| Is Vince Cable about to announce the end of Britain's research empire? The UK is matched only by the US in the comprehensiveness of its scholarly research capability. A historic retreat loomsIn 1960, Harold Macmillan announced the abandonment of Britain's colonial aspirations with his famous "wind of change" speech. The empire had become too expensive, it was time to withdraw. This Wednesday, Vince Cable is poised to signal an equally historic retreat, this time from the empire of knowledge.Britain has an unusually comprehensive capability across all the disciplines of scholarly research. Only the US can match our diversity of expertise. Everywhere else has concentrated on disciplines directly relevant to their commercial ecosystem. Germany is famously strong in engineering, Japan spectacularly weak in the social sciences.Our expertise resides largely in our universities and has been irrigated for decades by increasing funding for research under both Conservative and Labour governments. The water of funding has allowed academics to spend time exploring the frontiers of knowledge, maintaining British outposts in many far-flung realms. Now the Treasury is considering cuts of 35% in research funding, turning off the tap to many fields. If that happens, expertise will rapidly wither, and our empire will fragment.To understand the coming drought, consider just one of the government's two main channels of funding for academic researchers, the quality-related (QR) fund provided by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce). Hefce's QR budget is over £1.6bn a year. In recent years it has ringfenced the part of QR given to science and engineering disciplines. So when funding has been squeezed, it has been the social sciences and humanities that have borne all the cuts. If that policy is maintained in the face of cuts of 35%, there will be virtually no money left for the humanities or social sciences. Huge swathes of scholarship will lose half their irrigation. Many outposts will be abandoned. It will not be a case simply of trimming here and there.Fear of such devastation is why learned societies, usually the most cordial of allies, have started attacking each other's turf. The Royal Academy of Engineering, for example, has recently advised ministers to make cuts in physics.So as Vince Cable comes to make his first major speech on research on Wednesday, the stakes are high. It is of course inconceivable that the business secretary will say anything as frank as that he wants us to abandon much of our empire of knowledge. But then, Macmillan was also diplomatic in his language.In his speech, the strongest Macmillan came up with was: "The wind of change is blowing through this continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it."On Wednesday, it is quite possible that the heart of Cable's speech will be something similar – perhaps: "The need to reduce the budget deficit is pressing, and whether we like it or not, the cuts required are a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our policies on science and research must take account of it."If so, then we will know the battles with the Treasury are over, deep cuts are coming, and that Britain has finally given up trying to maintain expertise across the entire empire of knowledge. The chill wind of history will have arrived. And the only question left will be which outposts to abandon first.Vince CableResearch fundingUniversity fundingAcademic expertsHigher educationEducation policyScience policyWilliam Cullerne Bownguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Russia's Arctic holds 100 Bln tons of oil, gas By NATALIYA VASILYEVA 2010-09-21T12:07:48ZMOSCOW (AP) -- Russia's Arctic territories are estimated to contain up to 100 billion tons of oil and gas and the nation needs to defend its claim to those riches, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday.... hosted.ap.org |
Could 'Goldilocks' planet be just right for life? By SETH BORENSTEIN 2010-09-30T17:17:48ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- Astronomers say they have for the first time spotted a planet beyond our own in what is sometimes called the Goldilocks zone for life: Not too hot, not too cold. Juuuust right.... hosted.ap.org |
Green: Bedbug Rider Looms in Real Estate Deals In recent weeks, some lawyers representing co-op and condo buyers have made bedbug disclosure a part of contract negotiation. feeds.nytimes.com |
The Epilim case shows the flaws in the legal aid regime | Jon Robins Families who claim the epilepsy drug was linked to birth defects have few options left after the LSC withdrew fundingEarlier this month a legal action involving 100 families seeking compensation for their children collapsed within weeks of the court hearing after a six-year fight. The families in question are suing over a range of claims for birth defects such as spina bifida, heart damage, cleft palates, deformed hands and feet – some claims are in the region of £6m – which they argue are the result of the children's mothers having taken an anti-epilepsy drug when pregnant.The Legal Services Commission (LSC), which runs the legal aid scheme in England and Wales, says of its decision to withdraw funding that it "can only spend taxpayers' money where we believe there is a reasonable prospect of success". Taxpayers can make up their own minds as to whether spending £3.25m over the past six years supporting the litigation only to pull the plug within weeks of the case going to court represents good value for money.I spoke to Emma Friedman, mother of 12-year-old Andy, this week. She took Epilim, manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis, when pregnant to prevent epileptic fits. "Andy is 12 years old now with a mental age of a three year old," she tells me. Her son is at secondary school in a special autistic unit and will need life-long care.What does Emma make of the LSC's decision to pull the plug? "This sounds cold. But after paying £3.25m so far it doesn't even make good business sense to quit before the taxpayer gets the opportunity for a return on their investment. The taxpayer will pay for my son until the day he dies." She worries this is her son's last chance for justice because of the limitation bar on bringing cases. So where do the families go now? They are looking at judicially reviewing the LSC's decision. But as Emma puts it: "I feel intimidated by the prospect of challenging the LSC, government and the fourth largest drug company in the world."Sir Menzies Campbell MP, the former Liberal Democrat leader, recently accused the LSC of playing "judge and jury". It's a good point. We are seeing brutal cuts to legal aid – £325m out of £2.1bn. One reason why the LSC was created separate from government was to allow it to make funding decisions without the accusation of being treasury-led or politically-driven. Now the LSC is about to be flung on to the quango bonfire, and its role subsumed into the Ministry of Justice.Suing a drug company in the UK courts for a case such as Epilim appears to be nigh on impossible. It joins a truly dismal roll call of failed group actions: the 2002 oral contraception pill litigation (fell apart following 44 days of legal argument), the MMR litigation (collapsed in 2003 having cost £15m), and the notorious benzodiazepine tranquilliser cases, which swallowed up £30m of taxpayers' money without even seeing the inside of a courtroom.It is this "bitter experience" – the LSC's words – that led to the funding regime we now have: there is only £3m available a year for major multiparty actions and any litigation is subject to an annual affordability review.Increasingly, legal aid isn't there for such complex cases. The expectation from this month's green paper on legal aid is that the private sector steps in and lawyers run these cases on "no win, no fee" backed by after-the-event insurance. The reality is that insurers don't back families fighting multinational drug companies.Consider the plight of the Vioxx litigants. In November 2007 the manufacturer Merck paid more than $4.85bn to Americans who claim to have suffered heart attacks and strokes as a result of the anti-arthritis drug. By contrast, the UK legal action never really got off the ground. The claimants couldn't get legal aid nor could they find an insurer to back their case. They were left taking their cases to New Jersey where the judge ruled against them on the grounds that their home country had "a perfectly appropriate judicial system". The problem is they could not get their case into court at all.David Body, the partner at Irwin Mitchell representing the Epilim families, is sceptical about the prospects of funding the case privately. "It's late in the day and there is likely to be an enormous insurance premium to deal with the potential cost for a trial against a multinational drugs company." And as he puts it: "That is why legal aid is there. It is designed to enable people of modest means to get through the courtroom door." Quite; the problem is it's not working.Jon Robins is a freelance journalist and director of the research company JuresLegal aidPharmaceuticals industryEpilepsyDrugsJon Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |