—  the vision and sentiment of the Cooksey review is timely, well thought out and will strengthen British science;

—  it focused on bio-medicine and pharmaceutical/biotechnology industries with little mention of bio-physics/engineering so a little narrow;

—  it was (finally) decided to avoid specific changes in some funding streams so was a bit light on specific changes;

—  it could work well for Leeds if we are well organised in our response;

—  the key Cooksey recommendation for Leeds is that a proposal for "extensions of Biomedical Centres (BMC) in NIHR" should be put to the next PSR. This is a key ("make or break") issue for Leeds University.

  At present generic BMCs have been awarded to Ox/Camb/UCL/Imperial/Kings which cover about 50% of the best biomedicine in England. Liverpool and Newcastle got smaller "specialist" awards. Several London institutions also got specialist awards.

  The effects of this include:

—  resources for the winners, of course;

—  loss of resources for others;

—  loss of reputation and thus recruitment for others.

  There were powerful political forces at work, of course, but (I feel, at least) there is no point complaining but we need to push for another round (for five or six more which might include us) based on scientific excellence, capacity and regional impact.

January 2007