1.  The Institution of Professionals, Managers and Specialists (IPMS) is a trade union which represents 78,000 scientific, technical and other specialist staff in the civil service, research councils and other related public organisations and an increasing number of private sector companies. Of particular relevance to this inquiry is the fact that IPMS represents scientific and professional staff in the remaining government research establishments (GREs) and Headquarters divisions and regional offices in the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), in the Ministry of Defence (MOD) and in the Department of Environment Transport and the Regions (DETR). We represent the scientists in most of the research councils including EPSRC and PPARC relevant to this inquiry and in the UKAEA; also in newly privatised organisations such as AEA Technology, the National Physical Laboratory and Laboratory of the Government Chemist. We also represent scientists in GREs associated with the Home Office, eg the Forensic Science Service. IPMS also represents scientific and other technical and professional staff in the British Technology Group, the Patent Office, and in the British Library Technical Services Directorate, all of which have an important role to play in technology transfer.

SUMMARY

  2.  Our evidence notes that despite welcome developments such as Technology Foresight there is still insufficient investment in research and development and its application, particularly in the physical and engineering sciences, whether by government or industry. As far as the people in engineering and physical sciences are concerned major areas of their employment have been drastically reduced and this is reflected in, although not the only cause of, the declining popularity of the physical and engineering sciences within the proportional decline in popularity of natural and mathematical science in general compared to Arts. This is potentially disastrous in a world where it is now commonplace to state that people are our main source of competitive advantage and where "making knowledge productive is key to business success". IPMS believes that the reliance on the free market is inadequate to turn the situation round and that government should give a strategic lead.

  3.  In particular the position of Chief Scientific Adviser to the DTI should be reinstated. The Technology Foresight process and the "business links" and innovation schemes should be provided with more infrastructural support and with delivery systems which are more closely geared to the needs of weaker areas, particularly SMEs. The ability of the Cabinet Minister for Science, the Science Minister and the Chief Scientific Adviser to coordinate science and technology policy across departments should be strengthened so that the full scientific resources of government can be brought to bear on science, technology and innovation strategy. That strategy must include much greater systematic attention to training, careers, and continuing professional development of science and technology staff.

THE INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION OF GOVERNMENT FUNDED RESEARCH

  4.  The total amount of government funding available for research has declined over the last 15 years. Although the "science vote" for universities and research councils was increased slightly in the last few years in real terms it is now on a downward path again. Moreover the two thirds of government funding which comes from other departments has declined steeply (see Table 1). As the Dearing Committee is only the latest to point out this has resulted in a deterioration in equipment and other aspects of the research infrastructure requiring an estimated £500 million to put right. As Sir Ron Dearing himself said in evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee "... while there has been a very good record of achievement, there is a much less satisfactorily record of maintenance of the capability to conduct research in the future. To an extent my own judgement would be that we have achieved the very high level of performance by eating into capital that was created in the past, in terms of buildings, infracture and research equipment. As a result we now have a worrying position."

  5.  Industry has stressed the major importance they attach to a healthy science and engineering base able to pursue long term curiosity based and strategic research. However, they have not welcomed the Dearing proposal that they should help pick up the tab. A healthy science and engineering base is also a vital component in attracting inward investments from overseas which is increasingly filling the gap in funding left by industry and government.

  6.  A healthy science and engineering base is also critical to enabling UK Ltd to interpret and apply discoveries and made elsewhere, ie the "intelligent customer" role. This argument also applies to industry R&D. If companies do not have an active R&D function it is more difficult for those companies to understand and apply research findings from elsewhere or to bid for the funding available from government schemes. Most people including the Treasury now accept that both for economies as a whole for and individual companies there is a close correlation between the amount invested in R&D and their long term growth and prosperity. In the UK Business Enterprise R&D as a percentage of R&D declined from 1.47 in 1988 to 1.34 in 1995 and is currently the lowest of the major industrial economies. (see Table 2).

  7.  Over the period 1989 to 1996 UK government funding for R&D performed within UK business declined in absolute terms from £1,312 million to £885 million. A small proportion was replaced by EC funding (automatically replacing the UK Government funding by the Treasury policy of "attribution"). But the biggest growth was in overseas funds which grew from £1,023 million to £2,010 million over the same period. Industry's own contribution to R&D remained static in real terms and represented 62 per cent of all the sources of funds for R&D in UK business in 1989 and 61 per cent in 1996. The R&D Scoreboard has shown a similar pattern of low investment in R&D by industry itself, particularly by comparison with competitors abroad. The UK continues to have the lowest ratio of R&D to sales of any G7 country and recorded a low increase in R&D spend since 1992 relative to the USA, Switzerland and Sweden. For most sectors with the possible exception of pharmaceuticals the UK continues to underperform its major competitors in R&D commitment. Table 3 shows the generally poor position of physical and engineering science areas in this respect.

