The UK鈥檚 prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has created a new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), seemingly putting these fields at the heart of UK government policy for the first time in decades. The move has been broadly welcomed by those who have called for more emphasis on science and technology in government, but will it really make a difference?
A dedicated department has certainly been a long time coming. Back in 1964, the then prime minister, Harold Wilson, created the Ministry of Technology to sit alongside a new Department of Education and Science. Wilson intended it to be a powerhouse of applied R&D, of atomic energy and of the procurement of advanced technologies.
MinTech, as it was known, was created to shift the emphasis of UK technological efforts away from defence and towards civil industrial development. However, the idea of active technology policy quickly fell out of favour and the department was scrapped by the incoming Edward Heath government in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the policy emphasis was increasingly on the supply of new scientific knowledge 鈥� with the market being left to take care of the supply and adoption of new technologies. Meanwhile, responsibility for science policy has spent decades being shoved around different departments, laid at the door of everything from business to education.
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DSIT isn鈥檛 as ambitious a move as Wilson鈥檚. For a start there are question marks over the emphasis on technology 鈥� DSIT has been created out of the parts of the former business department focused on science and innovation, together with the digital policy arm of the former culture department. When Sunak talks about technology, is he primarily thinking 鈥渢ech鈥� in the narrow sense of apps and digital services? Technology is a far broader field, covering everything from solar panels to driverless cars, but DSIT could end up focused on a narrow digital regulatory remit.
It is also unclear how much firepower DSIT will wield. MinTech, with some origins in the powerful wartime Ministry of Supply, could mobilise a significant proportion of UK government demand for new technologies. Today, the vast majority of UK government purchasing is done by individual public bodies, and promoting or sustaining innovation in the supply of technologies is seldom a major consideration. Can DSIT change that?
At the same time, many politicians, commentators and researchers have argued that the urgent transition to a low carbon socio-economic system should be the primary mission driving technology or industrial strategy in the UK. But Sunak has created an entirely separate Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, creating a co-ordination challenge.
Sunak鈥檚 main goal seems to be sending the message that his government sees science, innovation and technology as central to economic growth, but a reshuffle is no substitute for an actual growth plan. , a laissez-faire attitude difficult to square with the creation of DSIT or with the recent emphasis on setting technological priorities and protecting UK technological advantages.
Ultimately, there are no perfect arrangements for science and technology in any government 鈥� both science and research, and the development, use and regulation of new technologies, cut across all government responsibilities. Structural arrangements might make some kinds of working easier whilst making others harder, such as co-ordinating on the net-zero mission or influencing the considerable spend on science and research by other departments. What matters are outcomes, and DSIT will have to be judged on its impacts. With a UK general election due within the next two years, DSIT faces an urgent challenge of realising its potential or going the way of MinTech.
Kieron Flanagan is professor of science and technology policy at the University of Manchester, UK
