SO HOW will Gordon Brown change the UK now he has ousted Tony Blair as prime minister? If you feel left in the dark, you鈥檙e not alone. Few people in the UK, let alone elsewhere, have the faintest idea. Brown was not voted in at a general election and so had no manifesto.
For science, at least, there are some signs 鈥� most of them positive. While Chancellor of the Exchequer, Brown has been a big supporter of research. In his 10 years in the job he loosened government purse strings enough to double the nation鈥檚 science budget. He laid out his reasoning in his : 鈥淓very advanced industrial country knows that falling behind in science and mathematics means falling behind in commerce and prosperity.鈥�
The equation science = wealth creation is doubtlessly true. Yet it is only part of the story: it misses science鈥檚 massive cultural influence and the intrinsic value of understanding our world and beyond. Science鈥檚 effects are felt so widely that previous prime ministers have wrestled to work out where exactly it fits into government. Brown鈥檚 solution is to tuck it away in the newly created Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), which will be headed by John Denham.
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This is another plus. Denham resigned from Blair鈥檚 government over the invasion of Iraq, so he seems a man of principle. At the time of his departure he was regarded as a capable minister and a rising star. What鈥檚 more, Denham is a chemistry graduate: one of the 10 per cent of MPs with a science or medical degree. As New 杏吧原创 went to press, the expectation was that Denham would delegate responsibility for science to a junior minister, which is disappointing; the UK has not had a cabinet minister with direct responsibility for science since 1995.
So what issues will Denham鈥檚 team face? The most urgent problem for UK science is the shortage of enthusiastic new recruits. The proportion of teenagers choosing to study physics at ages 16 and 18 is in free fall. The situation in engineering and maths is little better and in chemistry things are starting to decline too.
Just about everyone bar the government accepts that the root cause is a shortage of schoolteachers qualified in these subjects to inspire pupils. There will be no solution until this is officially accepted, but the twist here is that Denham has control of education only for students over the age of 19, not for younger pupils.
The other issue that the DIUS will face early on is balancing blue-skies research 鈥� which is unlikely to have practical value for decades, if at all 鈥� against research designed to pay off in a few years. Ministers tend to prefer the latter, and because the science budget has increased so much in the past decade it is reasonable to expect more of it to be done. However, fears are growing among UK scientists that the scales have tipped too far in its favour.
Much of the UK鈥檚 past success in science stemmed from the breadth and depth of expertise, even in areas that did not appear to be economically promising. The reason is that scientific breakthroughs with big pay-offs often come from unexpected directions, so diverse expertise is crucial. Who would have predicted that analytical chemistry would throw up magnetic resonance imagers, or that Francis Crick鈥檚 abstruse work on the link between DNA sequence and peptides would spawn a multibillion-pound biotechnology industry?
鈥淪cientific breakthroughs with big pay-offs often come from unexpected directions, so diversity is crucial鈥�
The notion that 鈥渃hance favours the prepared mind鈥� works at a national level as well as a personal one. Many politicians fail to grasp this, and it may be no bad thing for scientists to have to justify this message to every new minister. At least with someone of Denham鈥檚 background the task should be easier.
Much of the effort to make the UK a better place to turn research results into products has focused on academic researchers. Brown also has much work to do on others involved in the process. Industry鈥檚 spending on research has not risen like the government鈥檚, so the UK鈥檚 overall funding of research remains below that of most of its rivals. Another target should be the UK鈥檚 bankers and venture capitalists, who are conservative in the extreme compared with their US counterparts. If Brown and his ministerial team can foster a more adventurous attitude in these camps, the UK鈥檚 innovation culture really will take off.