This is an extended version of a speech I made in a recent debate held in the Lords on a Report from the Science and Technology Committee “Science and technology superpower”: more than a slogan? which extensively discussed government policy in science and technology
The Committee’s comprehensive report despite being nearly a year old still has great currency and relevance. Its conclusions are as valid as they were a year ago
Sir James Dyson has described the government’s science superpower ambition as a political slogan. Grandiose language about Global Britain from the Integrated review-and stated ambition to be a Science Superpower by 2030 -or is it a Science and Technology Superpower, is clearly overblown and detracts from what needs to be done. .
UCL research has demonstrated that if measured by authorship, the UK accounts for about only about 13 per cent of the top 1 per cent of the most highly cited work across all research fields
We have had a proliferation of strategies as the Committee noted.
- R&D Roadmap,
- the Innovation Strategy,
- the Life Sciences Vision
- the People and Culture Strategy,
- and the National Space Strategy
- National Quantum strategy.
- National semi conductor strategy
- A taskforce on foundation models is being set up
We have had a whole series of attempts at creating a strategy in various areas but with what follow up and delivery?
As well as the strategies I have mentioned we have had a series of reviews
- Professor Dame Angela McLean’s Pro-innovation Regulation of Technologies Review Life Sciences
- The Vallance Review of Pro-innovation Regulation of Digital Technologies
- Independent Review of Research Bureaucracy the Review by Professor Adam Tickell
- The independent review of UKRI by Sir David Grant
- We now have the Independent Review of The Future of Compute announced
- And now the Chancellors recent Life Sciences package
Where’s the result. What will the KPI’s be ? What is the shelf life of these reviews and where is the practical implementation?
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Take for example the Life Sciences Vision launched back in 2021
Dame Kate Bingham is quoted as believing the Vaccine scheme legacy has been ‘squandered’.
Professor Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute, which was responsible for the Oxford Covid vaccine, has said that the recent loss of the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre (VMIC) in Oxfordshire, which had been created to respond to outbreaks, showed that the UK had been going backwards since the coronavirus pandemic.
Business investment is crucial. And no where more than in the life sciences sector.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath highlighted issues relating to investment in the sector two weeks ago in his regret motion on the Branded Health Service Medicines (Costs) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. All the levers to create incentives for the development of new medicines are under government control.
As his motion noted the UK’s share of global pharmaceutical R&D has fallen by over one-third between 2012 and 2020. He argued rightly that both the voluntary and statutory pricing schemes for new medicines schemes are becoming a major impediment to future investment in the UK. We seem to be treating the pharma industry as some kind of golden goose
Despite the government’s Life Sciences Vision we see Eli lilley pulling investment on laboratory space in London because the UK “does not invite inward investment at this time and Astra Zeneca has decided to build its next plant in Ireland because of the U.K.’s “discouraging” tax rate.
Eli Lilly, the American multinational, had been looking to investing laboratory space in the UK, but it has put its plans for London on hold because, it said,”
The excellent O’Shaunessy report on clinical trials is all very well but if there is no commercial incentive to develop and launch. new medicines here why should pharma companies want to engage in clinical trials here? The Chancellor’s growth package for life Sciences announced on the 25th May fails to tackle this crucial aspect.
In other sectors
- The CEO OF Johnson Matthey, a chemicals company with a leading position in green hydrogen,has said the UK is at risk of losing its lead thanks to a policy vacuum.
- The co founder of ARM, Britain’s biggest semiconductor company, blames our “technologically illiterate political elite” and “Brexit idiocy” for the country’s paltry share of the chips market.
On these benches however we do welcome the creation of the new department and I welcome the launch of the Framework for Science and Technology to inform the work of the department to 2030.
There are 10 key objectives:
- identifying, pursuing and achieving strategic advantage in the technologies that are most critical to achieving UK objectives
- showcasing the UK’s S&T strengths and ambitions at home and abroad to attract talent, investment and boost our global influence
- boosting private and public investment in research and development for economic growth and better productivity building on the UK’s already enviable talent and skills base
- financing innovative science and technology start-ups and companies
- capitalising on the UK government’s buying power to boost innovation and growth through public sector procurement
- shaping the global science and tech landscape through strategic international engagement, diplomacy and partnerships
- ensuring researchers have access to the best physical and digital infrastructure for R&D that attracts talent, investment and discoveries
- leveraging post-Brexit freedoms to create world-leading pro-innovation regulation and influence global technical standards
- creating a pro-innovation culture throughout the UK’s public sector to improve the way our public services run
What are the key priority outcomes? What concrete plans for delivery lie behind this? And does this explicitly supersede all of the visions and strategies that have gone before?
As the Committee said in its report
“The government should set out what it wants to achieve in each of the broad areas of science and technology it has identified, with a clear implementation plan including measurable targets and key outcomes in priority areas, and an explanation of how they will be delivered.
And – The government should consolidate existing sector-specific strategies into that implementation plan”
Also in terms of vital cross departmental working, joining up government on Science and Technology policy what is the role of the eNational Science and Technology Council and what are its key priorities?
This applies especially with Home office on visas for researchers if the UK wants to be a world leader in science and technology, it needs to be world leading in its approach to researcher mobility.
