be funded within the
funding envelope that the government provides.
Q285 Chairman: I think we do understand
that and clearly it is essential that ministers do things strategically.
The question that has troubled us is where does the buck stop
if there is a gap, if there is a problem? And inevitably if there
are two or three departments involved there is a sudden absence
of those who will stand up and say, "It stops here".
I think we are quite likely to ask that that be thought about
again because it is always a potentially dangerous situation.
But we do understand that ministerial responsibility is as it
is writ.
Ian Pearson: I think it would be a very valuable
exercise if, as a result of your conclusions, you came up with
an analysis of where you think the cracks are and where you think
the problems are, and that at least would give us an agenda to
work on and to see, firstly, whether we agree but, assuming we
do, how we fix those.
Q286 Lord Haskel: Minister, the nub
of our concerns is that in the past the delivery of UK conservation
priorities has been supported by a wealth of existing taxonomic
knowledge. However, deepening our scientific understanding of
the emerging field of providing ecosystem services is going to
require a vastly improved knowledge. We are going to have to learn
a lot more about microbes, fungi, soil fauna, marine invertebrates,
and our concern is how is the government responding to these new
scientific priorities, and specifically, of course, the demand
for new taxonomic knowledge?
Ian Pearson: As I say, the role of government
is very much one of acting at a strategic level and when you look
at how the decision process worked during the last spending review
period, where we made decisions on support for funding for the
Research Councils, we essentially made some broad strategic decisions;
firstly, about the importance of full economic costing to the
university sector to ensure that we have genuinely sustainable
long term research being conducted in the United Kingdom. We made
a decision that we wanted to see cross Research Council priorities
and we set out four major priorities, which were Living with Environmental
Change, Energy, Aging and Security and Counterterrorism. We believe
that those are big challenges facing the world and facing the
UK as well, and we wanted to make sure that sufficient resource
was going to be directed into those areas. We also made decisions
on the balance of funding between different research councils.
One of our big priorities in the decision that we took was that
we wanted to see full implementation of the Cooksey Review. That
is one of the reasons why the Medical Research Council had their
biggest increase in the funding councils. Of course it is always
the case in these sorts of areas when you are making those big
strategic decisions that some Research Councils will do better
than others, and that they will have to make some fairly tough
decisions. As you will be aware, the issue of the Science and
Technology Facilities Council, there have been various issues
and concerns raised within that community about its overall settlement
and about how the process of consulting with the community had
actually worked. We as a government most clearly do not get involved
in the detail of the decisions that individual Research Councils
take within their funding envelope. Again, I would go back to
the importance of Haldane as a principle and the need for Research
Councils to conduct peer review research and to tension between
research groups in one particular area and in the other areas
of its remit. That clearly is best done by the individual research
communities rather than government. So the short answer to your
question is that it would not be right for me as a government
minister to say, "You have to provide this certain level
of funding and research to systematics and taxonomy." That
has to be a decision that Research Councils take for themselves,
but overall I would point out that when you look at the science
budget it has been increasing over the last 10 years and will
continue to increase over the next three years; and we have seen
sustained investment in UK science and it is up to the scientific
community to decide on the detail and the balance of priorities.
Q287 Lord Haskel: The key that we
are concerned about of course is biodiversity. Are you satisfied
that these strategic arrangements you have just described to us
are going to deal with biodiversity as we need to deal with it?
Ian Pearson: I certainly agree with you, particularly
as a former climate change minister as well, on the importance
of biodiversity as an issue. Within, for instance, the Living
with Environmental Change policy there is a lot of research that
will be funded into the issue of biodiversity. Again, the priorities
within that field will be very much something for the Research
Councils themselves to determine and NERC will lead on this. But
I am confident that there is significant new research that is
going on into this area in the future, and it is absolutely right
that it should do so. If we are going to better understand how
the world is adapting to climate change we need to understand
a lot more than we do at the moment when it comes to how different
organisms are affected by changes in temperatures, changes in
the salinity and acidification of the sea and other factors as
well. I think, as I say, that there is substantial research funding
over the next three years into projects which will look into a
whole range of areas, and of course taxonomy will be important
in this process. From my limited understanding—and I am
very conscious of the expertise that is in this room today—there
are big changes taking place in this world at the moment, and
from reading some of the transcripts before appearing here today
it is quite clear that this is a significantly expanding area
and when you look at the advances that have taken place at a molecular
level, which is transforming this world in many ways, it does
provide enormous opportunities. Again, one of the strengths of
the UK is that we conduct world class research in lots and lots
of different areas and there are far more world class research
proposals than we could ever fund as a government and decisions
have to be taken, and some areas which are world class will probably
not get pursued. Many will, some will not because there will be
a shortage, and if there was never a shortage then I think you
might wish to question the quality of the research proposals that
were coming forward. So I think that all Research Councils will
have to make some very tough decisions, but I would be looking
to be assured that as part of the normal process that we continue
to have a high quality research being conducted into all the different
aspects of biodiversity within the UK and indeed our planet.
Q288 Lord Krebs: A brief follow up
on that very last point. I am obviously delighted to hear your
strong affirmation of the Haldane Principle but I want to ask,
following up your last paragraph, what is the mechanism that DIUS
has for assuring itself that under the Haldane Principle the Research
Councils are making effective and appropriate resource allocation
decisions, because presumably ultimately you account for the science
budget and you have to ask of the Chief Executives of the Research
Councils, "Assure me you are doing the job that you are supposed
to do." What is the mechanism within DIUS for achieving that?
Ian Pearson: The process is that the government
will set overall strategic priorities and will approve delivery
plans for each of the Research Councils. It will then monitor
those delivery plans at an official level on a quarterly basis.
So it will monitor against performance. As I say, the individual
decisions on which research proposals will be very much matters
that the Research Councils themselves would decide individually
and collectively across the cross council themes. It is the responsibility
of DIUS as a department to ensure that research Councils have
robust decision-making processes; but, again, it is not our job
to second guess those decision-making processes. I will meet with
the Chief Executives of the Research Councils on a regular basis
to discuss their work programme and I think it is right that I
should do that as an interested minister. But it is not my role
to interfere in the minutiae of the delivery plan of a particular
Research Council. It just would not be appropriate for any Minister
to do so.
Q289 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
Can we come to the Research Assessment Exercise, the bête
noir of departmental chairmen. It is widely viewed as a major
driver of the decline in minority disciplines such as taxonomy.
How is the government proposing to avoid this adverse effect in
the replacement mechanism, namely the Research Excellence Framework?
Ian Pearson: I have read that in some quarters
the Research Assessment Exercise has been viewed as being a driver
of the decline of what you might call minority disciplines, but
HEFCE itself would not, from my understanding, accept that, and
I see no conclusive evidence to that effect. Often where research
capacity in a particular discipline is in decline there can be
a number of reasons for that and I often think that the Research
Assessment Exercise can be blamed for lots of things but I am
not sure that this particular case is one in point. I would just
note in passing as well that in response to the report that Baroness
Walmsley chaired there has been a response in the current round
of the Research Assessment Exercise, and I think it was Professor
Mace, when she gave evidence to you, who said that she was on
one of the research panels and she had very much taken to heart
the recommendations in your previous report in this area, and
was giving due credit to working subjects like taxonomy as part
of the assessment exercise. So the current round of the RAE has
taken on board the Committee's views and recommendations. As far
as the Research Excellence Framework is concerned, again you will
have picked up some comments within the research community about
the reliance on bibliometrics and how that might affect research
funding in the future, in particular in disciplines like taxonomy.
Indeed, there have been concerns more widely within the research
community about the use of bibliometrics. You will be aware that
the Secretary of State, John Denham, announced on 24 April in
a written statement to both Houses that the next steps were implementation
and development of the Research Excellence Framework, and in essence
what he said in that statement is that we have moved towards a
single unified funding and assessment framework for all subjects,
but within this the balance of metric indicators, including bibliometrics,
and light-touch expert review will vary according to the subject.
He also announced that in order to allow sufficient time to develop
this more flexible approach HEFCE will now build an additional
12 months into the time table for designing a new framework. So
it is currently envisaged that the overall objective would be
to have this fully operational in time for the beginning of academic
year 2014-15, so it is a significant period of time away from
this. But certainly the concerns that you have expressed as a
Committee are already being taken on board as part of our thinking
on the Research Excellence Framework and there will be certainly
a lot more work that will be done between now and 2014-15 because
we all have a shared interest in getting this right and these
can be very difficult and complex decisions about how funding
the frameworks work. I think it is right that we take the time
that would be needed to make sure that we design the best possible
framework.
Q290 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
So we can take it that metric based assessments will be part of
the Research Excellence Framework in the future?
Ian Pearson: I think there is quite a strong
consensus that metric should play a part in any assessment exercise
framework, including the newer Excellence Framework. What weighting
you give to metrics compared with light-touch peer review is something
that I still think is very much for discussion and development,
and obviously HEFCE have been leading on the consultation on the
Research Excellence Framework and will continue to want to listen
to views.
Q291 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
But if this is going to rescue the taxonomy situation it seems
to me that you must have a positive aim in this area.
Ian Pearson: I am not sure I would want to use
the word "rescue" because I do not accept that taxonomy
is necessarily in need of rescuing. What as a government we will
want to be convinced about is that we have a robust Research Excellence
Framework that is fit for purpose and takes into account the whole
range of disciplines and operates in a transparent and fair way
and has the full confidence of the whole research community. That,
I think, has to be the objective for us.
