News & Views item - October 2007

 

"Funding Basic Research Brings Unexpected Benefits," Philip Esler  (October 18, 2007)

Philip Esler was Professor of Biblical Criticism at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews, Scotland until 2005 when he took up the position of Chief Executive of the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council.

 

Below is correspondence of his published in today's issue of Nature:

 

Funding basic research brings unexpected benefits

The United Kingdom's research base has seen unprecedented increases in public investment in recent years, mostly predicated on the long-term benefits to society expected to arise from that investment. It is the research councils' responsibility, as the major public funders of UK research, to provide compelling evidence that these expectations are being met. Your Editorial 'Innovation versus science?' (Nature 448, 839; doi:10.1038/448839a 2007) concludes that efforts to document this herald a shift away from our support for basic research. As a research council chief executive, leading our efforts to increase our economic impact, I can say that is not the case.

The UK Research Councils have just published a report, Excellence with Impact (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/innovation/impact) that looks across research councils' investments. Each of 18 case studies shows actual and/or potential impact, ranging from biotech spin-outs and skilled engineers to climate-change policy. Probably the most reassuring finding was the extent to which some demonstrated multiple types of impact. Furthermore, many of the impacts were not necessarily part of the original rationale for the specific investment, suggesting that serendipity and opportunism are important factors for the research councils. Investment in DNA technologies, for example, did not anticipate the forensic power of DNA fingerprinting, and polymer research was not funded with the anticipation that it would create a new market in flexible displays.

These results demonstrate the wisdom of the research councils' commitment to funding excellent basic research. Rather than weaken that commitment, our approach is to embed economic-impact considerations in our organizations, thus shifting the central focus of the research councils to excellent research with high economic impact. So it is about what basic research we should fund, rather than if we should fund it.

 

Research Councils UK (RCUK) have made available online at the URL listed above a number of publications in support of the contributions of research, including basic research, to the commonweal of the United Kingdom.

 

Below we list them individually for those who may wish to download them directly:

 

Peter Warry was invited by the Director General of Science and Innovation to consider how the Research Councils could increase their economic impact. The 'Excellence with Impact' progress report (below) is in response to his report of July 2006.

 

Prior to that in January 2007 RCUK published Increasing the Economic Impact of the Research CouncilsPDF, 1569KB. This outlined how the Councils aim to respond to the challenge of the "Warry" report on economic impact.

 

Now they have made available the following material.

 

Excellence with Impact PDF, 1569KB  October 2007

According to the RCUK media release PA Consulting undertook to examine "18 areas where Research Council work has made a real-life difference. The studies cover the breadth of the Research Councils' research portfolio and examples include the Centre for Surrealism, the Lasers for Science Facility, the Applied Genomics LINK programme and the Engineering Doctorates programme."

 

The UK Minister for Science and Innovation, Ian Pearson, said: "The study shows our Research Councils are playing a vital role in providing the cutting-edge research Britain needs to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive world. We need to build on this and make sure more research is taken a step further to benefit our economy and improve our everyday lives - in challenging and important areas like the environment, our health and our families. This report provides a strong path forward for us to best use the Government’s record investment in science."

 

Over the coming year it will become clear just how Gordon Brown's government will choose to interpret the Research Councils' assessments.

 

 

About Research Councils UK

The seven Research Councils are independent non-departmental public bodies, funded by the Science Budget through the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). They are incorporated by Royal Charter and together manage a research budget of over £2.8 (A$6.4) billion a year.

Research Councils UK (RCUK) is the partnership between the UK's seven Research Councils. Through RCUK, the Research Councils work together to champion the research, training and innovation they support.

The seven UK Research Councils are: