PROFESSOR JULIA GOODFELLOW CBE, PROFESSOR COLIN BLAKEMORE AND PROFESSOR ALAN THORPE

28 JUNE 2006

  Q1 Chairman: Good morning everyone and could I particularly welcome our three witnesses this morning, Professor Julia Goodfellow (we hope that you might be the chair of the panel if, in fact, it needs chairing this morning in order to feed out the questions); Professor Colin Blakemore, welcome again, Colin, to the Select Committee; Professor Alan Thorpe, the Chief Executive of the National Environment Research Council, welcome to you again, Alan. Can I say that this is the second of what are called thematic reviews so far as the Research Councils are concerned. The Committee made the decision that rather than looking at Research Councils as individual entities we would try to pick themes which in fact enable us to look right across the Research Council. The first was knowledge transfer and this one is really quite a key inquiry looking at the Research Council Institutes. It arose not because I think the Committee should be interfering in the way in which the Research Councils actually manage the institutes; that is not the job of this Committee. The job of this Committee is in fact to try to protect strategic science and particularly long term strategic science. The question we are asking is: are the Institutes the best way of achieving that? Are they the siren calls—if they are siren calls—that the work should all go back into universities? Should they be heeded? Have we got it right? That is the background to this rather than trying to pre-judge whether an institute should close or whether it should remain open. I wonder if I could start by saying that the Quinquennial Review in 2001 concluded that there were nine good reasons why we should have Research Council Institutes. What are the reasons you would put forward briefly, Julia, for retaining Research Council Institutes in your particular area?

Professor Goodfellow: I think many of the reasons you said and we would say—I think we said in our submission—that our institutes meet some (or in some cases all) of those criteria, certainly the long term, the sort of areas in fact that universities cannot or do not wish to do. We would say that plant science and crop science, although we have a few good science departments in universities, they are not a large base, there are not a lot of undergraduates wanting to do plant and crop science in the universities and therefore the universities really are the main reservoir of expertise in the UK.

  Q2  Chairman: Colin, in addition to the Quinquennial Review recommendations or reasons for keeping institutes, is there anything else you would put into that pot or should we take that as read?

  Professor Blakemore: I think if you are looking for a single word to sum up the reason for having institutes then it is "strategy". Research Councils of course develop their own strategies for supporting an area of science and institutes can play a critical role in delivering that strategy, particularly in providing high-quality environments with sustained investment and a critical mass to serve a strategic need.

  Q3  Chairman: Alan?

  Professor Thorpe: I do not think I have anything to add to that. For us all nine[1] are touchstones of why we have institutes to deliver environmental science.

  Q4 Chairman: In that case could I ask you whether in fact the mission for the institute should be at the behest of the Research Councils or the Government?

  Professor Thorpe: I think the mission is for the Research Councils and, as Colin says, it is certainly true in our case as well that we see our institutes as a major player in delivering our science strategy so the council very much regards the institutes as a vital bit of that and therefore wants to have a strong say in the decision making process on how they go forward.

  Q5  Chairman: Yours or the Government's, Julia?

  Professor Goodfellow: Definitely the Research Council, but as you will be aware the BBSRC institutes are very different from the MRC institutes. They are companies limited by guarantee with charitable status so they have their own non-executive directors and trustees of the charity. They also have multi-funders so as well as being within the remit of BBSRC they have to be aware of other funders' needs as well. They are even further away from government, if you like, than the ones that are totally within a Research Council.

  Q6  Chairman: Your direction or the Government's, Colin?

  Professor Blakemore: MRC institutes are a little different in that they are wholly owned by the council so the needs are entirely specified by the council. As with all MRC scientific priorities consideration is of course given to policy needs and one role that institutes can play—and some of ours do—is to provide the potential to respond to those needs. I give a particular example; the Toxicology Unit in Leicester. There is certainly a national need to have a centre of excellence in toxicology, but it is unlikely that any university could provide the critical mass to sustain that and we feel there is a responsibility to do so in the case of a particular national need.

  Q7  Chairman: I am just trying to ascertain at this moment in time to what extent does the Government influence the research direction of the institutes or whether, in fact, the Research Council could actually ignore an instruction or a request from government if you did not feel it was appropriate.

  Professor Goodfellow: I think our Councils make the final decisions on what they want to fund, so it is a council decision, but it would not be sensible for the institutes not to think about what we want and what other funders like Defra or the EU want because they are getting funds from a lot of places. Although our institutes come out with their own five year strategies which are agreed by their governing board, reflected in that is their knowledge of what some government departments—Department of Health or Defra—might want from them.