  8.  We also need to take account of outputs as well as inputs and a recent DTI paper "The Quality of UK Science" has attempted to measure the performance of the UK science base compared with that of other countries by use of the citation index. Overall on this index the UK ranks 5th compared to 12th on the R&D/Sales Ratio among OECD countries. For science citation the UK is in the top six in 15 of our 20 scientific fields with clear strengths in plant and animal science, agriculture, pharmacology, neuroscience, biology and biochemistry, mathematics, microbiology molecular biology, genetics and psychology/psychiatry. Our relatively weak areas include chemistry, ecology, engineering, physics and computer science.

  9.  Further analysis of the citation index by Hicks and Katz. ("The Changing Shape of British Industrial Research") shows that there has been a decline in AEAT, electricity and electronics citations—changes which they say may be related to the decline in defence R&D, and to privatisation. As the R&D scoreboard itself has shown privatisation has often been followed by a cut in R&D expenditure and staff. There are therefore major funding and structural issues which need to be addressed, in addition to the more detailed factors set out below, if the UK is to use R&D effectively and remain competitive.

THE RESPECTIVE ROLES OF GOVERNMENT LABORATORIES AND INDEPENDENT RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY ORGANISATIONS

  10.  The previous report by the committee (para 150) emphasised the important role of RTOs and Government Research Laboratories especially as "intermediate organisations sitting between HEIs and industry". This role remains crucial. However the previous report by the committee emphasised that the GREs' role went much wider than that of a research contractor. They were often a valuable part of the science and technology base and guardian of national standards, as for example in the case of the National Physical Laboratory.

  11.  Since the last report of the committee on this subject most of the Government Research Establishments in the engineering and physical science area have been privatised. Of the DTI laboratories AEA Technology, the National Physical Laboratory, the Laboratory of the Government Chemist, and the National Engineering Laboratory have been privatised leaving only the small National Weights and Measures Laboratory within the DTI. The Transport Research Laboratory and the Building Research Establishment have also been privatised leaving the new DETR with no in house laboratory (except the HSE laboratory which was recently transferred with the Health and Safety Commission from the Department of Employment to Environment).

  12.  No doubt the Committee will be inquiring into the role which those privatised laboratories are now playing. They will continue to fulfil an important role vis a" vis industry similar to that of RTOs. We suspect, however, that there is no longer the easy access to their advice by government and the distance between them will increase over time as each privatised organisation becomes less able to reply on government funding and increasingly has to seek contracts were they can find them. It would also be useful to know to what extent the national standards role is still being fulfilled by the NPL and LGC in particular.

  13.  As a result of the privatisation of these major laboratories science within government has lost critical mass. The DTI and DETR are mere shadows of their former selves to the detriment of the "intelligent customer" role and their ability to respond to political and industrial needs. Indeed, there was an internal report on the Transport Department before the election which said that because of the lack of scientific and technical expertise within the department they were losing credibility and intellectual weight in both UK and EU deliberations. Since the election the amalgamation of the Departments of Environment and Transport has exacerbated the situation as they try to make further savings. Not only is this a critical loss of scientific influence within departments, it also means the Minister for Science and Chief Scientific Adviser have few resources to call upon within the government machine. As a result the research councils, being the only area under the direct control of OST are being used as the main instrument of government science and technology strategy.

  14.  It is absolutely vital that the major GRE still left in government which is involved in the engineering and physical sciences and industrial innovation—the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) should not be privatised. The MOD and DERA have moved some way towards the objective set out by the last committee report that they should be as helpful to UK industry as the Department of Defence is to US industry. Indeed now that DERA is to become the centre for defence diversification initiatives its role in civil/military technology transfer will increase. It is vital that it retains a strategic and accessible role within the public sector.

  15.  The great majority of MOD scientists now work within DERA. There is a significant interchange of staff between DERA and mainstream MOD, particularly with the Procurement Executive. In addition, DERA is by far the MOD's main source of senior scientific policy advisers. The loss of this interchange and source of scientific expertise to MOD policy making would be extremely detrimental. Last year's National Audit Office report recommended that MOD should strengthen its "intelligent customer" capacity. Currently DERA acts in many respects as part of MOD's intelligent customer role. Independent technical expertise is essential, not least because of the reduction in competition through national and international mergers. In particular, international mergers may create industrial prime contractors that cannot be guaranteed to have the best interest of the UK at heart. A privatised DERA, in competition with other Defence companies, clearly could not play this intelligent customer role for MOD, resulting either in the need for a substantial transfer of staff back to MOD, or the duplication of the expertise within MOD, with an obvious impact on costs.

THE OPERATION OF GOVERNMENT SCHEMES DESIGNED TO PROVIDE COLLABORATION IN AND INDUSTRIAL APPLICATION OF RESEARCH

  16.  IPMS welcomed the emphasis placed by the DTI over the last few years on changing the culture of industry and helping to diffuse innovation more widely including among SMEs. However it should not have been at the expense of direct funding for research in industry. "Business links" are an important part of that strategy. We agree with the previous recommendation of the committee that "business links" should be able to provide information about national as well as local sources of technological expertise and the data bases necessary for this should be developed. It is also important that technology counsellors should be closely linked to the centre in DTI so that they can feed back information to influence policy. We do not believe that the situation on resources has improved, indeed it may have worsened. As we understand the situation there are no national comprehensive information databases within DTI and there is still no leadership from the centre or expertise in depth at the disposal of the "business links".

  17.  It is vital that the DTI's strategic role in innovation be strengthened. There are many issues which cannot be left to local and regional arrangements or to market "push". The post of Chief Scientific Adviser to the DTI should be reinstated to give more strategic advice and direction to support for innovation as well as boosting the science and engineering knowledge base.

  18.  As far as collaborative schemes are concerned there is probably scope for further streamlining and a relaxation of partnership criteria, especially since the status of many laboratories has changed over the years through privatisation.

  19.  On structuring of funding in general we have reservations about the increasing use of competitions for "Challenge funding" and "prizes" of various sorts. Often they are relatively small packages of support and can take a large amount of time to compete for them. This is a particular difficulty for SMEs many of whom do not have the infrastructure to apply or even to know of their existence.

  20.  It is also important to have a "level playing field" in applying for research contracts and greater stability of funding. This is not specific to collaboration schemes as such but applies to contracts for research whether placed by industry or Government. The last report of the Committee said that industry must be prepared to pay the full costs of the near market research it contracts to universities.

  21.  This should also apply to government and other "purchasers"/customers. The Dearing Committee has referred to the need for research councils to fully fund indirect costs. Moreover, when the customer/contractor principle was first introduced following the Rothschild report in 1972 customer departments were supposed to provide an additional amount (the "Rothschild 10 per cent") to cover the maintenance of the core science base within the PSREs who were acting as contractors. This principle has rarely been honoured but it should be. If the contract based system is to work it needs to have clear rules for contractors and customers in order to maximise continuity, exchange of information, and stability of income streams, and to ensure a degree of reciprocity in opening up areas to contract bids whether this be within the UK or the EU.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND PATENTING

  22.  The Patent Office plays an important role in promoting knowledge and positive attitudes towards intellectual property in both industry and academia. Its work should be expanded and supported and it should be allowed to advertise its services more vigorously.

should be allowed to advertise its services more vigorously.

  23.  It may further encourage innovation and its exploitation if employees were more frequently able to share in the benefits of invention. In Germany such agreements are very common with fixed shares according to the profit made. In Britain a few research organisations do have employee agreements eg in BBSRC. These should be encouraged.

THE PROVISION OF FINANCE TO SUPPORT ENTERPRISES INVOLVED IN THE APPLICATION OF RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

  24.  As numerous reports have pointed out the crucial stage for the application of research and innovation is the "demonstrator" stage where large sums are often required but a high risk is attached. It is at this stage that "patient money" is required. In some engineering and physical science areas the sums needed may be so large and long term that government underpinning will be required. It is also at this "bridging" stage between innovation and its application that PSREs and RTOs play an important role in holding the process together.

THE ROLE OF THE FORESIGHT PROGRAMME IN FOSTERING NETWORKS AND IDENTIFYING PRIORITIES

  25.  Although the Foresight process has generally been regarded as successful in fostering networking there are doubts about its effectiveness in follow through and monitoring. The Foresight Steering Group itself identified several areas where government and its agencies needed to take a lead. For example, it recommended developing long term sources of funding to take forward projects; it advocated using government procurement to stimulate technology; a strengthening of OST's coordinating function across departments by developing systems of oversight to track progress in shifting portfolios of research and by using the Forward Look as a proactive strategic planning exercise; and the need to develop a coordinated response on training and regulatory issues. In defence technology it suggested "demonstrators" should be included when joint DTI, OST, civil industry and defence priorities are being considered; research councils should be represented on Technology Foresight Panels; and the Council for Science and Technology should examine anything needed to strengthen Britain's research infrastructure.

