PROFESSOR STUART PALMER AND PROFESSOR ALAN JENKINS

6 JUNE 2007

  Q120  Chairman: Professor Palmer, what are the main barriers for working across international boundaries? What are the main barriers to your successful international collaborations?

  Professor Palmer: Barriers of course in terms of funding. I think that, on the positive side, there are—

  Q121  Chairman: We cannot just leave funding in the air.

  Professor Palmer: No.

  Q122  Chairman: Is that funding in the sense of different arrangements for grants?

  Professor Palmer: Yes. The positive side as far as funding is concerned is that, from our perspective, there are some very good schemes that the Research Councils have to support international collaborations of the sort you have just described. The fellowship scheme, for example, does allow us not only to fund our own staff but to fund people from other countries. UK funding can be used to bring fellows across from other countries. We have visiting fellowship schemes as well. Travel money from the Research Councils is usually relatively easily won through responsive mode grant applications, and the travel money is reasonably generous. Networking schemes are well funded to set up networks of collaborations. All that is pump priming. Then you say, what about the big collaboration and that is where it becomes difficult. To set up the strategic partnership between engineering at Warwick and engineering in South Korea or in China really requires a significant investment of funds from both sides and that is one of the major barriers that we see. Yes, the networking is there, all the build-up is there, but then the real projects are difficult to fund.

  Q123  Chairman: Would you echo that, Professor Jenkins?

  Professor Jenkins: Yes. May I add that I do not necessarily support the contention that it is only the size of the funding which is important. I believe that the real barrier to working across international boundaries is the longevity of the funding: long-term commitment to funding. Too much of our funding and too much of our support is and has in the past been on two or three year timescales. Spot an issue, define it in terms of a small project and go and do it, end of collaboration. That is really not the best way to take forward true international collaboration which I think would benefit from a longer term view.

  Q124  Chairman: I thought that one of the benefits of having an institute was that a larger proportion of your funding is in fact core funding and that would enable you to have these longer term projects rather than the response mode funding.

  Professor Jenkins: This is indeed correct, but a deal of our international funding comes from government departments and fall into the relatively short term. To me, to see that pulled together in a bigger framework, a coherent framework where everybody knew what was happening and—

  Q125  Chairman: So, are we back to this business about focus and more strategic planning?

  Professor Jenkins: Yes. Each government department and each of the Research Councils have good schemes as has been pointed out already and there is nothing wrong with those schemes; they are really good examples. However, they tend to be rather short term. It also seems to me and to my organisation that there is little communication between those departments and Research Councils and there is certainly very little cooperation and there seems to be a distinct lack of collaboration. A two-way conversation about how things should proceed brought together in a framework with some real resources would seem to me to be of tremendous advantage in the international scene.

  Chairman: I would like to leave that there and bring in Dr Harris.

  Q126  Dr Harris: To foster more international collaboration, where do you think the balance should be between lots of other approaches being done by people on the ground or being done instead by Government and the Research Councils first? Clearly, both are important but where do you think more needs to be done in particular at the moment, or indeed the policy makers, Parliament?

  Professor Jenkins: My take on that of course is that we as scientists do not like to be told what to do, unfortunately. On the other hand, there are policy issues and there are policy drivers that mean that research has to be done in certain areas. So, as you point out, there has to be a mix of bottom up and policy driven research. My suggestion would be that there has to be more communication between those two. There has to be more links perhaps at all levels. Senior scientists in my organisation do not frequently and indeed very rarely have ministerial contact. When senior scientists from my organisation visit overseas countries/developing countries, it is not easy sometimes to get an appropriate diplomatic contact in that area and this seems to be peculiar to the UK because there are examples of other European countries where that is not the case. The scientists enjoy much closer liaison with their government bodies and with their overseas diplomats.

  Professor Palmer: I think what we would see as very beneficial are firmer strategic links between research funders in the UK and research funders abroad. I know that these are developing. ESRC has now introduced a bilateral set of agreements with a few countries and are hoping to expand those bilateral agreements. If you can have that as the basis on which you can then build your research programmes, that would be very beneficial.