  Q8  Dr Turner: I would like to ask a broad, almost cultural question about the place of research institutes in British science and innovation. I think to a certain extent the two go together and if you look back to the halcyon days of British science after the war there were more research institutes and they were much more prominent and played a much more central role. If you look at Germany you have the Max Planck and the Fraunhofer and the Helmholtz networks which do enormous amounts of work. America has the NIH which is a huge institution. All these things—certainly in the American and German examples—are productive and they go with a successful innovation economy as well which is where we are weak. What is your view about the true place that research institutes put and should have in British science and the economy?

  Professor Blakemore: It is interesting that you choose the examples of Germany; there is France as well, and the United States. Although the investment of NIH is enormous it is actually a much smaller fraction of the total NIH expenditure than the MRC's investments in its intra-mural programmes. We spend about 50% of our money on institutes and units; NIH about 10%. The size is simply due to the fact that the overall budget of NIH is so enormous. I think one could say that in France and Germany the quality and scale of science in the university sector has not developed as rapidly as it has in this country. One could argue that the need to sustain an investment in high-quality science through institutes has been higher there. You are quite right, after the war the best science in this country was certainly delivered through Research Councils Institutes but what we have seen is a gradual increase in the strength and power of universities and the strategic thinking of universities. There are many areas now where the universities are perfectly capable of delivering what institutes and units used to do.

  Professor Thorpe: The NERC certainly recognise this because we have introduced in relatively recent years—maybe five to eight years—what we call collaborative centres which are actually places where there are university staff working alongside NERC staff in terms of delivering a centre mission. We again see a kind of sliding scale between the collaboration that needs to happen between our institutes and the university sector.

  Dr Turner: It is, however, a sad fact of life—as has been demonstrated to this Committee—that university departments are at the risk of campus politics so there is a sustainability issue surrounding university departments and work going in them whereas research institutes by their very nature should be more sustainable and longer term.

  Q9  Chairman: We will actually come onto that; there is a whole section that we are going to do on the relationship with universities. Could I just finish this first section which is really about trying to ascertain the influence of government in terms of research institute funds? That is really what I am trying to get at. You have clearly stated, all three of you, that in fact it is your agenda but you will respond if there is a government imperative. Do you have capacity to respond like that?

  Professor Blakemore: Again I must emphasise the difference between MRC institutes and those of the other Councils in that there is not such a direct investment from government departments in our institutes. I think that the response would be a matter of negotiation between government departments, the MRC council and the institute director, and it might be necessary in some cases to reinforce, for instance, the funding of an institute to commission research directly with initial money. To give an example, the Institute of Hearing Research at Nottingham which sustains a wide range of research is determined by the MRC itself has taken on a major project over the last several years to develop neo-natal hearing screening based on a discovery made by MRC scientists in London. That work was done by Dr Adrian Davies who has now moved from the Institute to Manchester. That work was supported by major investment into the Institute of Hearing Research by the Department of Health. The Institute was very happy to accommodate that work; it fitted very well with the strategic interests of the Institute as a whole and was accommodated there with additional funding from the Department of Health.

  Professor Goodfellow: Our institutes get core grants which go to the director so the director can direct. Obviously he cannot move money around immediately but in response perhaps to a Defra call for a certain area he could certainly look—if he had extra money coming in from that area—to move perhaps technical staff around, make facilities available and maintain the facilities and things like that. I think institute directors do have some flexibility to do that.

  Q10  Chairman: Both of you have mentioned that if there were an additional requirement from government you would expect government to fund that. Do you feel that government should be funding more of its own research or do you think the balance is right?

  Professor Goodfellow: I think you will see from our figures that Defra's funding in the whole area of sustainable agriculture and land use is decreasing; it has also been decreasing a little bit in the animal health area. That is causing major problems for us but I am more worried about the longer term problems that we are losing the skills base and obviously infrastructure if they continue not to fund these areas.

  Q11  Chairman: That brings me, Alan, to a crucial question that if, in fact, the resources from other government departments coming into the institutes are going down, does that imply it will really put them at risk?

  Professor Thorpe: It is certainly a major factor. As you know, with our Centre for Ecology and Hydrology one of the factors in determining our plan for sustainability was to look at the recent history of its commissioned research income. As Julia has suggested, and it is certainly true for CEH as well, that income has been declining in recent years, not in that case particularly catastrophically but nevertheless that is the trend. So we have to plan the sustainability in the light of that. I think the other thing I would add is that we see an important role for us to discuss with government departments such as Defra in terms of their long term thinking on strategy as we develop our science strategy. I am increasingly trying to maintain and enhance dialogue in terms of the forward look of what might be needed in the near future. We know there is a lot of the legislation, for example, that is coming from Europe et cetera in the environmental sciences and that is something we need to be ready for. I would like to see us having a good collaborative way forward in terms of devising those strategies.