  26.  Even at the networking level, however, there are fears that although existing networks have been reinforced new ones, particularly between universities and industry including many SMEs have been patchy. One of the problems which still needs to be tackled is how to involve SMEs many of whom do not have the infrastructure or staff resources to participate in Foresight activities.

  27.  We welcome the strengthening of the coordination of Foresight at the strategic level by the expansion of the Steering Group in include the CBI and TUC. These processes need to be inclusive of all stakeholders including employees both at the centre and at every level in the process. We also welcome the formation of a Ministerial Foresight Group to coordinate Foresight across Whitehall. We particularly welcome the statement by the Deputy Prime Minister that DETR will be closely involved with the Construction, Transport and Natural Resources and Environment Foresight Panels. We hope that the scientific resources which have been in decline, particularly in Transport (see para 13) will be boosted to ensure the right level of support is given to the work of these panels at every stage.

  28.  It is to be hoped that Ministers will also generally strengthen the role of OST in securing interdepartmental coordination and a strong cross departmental voice in the PES round as the Committee recommended last time. Otherwise, being only a small voice in each department, the overall expenditure on science is likely to be further squeezed. It is also worrying that the Cabinet Minister for Science has stated publicly that she has no power over other departmental ministers in that regard.

THE ROLE OF THE ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL IN FOSTERING TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

  29.  We welcome the action of the EPSRC in going ahead with setting up four Faraday Centres, despite the last minute withdrawal of the DTI and its promised £3 million funding. We are particularly pleased to see that one of the winning four initial Faraday Centres or partnerships—concerned with Intelligent Sensors for Control Technologies—includes the National Physical Laboratory.

  30.  The objective of the Faraday programme as originally spelt out by CEST in 1992 (The Faraday Programme Working Paper 1 by Dr R C Whelan) was to provide an active technology development process involving the flow of industrial technology and skilled people. Indeed, Faraday Centres explicitly recognised the vital role of people in the technology transfer process and that "communicaiton takes place through flows of people with the right balance of skills and experience". Faraday Centres can provide the infrastructure for groups of people or institutions—researchers and SMEs who cannot provide it themselves—to enable them to attract government, industry and EU funding. It is important that the DTI provide the promised funding for these important prototypes, and for others which hopefully will follow.

PEOPLE

  31.  As far as people are concerned the general description of the situation in the Committee's previous report has not changed much. Indeed, in some respects it is worsening. Supply and demand for scientists is in a "low level equilibrium"—a slowly sinking balance of weakening "effective" demand and remorselessly weakening supply. We are constantly told that the future of the economy depends on the knowledge of our citizens and scientific knowledge in particular has a crucial part to play. However the numbers of scientists employed as such is declining, not only in the public sector where numbers have declined dramatically with cuts in funding, privatisation, contractorisation and radical reorganisation, but also in the private sector (see Tables 4 and 5).

  32.  Career prospects and pay are also poor by comparison with alternative professions. In particular there is the continuing scandal of short term contracts as the normal method of employment for new recruits in university research and research councils, and the practice is increasing elsewhere in the public sector. Not only is this form of employment unacceptable for staff who in most cases, with the notable exception of Leeds and Heriott-Watt and some "new" universities, have to "waive" unfair dismissal and redundancy rights. It is also seriously reducing the knowledge base of research establishments, as STAs pass quickly through taking their knowledge out with them. We support the Concordat and are taking part in consultations on its implementation within Research Councils and Government. It is also vital that legislative action is taken to remove the use of "waiver clauses".

  33.  The poor career prospects for scientists are feeding back into student numbers. Work done by the Science Alliance (composed of IPMS, AUT, MSF and NATFHE) and published in "Contract or Career" March 1996 showed that although the UK was top of the international league in producing science graduates per thousand in the labour force it was bottom of the league in the percentage of 35-54 year old workers employed as professionals in physical and engineering, science, life science and associated sectors. It showed that one third of all science graduates moved out of science all together at graduation, one third went into science related jobs, and one third continued in science education/research. Of those who became science post graduates only one third would eventually achieve a career in science.

  34.  There is also concern, as we noted in our recent evidence to the Committee on the impact of Dearing, that Government decisions on student fees will impact particularly adversely on science and engineering students who will be penalised for choosing more expensive and longer courses.

