TUESDAY 1 MAY 2007

PROFESSOR GIDEON HENDERSON

  Q100  Linda Gilroy: On the input to Oceans 2025 and the draft strategy, I think probably you have been observing the evidence we received earlier. Do you want to elaborate on that to the Committee, and in particular there seems to be some uncertainty over how long the consultation period was; have you got a clear recollection of what that was and can you tell us how it looked from your point of view?

  Professor Henderson: I cannot answer the specific question. I do not know how long the consultation was. I think probably my written remarks are too strong here. There was, as I discover now, some consultation, but I would like to make two general remarks about that. The first is, that consultation was quite short, it was a compressed timescale, I do not know how long, but I certainly and most people that I spoke to in the university sector were unaware of the consultation. That is in marked contrast, for instance, with the NERC strategy document which is being consulted on now, where there is widespread awareness and discussion in the community about that document.

  Q101  Linda Gilroy: Your remarks are set in the overall context of what Brian Iddon said to us earlier, which is that there is a general consultation period, I think it is 12 weeks, three months?

  Professor Henderson: I am afraid I do not know the actual number.

  Q102  Linda Gilroy: You are familiar with that sort of cycle, so you are phrasing your comments within what you are accustomed to in other consultations; is there a comparison that you are making?

  Professor Henderson: I suppose I am, but in particular I am drawing a contrast between Oceans 2025 and other things that I have seen through NERC where the consultation has been more full. The other comment that I would make, and this is, I suppose, the more important of the two, is that the document which was consulted on is the outline document only, which lays out the general purpose of Oceans 2025 and describes the ten themes within it briefly and just the titles of the work packages. From a scientist's perspective, all the science is going on in those work packages; that is where actually you need to see the details to know if the document is going to meet the strategic objectives for the country. There are ten proposals, as I understand it, one for each of those themes, and those documents have never been made available to the wider community, there has been no open access to those. Requests for those documents have been turned down and, as I understand it, those theme proposals are still not accessible to people in the university sector, unless they happen to be a formal reviewer, invited into that process.

  Q103  Dr Spink: Could I ask you to tell us, do you think that this was an oversight on NERC's part, on Oceans 2025, or do you think they had some underlying strategy in rushing the consultation or not making it quite as open as previous and subsequent consultations? Do you think that there was a competitive element in this?

  Professor Henderson: I think the latter may be true, but it relates to a structural issue here and the fact that this document is describing the science which individuals and research groups want to do within the institutes in the next five years, which naturally they want to have some sort of ownership of and they may be reticent to disseminate those ideas too widely. In another funding route, where there is competition between different proposals, that would seem entirely appropriate, that there was not completely open access, but in a situation like this, where there is no competition, it is not possible for other groups of people to bid for the funding, that seems inappropriate and there should be complete openness of some of that policy.

  Q104  Linda Gilroy: Looking to the future on that, in terms of the balance in support of marine research in the universities and the centres, and particularly what we heard earlier about probably substantial underfunding in the marine science sector, what are your observations on that balance and what would you like to see in the future, if indeed it proves possible to expand the commitment of resources to marine science?

  Professor Henderson: I think the thing that is missing in the UK at the moment, and which I brought up in my written statements, is that in the university sector it is pretty difficult, if not impossible, to gain access to strategic funding. I think, if there was a more open system in which the universities could bid for either the present pool of resources or an expanded pool of resources, you would see quite quickly universities stepping up, apart from the ones which are already doing some research, you would see additional universities stepping up to do high quality marine research, to fill gaps that are in the strategic goals of the country in marine resources. Just to take an example from this morning, one of the previous panellists mentioned the fact that the UK now is fairly weak in modelling of the oceans and perhaps modelling physical oceanography as well of the oceans, and that is an area where I know there is active interest in the university sector, in my own University and in others, to do more work, but it is quite difficult to tap into the necessary resources at the moment. I think you would find other examples like that and probably in the biological realm as well.

  Q105  Linda Gilroy: You have already mentioned the ability of universities to bridge the research councils; is there also a contribution which universities can make there, not just, I think you were mentioning, climate change but also the issue I mentioned earlier about health sciences and the ocean sciences?

  Professor Henderson: Certainly, there is. I think that the universities, by their nature, strive to be universal, at least they used to, and they study many different aspects of the environment, including health sciences and many of the biological aspects of the environment, and I think, in some ways, they are the natural home for some of this interdisciplinary work. I would concur with what we heard earlier this morning, that it can be difficult to work out which research council should be funding your research, and personally I have had this experience and have had conservations with many other people who have had difficulty when you fall between the gaps of research councils. That is something which the universities can do a good job on, but only inasmuch as the research councils move with them.

  Q106  Linda Gilroy: From your point of view, irrespective of the balance, are the national facilities provided by NERC adequate?