  Q12  Chairman: We are going to come back to this a little later; I do not want to steal the thunder of my colleagues. Could we move on because we are conscious, Colin, that you have to go at half past ten.

  Professor Blakemore: I can actually stay until quarter to eleven; it is such a pleasure to be here again.

  Q13  Dr Turner: I am glad you are glad to be here, Colin. We did have an encounter during 2005 over the question of the future of Mill Hill. Can you tell us what has happened since then? What progress has been made?

  Professor Blakemore: Considerable progress. I think we are on track to achieve what we intended to, which is to create Europe's most exciting major institute for translational medical research in central London in association with University College. The council, following the plans that were outlined in your inquiry a year and half ago, has assessed bids, chosen University College as the preferred partner, purchased the site for the new institute which is very close to University College Hospital. We are in the process of appointing a new director to replace Sir John Skehel on his retirement in September this year. We have secured in principle the funding for the project through major contributions from the MRC, University College and the Large Facilities Fund; we are now entering the Gateway Process in the hope of obtaining OSI and Treasury approval for the release of the funds from the Large Facilities Capital Fund so the project can go ahead.

  Q14  Dr Turner: Your original bid to the Large Facilities Capital Fund was unsuccessful. What have you been able to do to correct the situation since then?

  Professor Blakemore: The bid was successful. The bid was ranked equal first by all the chief executives in RCUK. I am not quite sure where you obtained that information from. The bid was successful and the funding has, in principle, been approved. The funding has been profiled in the commitments of the Large Facilities Capital Fund to draw that funding down to have the secure commitment we need to pass through the Gateway Process.

  Q15  Dr Turner: What sorts of levels of investment are actually involved? How much of this is the cost of relocation?

  Professor Blakemore: The current estimate for the project is £320 million of which the MRC itself has already committed nearly £140 million (including the estimated value of the Mill Hill site), University College I think about £45 million and the rest in the working plans will come from the Large Facilities Capital Fund. There are also possibilities—in fact high probabilities—of contributions from other sources. For instance, GSK made an unsolicited donation of a million pounds as a gesture of its support for the vision. That will cover the estimated costs of the entire new building, more than 40 thousand square metres of laboratories and facilities.

  Q16  Dr Turner: Will you move lock, stock and barrel from Mill Hill.

  Professor Blakemore: Yes, that is the plan.

  Q17  Dr Iddon: All of you have been involved in re-structuring with respect to your research institutes. I think, Colin, one of the driving forces—if not the driving force in your case—was the translational research argument. Perhaps Julia now could tell us what were the driving force in your respective organisations.

  Professor Goodfellow: We have done several although perhaps not on the scale of the Mill Hill one. Certainly Long Ashton which was linked with Rothamsted Research)[2]—which was the original apple and pear association research place a hundred years old—we decided in the end that we could not have the institute on two sites. We closed Long Ashton down. The majority of staff moved to Rothamsted in Harpenden and we were able to put in a brand new state of the art lab which you are welcome to visit if you have not done already. I think all the staff that wanted to move did move into that new build. We then felt we could really focus our investment on one site. We withdrew funding from the Silsoe Research Institute a couple of years ago and it formally closed in March this year. The area of science was not high priority for us or the UK; it was agricultural engineering and there is not really any agricultural engineering in the UK and the quality of the science had been assessed two or three times over an eight year period and was not at the level we were happy with.

  Q18 Dr Iddon: Can I just follow that up and ask you who triggers these re-organisations? Is it your board or does it come from the researchers themselves who feel they are in inadequate premises or what? Or is there a bit of everything?

  Professor Goodfellow: It normally comes from our board looking at the broad at the picture, trying to get the balance between what we are doing in institutes and what we are doing in universities then looking at the institutes and asking how we can make them fit for purpose. Are we spending our money too thinly? Are we getting the quality of science we want? We do this on a regular basis. It normally comes out of long term planning.

  Q19  Dr Iddon: Alan?

  Professor Thorpe: With our Centre for Ecology and Hydrology there are three driving forces for that. The first one was as a result of our assessments roughly every five years of the future science programme of each of our centres. We assess those via peer review et cetera for the science quality and also the strategic fit to priority. That was a major one of the three. The second one was to try to focus CEH to bring teams together. Currently it is on nine sites and costing substantial amounts in infrastructure costs to maintain those sites. In order to bring scientists together the new plans are for four sites. The third reason, as we have already commented on, the recent trends of external income which for CEH amounts overall to about 40% of its total income. It was not one of those three, it was all three together, very much driven by our council and driven by the agenda of putting CEH into a long term sustainable position; it is very much the sustainability agenda.

2   Note by the witness: As part of the Institute of Arable Crops Research. Back