  Q127  Dr Harris: So, the limiting factor is that sort of thing rather than the willingness of researchers in universities or institutes to seek collaboration.

  Professor Palmer: There is no doubt that individual researchers/research groups are only too keen to seek collaborations but, if there is an umbrella mechanism that supports that, that would make it so much easier. If there is already embedded within the Research Council system a bilateral agreement between RCUK and Japan for example, that would facilitate and ESRC are setting that up but I think that it really should be something that is spread across the Research Councils.

  Q128  Dr Harris: Professor Jenkins, in your evidence, you say that " ... Research Councils, and government departments" need to have "the policies, strategies, structures and programmes in place to develop and benefit from international collaboration" and then you say. "This vision" presumably that package "is largely lacking from the UK government departments and the RCs [Research Councils]" which is not pulling your punches. Does that really matter? How important is that as a barrier to what we are seeking to achieve? Can you get round it?

  Professor Jenkins: I believe that it is an important barrier because I believe that that lack of collaboration and coordination is the root cause of the short termism in the funding. If there were a more overarching framework approach, then a longer term view of this could be put into place. I am of course aware of the FCO's Global Science and Innovation Forum but I was only made aware of this rather recently. I would say that it is distinctly low profile as far as my organisation is concerned and in some ways is a good initiative in bringing together this framework which I allude to in the evidence but, as I see it at the moment, it describes a funding landscape that really does not incorporate appropriately the universities and the research institutes and take advantage of the long-term relationships/collaborations that we can offer.

  Professor Palmer: May I echo that. The FCO initiative is so low profile that it is just not visible to academics and research supporters in universities.

  Q129  Dr Harris: Below that, what specific things do you have in mind that you want to see the Government doing in respect of the policies, strategies, structures and programmes? Obviously, we do not have a huge amount of time but do you have any specifics, things you have seen abroad in other countries that could be done here and that should be being done here?

  Professor Jenkins: This framework that we have already talked about needs to be defined and it needs to be supported with ring-fenced funding which is targeted into certain areas. I believe that there needs to be a close dialogue between Government and Research Councils/Research Centres and the profile that is given is more a mindset, a UK mindset. In our overseas activity, we do not approach things in the same way as our European counterparts, so there is a diplomatic side to the UK in a foreign country and then there are the researchers who come out and work with other researchers and we need to join this—we need `joinedupedness' here!

  Q130  Dr Harris: In terms of international research policies in countries like France and Germany, not the clinical maths side but in terms of actual research policies, are there specific things that they are doing which we are doing not as well which we could copy?

  Professor Palmer: That is a difficult question.

  Q131  Dr Harris: You mention in your evidence the "greater coordination between research organisations and government departments that is embedded in the French systems and evidenced by established mechanisms for exchange of research policymakers, managers and administrators between research organisations, other government ministries and overseas postings". So, there is a flow of people.

  Professor Jenkins: There is definitely a closer relationship between senior scientists and up to ministerial level. How they have achieved that I am afraid I do not know. It is a system that would be of benefit in the UK; it is not easy to achieve.

  Q132  Dr Harris: You also mention in your evidence and I quote, "Within the DTI, research capacity is not adequately prioritised as an asset to international trade, essential if the UK is to be seen as a country of innovation." If you stick to the DTI, the next question is about the FCO, but can you back that assertion up?

  Professor Jenkins: An example does not spring immediately to mind. I am sure that we could provide written examples backing up that sufficiently.

  Q133  Dr Harris: Finally, you mention in your evidence an interesting example that "the UK research community is mobilised to provide information whenever a UK minister makes a science related visit to an overseas country" which would involve a trawl of what research is going on and that there may be a few short-term actions with an exchange visit or a workshop and you say, "There is almost never funding for any collaborative research, leaving both sides with the impression that the objective of these events is media impact". That is very rarely said about government activity, surely! Can you comment further on that? Have you been a victim of this yourself in terms of being asked to do the work?

