UK budgets for science

Last week's budget for the UK produced the usual flood of supporting paper. Not all of it was designed to hide bad news. Continuing Gordon Brown's enthusiasm for science and technology as engines for economic growth, there's a new document "Science and innovation investment framework 2004-2014: Next Steps".

 

Among the many points in this report we read that "to provide a more coherent framework for health research and development (R&D), the Secretaries of State for Health and Trade and Industry will create a single, jointly held health research fund of at least £1 billion per annum".

 

The Government has come a long way in getting the UK's act together on health R&D. It wasn't all that long ago that there wasn't even a head of R&D for the National Health Service (NHS). So one of the biggest consumers of R&D in the UK was effectively left at the mercy of the suppliers.

 

The current head of research and innovation in the NHS and the chief scientific officer in the Department of Health, will doubtless be among the people consulted when the government appoints, as the report promises, "a leading independent individual to advise on the best institutional arrangements to deliver health R&D under this new structure".

 

Beyond health, the document proposes yet more consultations. One such is "building on the work of the Lambert Review," and will investigate "how a wider spectrum of business university interaction can be encouraged, spreading best practice across different regions and sectors".

 

There will also be consultations on: 

One more thing we noticed was that "UK Trade and Investment ... will have an enhanced role in marketing the UK science base to business, implementing a new £9 million international R&D strategy to attract R&D investment to the UK and to promote Britain’s innovative firms abroad."

 

Anyone who wants to put their oar in on the various consultations has until 16 June 2006.