Q292 Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior:
One of the problems with the Research Assessment Exercise is a
head of a department or a Dean in a school can miss out minor
areas in the consideration and they never get the chance to be
reassessed. What I am concerned with is that they are included
and they are assessed even though they might be a minor part of
a departmental effort.
Ian Pearson: I think those are certainly points
that we can take away and consider as part of our deliberations
on what a Research Excellence Framework needs to look like for
the future. I am aware that there have been a huge amount of submissions
from university departments, from researchers and a range of other
organisations as part of the consultation process that has been
conducted so far, and there is certainly plenty of time for further
discussions and representations as we look to develop that Research
Excellence Framework for the future.
Q293 Earl of Selborne: Minister,
this country has benefited enormously over the years from national,
regional, and local biological recording schemes and the data
that has accumulated, particularly the long term databanks are
extremely useful in delivering environmental policy, action plans,
whatever. But of course leaving aside the possible lack of professional
taxonomists it relies very much on volunteers and we certainly
had evidence that while birds and butterflies may well be well
recorded in future the less attractive or less well known species
are in decline and the amount of volunteers is, quite frankly,
declining. So there is a need to try and recruit and enthuse a
new generation of people in biological recording. Does the government
have a role in helping to build capacity on this and, if so, how
would it set about doing that?
Ian Pearson: I personally participated in some
of these surveys by reporting the wildlife in my back garden,
as I think probably a number of us have. The use of volunteers
to provide information for research is very much something that
a government welcomes and I know is valued by the research community.
In response, Lord Selborne, can I say about one of the initiatives
that is taking place at a general level within government, which
is that the Economic and Social Research Council in partnership
with the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office and
the Barrow Cadbury Trust is commissioning an independent multidisciplinary
research centre for the third sector, and this is aimed at in
general building capacity in the voluntary sector and its intention
is to develop knowledge and expertise with and for the third sector,
including the voluntary and community sector and social enterprise
as well. That is something that is taking place at a general level;
I think a total of ten and a quarter million pounds is currently
available for the initiative as a whole and a call for proposals
was announced in January of this year. Obviously that is not something
that is specifically aimed at biodiversity but the intention is
at a national level where there will be a single research centre
and there would also be three capacity building in clusters as
well, which would aim to create a new generation of high quality
researchers committed to what we call the coproduction of knowledge
and its application to the third sector. So that is one way in
which to build some capacity. I do not think it is the only thing
that we need to do, but one of the things that has been a theme
for this government has been the involvement of the third sector
in the delivery of public sector policy and public services, and
I have no doubt that that will remain in the future.
Q294 Earl of Selborne: One of the
issues which has been presented to us—and I think I understand
this—is that if you are trying to enthuse locally a new
generation or existing people in some of these rather more obscure
areas of biological recording you need access to collections and
that means you have to have the specialist information available
and, quite frankly, access is very difficult. A lot of these collections
are held and inadequately curated and it is not just the money
to allow these collections to be properly maintained. Again, is
this something of which the government has been made aware?
Ian Pearson: I am certainly aware that this
has been raised as an issue by some of the people that have been
providing evidence to this Committee, and again I will be interested
in your considerations as to how significant a problem you believe
this to be. I would like to add a point to this, which is about
what we are doing as a government to encourage people to do science,
technology, engineering and mathematics. Both the work of the
STEM Programme within our school system and encouraging more people
to do STEM subjects at university and going on to do careers and
stuff because I think the more that we can actually persuade people
of the fundamental importance of science to solving the world's
greatest problems, the more we can enthuse them and get them excited
about science the more we potentially have people who may be working
in science but have maybe gone into other jobs in the future but
might want to contribute as volunteers. So I think that the work
we are doing on STEM schools, the work of our 18,000 science and
engineering ambassadors in schools is important not just for our
STEM Programme and ensuring that we have a pull-through of bright,
qualified science graduates that are going to get jobs in the
workforce, but I think it is important again to the potentially
the volunteering agenda and the contributing to the very areas
that we have been talking about.
Q295 Chairman: Thank you very much.
I think this simply underlines some of the main issues that we
have focused on and will focus on. Clearly the way in which science,
which is very much your patch, so to speak, increasingly has to
inform government policy and it means that the underpinning of
all of this becomes more and more important. But equally, as you
pointed out, it involves several other departments, and the minute
you talk about museums DCMS, how do they link up with the schools
and so on and so forth, which is why we will continue to press
this across the government coordination. The notion of joined-up
government is not dead yet! Thank you very much for your time.
These are the questions that we wanted to discuss with you and
we look forward to sending you a copy of our conclusions and hearing
your reactions.
Ian Pearson: Thank you very much for the opportunity.
|
