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Open letter to George Osborne: Why it's vital to protect science funding Scientists will gather at the doors of the Treasury in Whitehall tomorrow to protest against threatened cuts in science funding. This is what we are saying to the governmentDear George,As you read this, I hope you are hard at work in your office in the Treasury on a sunny Saturday afternoon working on the Comprehensive Spending Review. I'll be outside your window at the head of a demonstration of well over a thousand scientists and researchers bringing you a message about what's best for the country's future. Many of us will be in white lab coats, but it doesn't mean we are coming to get you. Yet. We want to talk to you about the value of proper funding of science and research.This is not just special pleading from one interest group. Here's why.1. It's economic hara-kiri to cut science spendingIt is clear that cuts to science funding are a damaging false economy as research and development funding for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) produces growth – the growth that is needed to help cut the deficit. To cut science funding in order to cut the deficit is actually self-defeating. The evidence base for this assertion is extensive and can be found at the Royal Society, among other places, and even in an academic paper co-authored by one of your Treasury officials. Furthermore, our competitors like Germany and the USA – also facing the need to cut their deficits – are not only avoiding cuts to their science spend, but actually increasing investment. You and your government colleagues have expressed the wish to rebalance the economy towards high-tech and high-skills and away from over-reliance on the city. That will need science investment.2. We are not starting from a good position Unlike other areas of public spending, like the NHS, we cannot say that science spending as a share of GDP is at its highest ever. In fact, the position is poor. Our overall science spending is the worst of the G7 bar Italy, and despite more investment during the past 10 years (where science spending rose in line with GDP increase), we are still only back at the low level share of GDP allocated half-way through Mrs Thatcher's period of cutbacks, in 1986. That was of course the year that you were doing your O levels at St Paul's, so you may not have noticed that it was also the year that Save British Science (now the Campaign for Science and Engineering) was established to try to increase this dismal funding level. Do you really want to be the Chancellor who cuts investment back below that level?You have sought to reassure us that despite the 14% cuts across all government spending in the next few years we will still be spending at 2006 levels. In fact, in science we would end up a decade behind 1986 levels, and neither of us thinks that the late 1970s is an era to aspire to! 3. There is no way to protect excellent science from cuts by careful targeting This is not because there are no effective ways of trying to identify, grade and rank research funding applications. This is done by the brutal system of peer review, which has its flaws. But – as Churchill said about democracy – it has fewer flaws than any other system. It is also not because there are no ways (albeit imperfect) to identify the best research retrospectively. The Research Assessment Exercise, known as the RAE (a form of peer review) seeks to do this every few years. The most recent was in 2008.The point is that peer review ranking of grant funding applications is already being done and only a small proportion of even the top-ranked applications can currently be funded from our science budget. So cutting this means cutting funding for research already graded as top-class, and it means the success rate for even top-rated applications falls to 10% or less, with the consequence that researchers spend all their time filling in doomed grant applications and rarely finding the time to get their research done. In addition, the retrospective RAE judges that 56% of submitted research from university staff is either world class (1*) or internationally significant (2*). You might erroneously presume – like Vince Cable's speechwriter – that this means that 45% of the research assessed is mediocre, so cutting funding to this research would be relatively undamaging. But you'd be wrong. First, of the other 44%, 31% is graded as being of a quality that is recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour. The other 13% is "merely" graded 1*, signifying research that of a "quality that is recognised nationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour".So perhaps, George, you are thinking you can cut the funding to this 1* research. You should ask your officials how much Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) "quality–related" (QR) funding grant currently goes to 1* research? They will tell you the answer: Zero, zilch, nada. So, no scope there for easy cuts.You might now be asking, what about cutting funding to the 31% of research which is graded 2* – the supposedly "mediocre" work that is of a quality recognised internationally in terms of originality, significance and rigour (a quality that Treasury economic forecasters could only dream of attaining). Again your officials will apologetically explain that such research gets only 1/13th of the HEFCE QR funding. That's about £160m, going often to the newer, improving universities which lie outside the golden triangle, and which have good links with industry. That is not going to solve the deficit – especially given your new and welcome regional policy designed to support new business enterprises in the north and midlands.So I am sure you will not now be paying any regard to the 45% "mediocre" figure that Vince Cable mentioned last month. That has been comprehensively trashed, including by Professor Stephen Curry and me. 4. You can't simply turn the tap of science talent back on after a few yearsUnlike other areas of the workforce (like teaching or building, for example), if the science work force can't get funding or is made redundant it doesn't stay around waiting for the improvement. Science careers can't be switched on and off with funding, and people will leave the country (brain drain) or leave science, never to return.Science is a truly global undertaking and its language is English. So the best scientists, if their personal circumstances permit, will go abroad. There is no doubt that the brain drain is real and at risk of getting worse if funding and morale falls in this country.Those that stay are well-qualified and highly employable, and will be snapped up by the private sector, often in better paid, non-science roles. Because science moves on so quickly it is much more difficult for such people to return to their former research interests, especially as they would be taking a pay cut to do so. Public sector scientists are not paid well and do not have great job security even in the good times. Once they leave, there are huge deterrents to coming back. The point I am trying to make, you see, is that in science there is a long-term cost of short-term cutbacks, and highly skilled people who have been trained at the public expense and employed relatively cheaply thereafter will be lost forever.5. There is a political price to pay for cutting science funding (and making other irrational anti-scientific policies)I know you think that science is a soft touch politically because the mainstream newspapers and the media are more concerned with almost any other area of government spending, and regard science R&D as a side-show. But the fact that there are over 20,000 signatures to the Science is Vital online petition in less than a fortnight, and that so many ordinary voters are joining the rally should alert you to the danger of taking us for granted. We are part of a community which is connected, frustrated, politically middle-ground and liable to judge politicians by their policies and actions not by their branding or packaging. The growth of the internet means that by the next election there may be half a million scientists, sceptics and rationalists writing to their MPs about their record and their intentions. Half a million swing voters can demonstrate the Third Law of Political Motion – that for every short-sighted political action there is an equal and opposite electoral reaction.So as you work on the CSR in your office tomorrow afternoon and you hear the voices of hundreds of scientists, please take heed. The Science is Vital movement is new but it is widely supported and is growing and, as I urged back in August, has taken its fight to Parliament. Some of our banners will warn you that we can make mini black holes at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. But the serious message to you is that the country's future depends on a vibrant science base. Yours truly,EvanScience funding crisisScience policyGeorge OsborneSpending review 2010Evan Harrisguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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