The UK’s upfront costs for work and study visas are up to 6 times higher than the average fees of other leading science nations. The application process for UK visitor visas is also bureaucratic and unwieldy, and the UK has one of the highest visitor visa refusal rates.
There are really important systemic issues which should be a top priority for resolution by the new Department.
Published at the same time as the DSIT framework was the independent review of the UK’s research, development and innovation landscape by Sir Paul Nurse,
Sir Paul calculated our spending around 2.5% of GDP. But he still concluded that funding, particularly provided by government, was limited, and below that of other competitive nations such as the Germans, South Koreans and US.
There is the particular and urgent problem of Horizon and the uncertainty around our membership. The absolute top priority for UK R&D should be rejoining Horizon.We need access to collaboration across the EU where pre Brexit we disproportionately benefited from Horizon’s 95 billion euro budget. We need a clear commitment to negotiate re entry. What is the position now nearly two months after the Prime Minister’s letter to Sir Adrian Smith of 14th April assuring him about our intentions on Horizon?
Iceland and Israel, Norway and New Zealand, and Turkey and Tunisia, are all already part of Horizon, as is Ukraine. Why not us?
The two universities of Oxford and Cambridge once received more than £130m a year from European research programmes but are now getting only £1m annually between them.
Meanwhile Britain has fallen behind Russia, Italy and Finland in the world league table for computing power., Britain has slipped from third in the rankings in 2005 to seventh now, according to the Independent Review of The Future of Compute.
The way the UK delivers and supports research is also “not optimal,” the Nurse review said said. Of course research academics here will know the frustrations of the bureaucracy associated with applying for U.K. research grants. As the Tickell review found there are issues with bureaucracy around research and development funding.
EPSRC is according to researchers admirable in how it oversees the research grants. Innovate UK with its Knowledge Transfer Partnerships however has a far more risk averse and bureaucratic approach just at the point where a bit of commercial risk taking is needed. We need to benchmark to ensure the least bureaucratic processes. I am told that the European Innovation Council is a model.
ARIA was specifically designed to avoid bureaucracy as we said during the passage of the bill but why weren’t all of UKRI processes remodelled rather than creating a new entity? Incidentally do we have any more information now about their key research and development projects?
The government doesn’t really have a clear idea of the role of university research either. The Research Excellence Framework has the perverse incentive of discouraging cooperation. We should be encouraging strategic partnerships in research especially internationally as the Committee concludes
Commercialisation is a crucial aspect linking R&D to economic growth. This in turn means the need for a consistent industrial strategy with the right commercial incentives and an understanding of the value of intangible assets such as IP and data. In this context Catapults are performing a brilliant job but need a bigger role and more resource as the Committee have recommended in a previous report.
Of course we are all much relieved for the tech sector by the rescue of Silicon Valley bank by HSBC. But the popularity of a US bank in a way demonstrates that we may have a growing start up culture but scale up is still a problem as Sir Patrick Vallance said in his evidence to the Commons Science Innovation and Technology Committee last month.
The US is still preferred for listing by tech companies over London as we’ve seen with U.K. based ARM seeking a listing in the US.
There are aspects of wider government policy where there is no perceived benefit to U.K. science and technology
- Reduction of of R & D tax credits for SME’s
- Raising corporation tax to 25%
One of the long outstanding issues is reform to assist with derisking so that pension funds can play their part in helping grow tech companies also mentioned by Sir Patrick as an important aspiration and I see that finally something is stirring from the British Business Bank with the LIFTS initiative.
There are many other elements that need to be covered for a viable Science and technology strategy.
Regulatory Divergence
Even where the government thinks it is being innovation friendly it is clouded by the desire to be divergent from the EU to get some kind of Brexit dividend.. It talks about pro innovation regulation but Contrary to the advice of virtually every prominent technologist the AI governance white paper only concerns itself with voluntary sectoral regulation and leaves it to the regulators in particular sectors not proposing a broader risk based regulatory regime like that proposed under the EU’s AIA or indeed by the US Administration’s Blue Print for AI. Maybe that will change after the Prime Minister’s ’s visit to the US this week.
Changes to our Data Protection regime proposed by the Data Protection and Digital Information bill no 2 which go further than just clarifying the retained GDPR and of course make changes to the ICO’s structure could leads to a lack of EU data adequacy and new compliance costs..
We have waited forever for competition law in the digital space to be reformed through a Digital Markets Act and Digital Markets Unit to be put on a statutory basis and now we have a bill which gives inadequate powers to the CMA to act swiftly to ensure competition. In the meantime the so called hyperscalers gain greater and greater influence over the development of new technologies such as AI.
Diversity
In the the wise words of the British Science Association we must ensure the opportunities and benefits are equitable in any future science strategy, not only to shape a world-leading science industry, but to sustain progress and successfully bring out the potential of people from all communities, backgrounds and regions. Britain cannot be a superpower if parts of society are not welcomed and able to contribute to science research and innovation. Making science inclusive – from classroom to career – is essential to establishing a globally competitive workforce.
Mathematics
As regards mathematics, where is the £300m promised additional funding for mathematical science research as announced in January 2020 or the National Academy for the Mathematical Sciences or a National Strategy for Mathematics.
So much to do for the new Department. I hope that the Minister and his colleagues in DSIT will rise to the challenge
