Science has the solutions

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Science redefines for us the boundaries of what we thought possible. And especially in these times - tough economic times for our world - we look to science to provide new solutions, new technologies, new opportunities to further our common goals.

We now know that we are living through the first financial crisis of a new global age. But it is more than that: we are in a new world not just of global financial flows but the global sourcing of goods, the global mobility of people and through email, text and the web, instantaneous global communications. Suddenly the new frontier is that there is no frontier.

And so the economic role of science will be of even more importance than before. And when it comes to all the challenges of creating a truly global society - which require us to eliminate poverty, tackle climate change and mitigate the impact of disease around the world, it is science alone that can give us hope - of a global and sustainable response to the challenges of food and water shortages; of preserving our environment for future generations; of reducing death and suffering from infectious, malignant and degenerative disease.

These are the challenges that only science can answer.

At this defining moment in the modern-day history of the British economy, is it not time to reconsider how to refocus our intellectual resources to reflect better the goals of our society? And to move away from an economy centred so heavily on financial services – and on finding ever more arcane ways to price complex derivatives – to one that is broader-based with a new focus on science and innovation.

Quite simply, we know that the frontiers of social and environmental progress both here in Britain and across the world depend on science. But they also rightly depend on the boundaries placed on science by society. Getting the boundaries right will be challenging, difficult and painful, often requiring the most delicate and finely balanced of ethical judgements. But we can’t afford to duck the challenge just because it will be hard, for while not everyone is in the business of science, science is everybody’s business.

I believe that it’s precisely – and only – by enlisting science in the service of humanity that we can hold out the hope of reaching the great progressive goals of our time.

First, we entrench investment in science as a national priority – maintaining our commitment to continue our path of raising investment in science across the board – targeting specifically the key sectors where we have a strong competitive advantage and bringing scientists and industry together in partnership to underpin a new extended science base in the UK.

Second, we raise the status of science in education and in particular bring more people with science qualifications into teaching so that we can maximise the support available for the next generation of […] scientists and use the downturn as the opportunity to shift away from over-dependence on financial services to do that. And do it now.

And third, we show that science matters to society and promote even more vigorously a positive public debate about the proper role of science in the service of humanity – improving public understanding and awareness and harnessing the power of science to tackle some of the great problems and challenges our society now faces.

We will meet our ten-year commitment to maintain science spending with investment focusing on pure fundamental science as well as applied science. And we will invest not just in specific projects but also crucially right across the science base.

And let me also make clear, in meeting our ten-year commitment we will maintain the ringfence we have placed around science funding – protecting money for science from competing demands in the short-term and providing the sustained support the research community needs to deliver world-class results in the medium and long term.

Some say that now is not the time to invest, but the bottom line is that the downturn is no time to slow down our investment in science but to build more vigorously for the future. And so we will not allow science to become a victim of the recession – but rather focus on developing it as a key element of our path to recovery.

The debate about how science can help us out of the downturn is a crucial one. And we should be looking constantly at how to develop clear competitive advantages which will directly help the future British economy.

This does not mean compromising on fundamental research. But it will mean working with scientists and those funding research to both identify potential priorities and then ensure that the research base works as much as possible to support them.

Across the world, other nations are now also stepping up their investment in science. President Obama is doubling America’s basic science spend and his economic stimulus package includes over $21 billion of one-off investments in federal research and development. And it’s not just America. Japan now has an ongoing spending target of 1 per cent of GDP on science and technology. China is growing fast from a low base, increasing its higher education R&D spend four-fold between 1995 and 2004 and its share of publications is now equal with UK.

And the smaller economies are also providing an emerging challenge. Iran has increased its share of publications ten-fold since 1998. And Finland, which invested extensively in science and technology while facing recession in the 1990s, now has the highest average impact for its scientific publications.

The experts tell us that – whatever happens in the next two years – over the next two decades there will be as many as a billion new skilled jobs to compete for, many of them requiring scientific expertise.

So we will invest more than at any time in our country’s history, to make the next decade a decade where British scientific genius can create the low carbon, high skill, digital economy that we need. Our future must be one that will give us the benefits of globalisation while minimising its risks, an economy more about robotics engineering than financial engineering, more about low carbon than high finance: a future where the financial sector is the servant of industry and never its master.

And in addition to investing directly in these new sectors ourselves, I can also announce that we will be looking for ways of working – through the Research Councils – with our American partners. Ways that will be of mutual benefit and allow us therefore to take advantage of the additional American investments resulting from President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Strengthening links between science and industry

In recent years, as well as investing in science, the relationship between business and our universities has been radically strengthened. We have given more support through the higher education innovation fund to business-facing universities, setting targets for knowledge transfer from Research Councils. And as a result, the early stage hi-tech enterprises we have today are the strongest we have had for 30 years.

But the downturn has brought a precipitous decline in funding for spin-offs, and the venture capital market is now failing us just when it is most needed. We understand that the availability of venture capital finance is key to ensuring the value and intellectual property in our research base is developed and to enable new products to come to market and contribute to future UK competitive advantage.

And it is vital that our portfolio of early-stage, high-value businesses survive the downturn to secure our long-term future competitive advantage. So we must act so we do not lose the value which has been created in the ideas and intellectual property arising from the sustained investment in research over the past ten years.

That’s why Lord Drayson [Science Minister] is urgently looking at early-stage high value, high intellectual property companies, to remove the barriers they face in obtaining the venture capital they need to help them bring products to market, and to position them to develop further as the economic cycle turns.

So the success of our plan for building the knowledge economy as the best route to recovery hinges on continued investment in science today and on our ability to commercialise its applications – to turn scientific genius into successful technology-led economic growth.

Increasing public appreciation

As we develop public awareness and appreciation of science, so we must build on Britain’s strong tradition of debating key ethical issues. In the past the image of science has I believe suffered in the public’s mind through our initial experiences of animal testing, GM crops and stem cells. And much of the media coverage that has dominated people’s view of these issues in the past has served the cause not of legitimate progress, but of fundamentalism.

But I believe we have learnt lessons from this, and we are now seeing a better, more balanced debate with the public. Indeed, we should be reassured about the way we now approach these difficult issues; that we have come up with appropriate frameworks in controversial areas for responsible development; and have increased and maintained investment in cutting edge science as a result.

I am sure we would all agree that having the scientific capacity to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s right – any more than the risk of technology falling into evil hands makes the creation of that technology necessarily wrong.

The real challenge is to establish in open, reasoned discussion and debate the necessary balance and the effectiveness of the regulations and restrictions that society imposes as a result.

We have to make the positive case for science as together we address the great problems and challenges our world now faces – from climate change, through food and water security, to the control of disease.

For together we can make cutting-edge science the informed ally of moral purpose not – as it is too often still today – the misunderstood enemy of moral principle.

So it’s important we examine such issues as they arise: through the data; through facts not prejudice; and with a full understanding of the social context in which we are operating.

[For example], it’s clear that the analysis and handling of genomic information is one of the most radical and far-reaching developments in current medical science. So we have to ensure both as government and as a society that, as the opportunities for people to access genomic information spread, the regulation and boundaries set for the use and control of such data evolve just as rapidly.

But it is hard not to see how – with the appropriate safeguards in place – the potential of genomic information might prove to be a 21st century moment, a vast expansion of the boundaries of scientific understanding that holds breath-taking possibilities for the future effectiveness of medicine in Britain and across the world.

Facing up to international challenges

Today every major country in the world is focusing resources and talent on building its scientific capability for the future of its people.

Many of the challenges we face today are international, whether it’s tackling climate change or fighting disease. These global problems require global solutions. So as a nation we have both to compete in the global market but we also have to play our part in supporting the work of an international scientific community.

That is why it is important that we create a new role for science in international policy-making and diplomacy. And it is why I can announce today that the Foreign Secretary will shortly be appointing the first ever Chief Scientific Adviser at the Foreign Office. Someone who will work with Hilary Clinton’s Chief Science Adviser – and with other partners around the world – to place science at the heart of the progressive international agenda: from tackling poverty to the case for – and practical mechanisms for – nuclear disarmament ahead of the review conference of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty next year.

With the strength our scientific community, our commitment to invest in the future of science and our steadfast determination to build a global partnership of nations succeeding together – Britain can be an international hub for scientists around the world.”