ROBERT MAY, Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK government, has the reputation
of calling a spade a spade鈥攐r more likely, as he puts it, 鈥渁 bloody
shovel鈥�. May is an Australian who is charged with pushing the virtues of
science, technology and innovation in the corridors and committee rooms of
Westminster. It is his job to influence and guide decisions across the full range
of the 拢6 billion annual expenditure on R&D in the UK. 鈥淚 have no
formal powers, but I have ready access to those who do have power,鈥� he says.
May was a professor of physics at the University of Sydney from 1969 to 1973.
He is now on leave from a joint chair in zoology at Oxford University and
Imperial College, London. Between these two jobs, for a significant period of 15
years, he served as a professor of zoology at Princeton University in New
Jersey, and was at the forefront of research into the dynamics of ecological
groupings such as populations, communities and ecosystems. He was among the first
to apply computers and numerical modelling to the complexity of ecology.
His appointment as the British government鈥檚 key science adviser began in 1995
and will continue until 2000. It is a Civil Service position, so he now expects
to serve the new Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in the same way that he
served Blair鈥檚 predecessor, John Major. May had regular access to Major,
whom he describes as 鈥渧ery bright鈥� and 鈥渁n extremely good person鈥� whose grey
image was undeserved. He presumes he will have similar access to Blair, although
his pre-election contact with the Labour Party was confined by general agreement
to the shadow spokespeople.
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May tries to get back to Australia at least once a year, and was here last
month leading the British delegation at a joint UK-Australia workshop on science
policy and the scientific links between the two countries鈥攍inks that are
fading if figures on the trend in joint papers between Australian and UK
researchers are to be believed (see random samples). The workshop was organised
by the British Council and the University of Sydney.
May told the gathering that he was not particularly interested in
resolutions; rather he wanted to see contacts made and ideas exchanged. He would
like to see more joint UK-Australian fellowships such as those announced last
month by Australian education minister, Amanda Vanstone. Under the
A$1 million new IMAGES scheme, in each of the next three years up
to five Australian and five British postdoctoral researchers will be funded to
participate in collaborative research in the other country for between four and
12 months.
May was also wearing his zoological hat, as a guest of CSIRO Entomology
promoting Australian work in cataloguing insect species. He assisted science
minister, Peter McGauran in the launch of of three CSIRO
publications鈥擟lick Beetles, A Checklist of the Lepidoptera of
Australia and Oecophorine Genera II (moths). May鈥檚 academic progression
from physicist to ecologist is clearly reflected in his thoughts on the
priorities of scientific research. He fired a broadside at our fascination with
the heavens rather than what is around us on earth.
鈥淲e have complete catalogues of stars above a given magnitude, but we are
only beginning to draw together national databases for major biological
specimens. But while the study of the future of the universe can be done 1000
years from now, the cataloguing of living things has a time limit. We are on the
breaking tip of the sixth big wave of mass extinctions.
鈥淭o understand how the world works, we need interconnected biological
databases. Yet there are relatively few people in the area and relatively little
funding. The Americans spend more on the annual operating cost of the Hubble
telescope than is spent on the global enterprise of taxonomy and systematics.
That, by any objective appraisal, is lunatic.鈥�
May is equally frank about other sacred cows. 鈥淭o define a subset of elite
universities and say these are the ones to do research is philosophically wrong
and practically stupid. It鈥檚 people who do research, not departments or
universities. It鈥檚 a matter of picking and supporting the high flyers. They will
tend to aggregate in good departments and institutions.鈥�
May鈥攚ho is actually Sir Robert, but happy to be called
Bob鈥攕uspects his bluntness is tolerated in Britain because as an
Australian he is somewhat outside the class system. His American-born wife
Judith has a different explanation. 鈥淭he advantage of being Australian is that
you are so crass, you don鈥檛 notice it,鈥� she says.