  Professor Henderson: Do you mean, by the `national facilities', things like provision of ships?

  Q107  Linda Gilroy: Yes, and the facilities in the research centres?

  Professor Henderson: I am not sure I understand. Are you asking me whether, if I go to the centres, they provide what I need, as a scientist, or are you asking do they provide what the Government needs and the country needs?

  Q108  Linda Gilroy: I suppose what I am saying is, are the facilities which are available, which tend to be concentrated at the moment in NERC and its research centres, adequate, in terms of the challenges that we face in the marine science sector, and I suppose it is also about the balance issue again between NERC and the work that is going on in the universities?

  Professor Henderson: I would say that they are adequate but certainly that they could be improved. I think the room for improvement is seen if you compare the reputation of UK ocean sciences with that in some other countries, and certainly I would say that other national marine labs have a better reputation than the ones in Britain, at the moment. I think that we have room for improvement and one way to affect that would be to introduce more competition into the system and involve the university sector more.

  Q109  Linda Gilroy: Are there particular international examples you would point us in the direction of looking at?

  Professor Henderson: I think the two international centres which probably are recognised as being the best, or two of the best, in the world are Woods Hole, which you have heard about, and also Kiel, in Germany, and of the European ones I think the Kiel Institute is probably permanent.

  Q110  Linda Gilroy: Is there anything further you would like to say about the input you were able to make to Oceans 2025?

  Professor Henderson: In terms of the specific science of Oceans 2025, as I said, I find that difficult. As an example, as far as it goes down in the detail, there is a working package here, called Plankton communities and biogeochemistry; that is to choose just one random one. Plankton communities and biogeochemistry could mean many, many different things; that is an extremely wide remit to describe in three or four words. As a scientist, I am not able to work out how much detail is in the theme proposals, which I have not seen, and it is very difficult for me to comment in detail about the science, as a consequence. That is even more of a problem, I think, in this document, when we look at SOFI, because SOFI, as it is described in here, says simply there will be many opportunities for university scientists to link with this document, and further discussion of that is left for the theme proposals. In the absence of having seen those theme proposals, it is not possible for me to know where those areas of interaction between the university and the research councils are, so I find it difficult to tell you whether this document really covers marine sciences adequately.

  Q111  Dr Spink: Did you have any input into it?

  Professor Henderson: Yes.

  Q112  Mr Newmark: What incentives are there for young researchers to pursue a career in marine science in the UK, financially and otherwise?

  Professor Henderson: Perhaps I have a naïve view, from the university sector, but I think interest often is one of the incentives which gets people into the subject, and I think that happens often at university level. People who come in and are exposed to oceanography gain an interest in it, and then, as we heard earlier, there is a lot of activity in the marine realm in the UK so there are many job opportunities for people who are trained at university in ocean sciences and become interested in it.

  Q113  Mr Newmark: Has the whole profile of climate change and everything related to that led to far more people suddenly applying to universities, or has there not been that much change?

  Professor Henderson: I think it is true to say there has been an increase in particular subjects related to climate change.

  Q114  Mr Newmark: In marine courses, specifically?

  Professor Henderson: I do not know the statistics on that; there are relatively few courses which are specifically marine, and often those are in the institutes, and I would have to refer you to them for their enrolment numbers. In the subjects related to climate and the environment there has been a modest increase, but there are not actually that many courses offered in the UK in those subjects, particularly not in some of the leading universities, and that is something which I think probably should be addressed.

  Q115  Mr Newmark: If there are not that many courses, I am assuming demand exceeds supply so is the quality of people increasing, or is there no change in the quality?

  Professor Henderson: I think probably I am not the right person to answer that. I can tell you the specific example of Oxford, and in Oxford we do not teach a specific ocean course, we teach it as modules within two of our courses. One of those is physics, and I think that physics has been a route to get people into oceanography which has been very successful; we need to have highly numerate people coming into the field, as was said this morning. In that area, really it is the quality of the teaching and the research in the university that will inspire students to do it.

  Q116  Mr Newmark: Is there a skills shortage of people who actually teach those courses, or not, in your view?

  Professor Henderson: No, I do not think there is a skills shortage.

  Q117  Mr Newmark: Do you feel that marine science and technology graduates are adequately prepared for post-graduate courses and advanced academic studies?

  Professor Henderson: That is a difficult question to answer. I think that some of them are, but it depends on what sorts of students you want to bring into post-graduate courses.

  Q118  Mr Newmark: Smart ones?

  Professor Henderson: Yes, smart ones obviously, but I think `smart' these days means numerate as well.

  Q119  Mr Newmark: You do feel, to succeed in this particular field, you do need to have good numeracy skills?

  Professor Henderson: I think that is true and probably there is a weakness in that area. I think that scientists who have been trained at undergraduate level in this country often are not ending up being sufficiently numerate then to go off and really make an impact in research.