  Professor Jenkins: It is not uncommon for this to happen. There are many times when we are invited to support ministerial visits with information related to global issues, environmental issues in particular, which we are very happy to do, but the feedback that we receive following the event from the researchers in the country involved is usually, "Well, where does that take us?" and I am afraid that the answer is often, "Nowhere".

  Q134  Mr Newmark: There are a number of schemes providing support for international research activity through the Royal Society and British Council. Is this beneficial to the research community?

  Professor Palmer: I think that it is enormously beneficial to have a portfolio of funders for research activities. The various funding streams from the Royal Society, from the Leverhulme Trust and the British Council and so on in many cases are smaller schemes than you would see from the Research Councils, smaller schemes quite often quicker in response as well to requests for funding, but they are also in some cases targeted schemes, so they will be targeted to a particular research area or targeted to a particular country. So, you need the flexibility of the Research Council where funding can be sought for whatever initiative you want to seek but also the targeted schemes from the separate funders are very valuable to complement not replace the Research Council schemes.

  Q135  Mr Newmark: How effective is the coordination between the different bodies supporting international research activity and I ask that in the context of some evidence that I read from the Royal Academy of Engineering that said that, "although the Academy is aware of the existence of mechanisms to promote co-ordination and collaboration between Research Councils and the Government Departments involved in international science activities, current performance would suggest that these are not yet working effectively" and the Academy went on, " ... `there is a perception that there are too many players' operating in this area `with the consequence that funding is fragmented and could be better spent ... '".

  Professor Palmer: I think that first of all the Research Councils themselves operate different schemes. If you go to MRC, is their scheme for supporting this particular activity the same as with EPSRC or BBSRC and the answer is "no, it is not in many cases". We would certainly welcome a commonality of approach across the Research Councils to international activities. We do not have that commonality at the moment. To give you one example, we have referred already to ESRC's bilateral scheme, a very valuable scheme as it develops. However, to bid for that bilateral scheme, you bid in competition with the straightforward bids for responsive mode funding. EPSRC have decided that that might not be the best way and they have started to put a little fund on one side that is dedicated for international projects: £4 million at the moment centrally and then that will be matched by an equivalent amount of money from the particular subject area within EPSRC. It is a small start but it is a little bit of ring-fenced money to support international activity. I think that we should spread both of these: we should spread the bilateral scheme across the Research Councils, we should spread the little pots of money and bigger pots of money dedicated to this scheme, but I think that there should be a commonality of approach rather than different approaches in the different Councils.

  Q136  Mr Newmark: The bottom line is that, at the moment, coordination could be better.

  Professor Palmer: Yes, indeed.

  Q137  Chairman: Just before we leave that, one of the main purposes of that question was not just funding between coordination within the Research Councils but between the different funding bodies.

  Professor Palmer: My response to that is that we do not see any coordination.

  Q138  Chairman: Thank you. We will leave that on the record.

  Professor Jenkins: I feel that I should put in one rider to that. Within NERC, I would point to the new programme called the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation which is a joint initiative of NERC, ESRC and DfID. There is of the order of £10 million to be targeted for regions of the world to address for environmental issues and this is an excellent example of government working together with Research Councils but it is one of the few examples.

  Professor Palmer: May I pick up a good point out of that scheme as well. It does allow you to fund the activity of your collaborators in other countries which might be in third world countries to fund them at 100% full economic costing. It is enormously valuable to get those partners on board.

  Q139  Mr Newmark: How much interaction with the FCO science and innovation network have you had and how effective do you think this network is?

  Professor Palmer: I think I mentioned earlier this morning that, until yesterday or the day before yesterday, it was not something that I was aware of.

  Professor Jenkins: I am afraid that this is something that came to my notice only a couple of weeks ago and I must say that my initial response to the papers that I have now read on this is that it sadly, for me in my organisation, as it stands, focuses very much on technological innovation, wealth creation, and it needs to be complemented with another approach which targets quality of life type issues. So, it is on one side of the research spectrums.