Cambridge University has created the Centre for Science and Policy to bring together the best scientific thinking across all disciplines to inform public policy.
The centre will inform debate by facilitating contact between policy makers and scientific experts. Cambridge has leaders in a range of disciplines whose ideas can be brought to bear on the widening range of policy issues where input from science and technology and the social sciences is imperative. It can also draw on expertise from around the world and engage in dialogue with governments, the private sector and international organisations.
While the Centre will be a major resource for the UK it will be international in its activities. To reach as many organisations as possible, it will work with other academic institutions, think tanks, and the research elements embedded within government, business and international organisations.
David Cleevely, Founding Director of the centre, brings expertise in engineering, economics, biotechnology companies, networking organisations and government policy. He will be a member of the Executive Committee, whose other members include Tom Blundell, Head of the School of Biological Sciences; Arnoud De Meyer, Director of the Judge Business School; Lord Eatwell, Director of the Centre for Financial Analysis and Policy; Frank Kelly, Professor of the Mathematics of Systems; Ian Leslie, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research; and David Wallace, Director of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences.
Cleevely said, “In the coming decades, humanity faces unprecedented challenges and great opportunities. The world’s growing population, coupled with advancing technology, poses threats to the climate and biosphere that could be irreversibly damaging. Additionally, advances in bio- and nanotechnology offer immense prospects, but raise new ethical and security dilemmas. These new technologies and emerging issues will continue to transform and enrich our lives, but also pose a unique set of challenges for policy makers.”
“I am very excited to be leading this initiative, which builds on real strengths at Cambridge. A key feature of the centre will be a focus on communication, facilitating the most effective engagement between policy makers and leading scientists whose expertise spans the wide spectrum necessary for informed decisions.”
The centre will continue and extend the work undertaken by the Cambridge University Government Policy Programme, which ran a series of seminars between 1998 and 2006 for senior policy makers. It will engage in five main activities:
Centre Interest Groups (CIGs) provide the forums to discuss emerging issues, each meeting 3 - 4 times a year to discuss a topic which cuts across engineering, science, computing, mathematics, the social sciences, law and philosophy.
A Centre Fellows Programme, in which academic staff will be funded over a year to work on the policy implications of their research area, to receive training in communications skills, be seconded for short periods to assist with policy-making and to gain direct experience in communicating the results of their work.
A Visiting Fellows Programme, in which researchers, industrialists and policy-makers will come to the university to carry out research with Centre Fellows and participate in Centre Interest Groups and workshops.
A series of workshops based on the work of the Centre Fellows, Visiting Fellows and researchers from the university and elsewhere, will exchange current thinking in science and policy issues with senior policy makers.
A network of Associates: people and organisations within Cambridge University and elsewhere who are interested in contributing to the work of the centre through the CIGs, Policy Workshops or other means.
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