  35.  It is no bad thing that scientifically trained staff are moving into areas of work outside "core" science, such as the city and it would be useful to know if they are having any impact on attitudes to science funding there. However, there are very few detailed statistics on what is actually happening in the scientific labour market. There has also been a laissez-faire attitude to redeployment of those made redundant from areas such as defence, nuclear energy, and other energy areas, where there has been a huge wastage of valuable talent. Similarly, until recently there was very little attempt to follow what happens to STAs when they leave. We understand that the OST has commissioned a study of career paths which may remedy some of this deficit. But it is important to establish much better continuous intelligence about what is happening in the science labour market. Such statistics should include gender, non graduate as well as graduate staff, and different patterns of working (eg short term contracts and part-time working). This is also an area which the Science Technology and Mathematics Council has begun actively exploring.

  36.  Within the IPMS areas of employment following termination of the national civil service pay agreements in 1995 statistics on pay and grading which are meaningful across departments, agencies and research councils are no longer available. Nor can the civil service any longer identify the pay, grading and career paths of individual specialisms, since all are now in diverse unified grading systems within each department or agency. This is a major statistical deficiency which must be remedied otherwise we have no way of knowing how scientists overall or women in science are developing even within the government's own staffing domain.

  37.  We do know, however, that the haemorrhaging of scientists from government through privatisation, staff cuts and fragmentation into agencies has left the scientific civil service weak, demoralised and with fewer career prospects.

  38.  In the absence of officially provided figures IPMS has done its own survey of science pay, grading and career pathways in the civil service. This showed that budget and staff cuts and new devolved integrated pay and grading structures were a major constraint on career progression. Short term contracts were also a major constraint for those who were on them. Among other constraints mentioned by respondents were:

—  no career routes for specialists;

—  amount of time spent on contract/commissioned work;

—  use of short term contract staff instead of developing skills internally; and

—  pressure of work discourages use of release for training and development.

  39.  The survey showed that political pressure for greater emphasis on training has not yet resulted in an increase in training or a greater willingness or ability by employers to increase the resources available for training staff. The evidence from our survey is that spending has reduced in many more places than it has increased. Fewer respondents believe that promotion, career development and pay progression have improved over the last year than over the last five years and over half the respondents believed that prospects were continuing to worsen.

  40.  As can be seen from Table 6 support staff in science and technology have reduced to an even greater extent than graduate scientists and engineers. In the Autumn of 1997 the Royal Society in consultation with a range of organisations involved in science initiated a study of technical support in the modern laboratory. IPMS also surveyed its science branches as a contribution to that study and found:

—  lack of career and pay progression for technical and support staff;

—  a two tier approach both to access to training and career progression, which works against the interests of support staff;

—  under utilisation of skills; and

—  problems caused by short term contracts.

  41.  A consultative conference held by the Royal Society on emerging findings revealed that there were deep worries among senior university personnel that the increasing use of short term contracts and postgraduate research assistants in support roles was undermining the cadre of experienced technical staff required to provide long term competent support and many favoured greater use of systematic training schemes such as the modern apprenticeship scheme for technicians—a view which IPMS would support.

  42.  The evidence impressionistic and anecdotal though much of it is, supports the view that training and continuing professional development are a growing need among SET staff which currently is not being adequately met. The Science Technology and Mathematics Council is aware that there are some very good programmes where the occupational specialism and territory is well defined eg in the Chemical Industries, Medicine, and more recently in the Forensic Science area where a new Forensic Science Professional Development and Training Scheme has just been agreed. In other areas, however, continuing professional development beyond graduate and postgraduate level is only in its infancy.

  43.  In the innovation context, the Department for Education and Employment commissioned the ST&M Council and the National Council of Industrial Training Organisations (NCITO) to raise awareness among national training organisations, occupational standards councils and industry lead bodies of the technology Foresight Programme and its implications for training and education and to develop action plans. An initial paper was produced in December 1995—"Technology Foresight: the nurturing of the UK Skills Base" by Ben Martin of SPRU. It pointed out that the education and training infrastructure was the first of the five categories of generic infrastructural priorities identified in the Technology Foresight Programme. The Foresight Steering Group also gave top priority to training the trainers, particularly in the fundamentals of mathematics and physics. The paper set out the requirements identified both by the Foresight Steering Group and the Panels which will need to be followed up in detail by training organisations and employers.

  44.  If the UK is to be innovative and competitive and it is acknowledged that people are the key resource then the short term contract approach of buying in ready made specialist expertise and then dismissing it when no longer required for a specific project or when someone cheaper or with "newer blood" comes along is unsustainable. We need a much more serious, sustained, and genuine investment in people. We need a much more strategic approach to identifying and boosting "effective" demand for science and technology staff and to ensuring a well trained supply to meet it.

11 March 1998