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

28 JUNE 2006

  Q20  Dr Iddon: During these re-organisations that you have all been involved in have any of you learned anything about the time for consultation versus the period of uncertainty that this brings?

  Professor Goodfellow: You can never win. If you tell people early on, which you want to do, then you give them a much bigger time for uncertainty because they perfectly reasonably say, "What is going to happen to me?" If you keep it secret for a while then of course you are rightly accused of not putting it in the public domain.

  Q21  Dr Iddon: Which do you favour?

  Professor Goodfellow: I think we are going to much more open consultation rather than hiding it away. We are going much more towards that but there is a real burden on staff who may for a year or two years not know what their fate is and you have to recognise and put support in for that.

  Professor Thorpe: It was certainly the case with CEH that much of this was in the public domain so there has been quite a protracted period of uncertainty for staff which I regret but I think, particularly with CEH, this is such a major change that we need to get this right. I feel that to have rushed it would have been the wrong thing to do but I think it is tough because of the period of uncertainty.

  Q22  Dr Harris: It is not a question of rushing, is it? If you have a process that is going on unbeknown to the staff concerned then although you say if they know about that going on they have more uncertainty, I think most people would rather have the knowledge and decide how uncertain and how miserable and worried they want to be than to find out that this had gone on behind their backs without any ability to question or possibly even improve the basis upon which the decision was being made. I think the arguments for not moving in the direction that Julia just mentioned are poor, are they not?

  Professor Thorpe: I would say so.

  Professor Goodfellow: I must admit, when I went to see staff and spoke to them some of them said, "I almost do not mind what decision you make, I want you to make it". There are people who really do suffer through that uncertainty and really want a decision to be made quickly even though you are taking longer to try to make it right for a bigger group.

  Q23  Dr Harris: I think the question we take is not what the overall timescale of the decision is, whether people should be aware that a review is going on from the outset. I am not arguing that there should be a lengthening of the process; it should be more transparent because to save their poor souls from uncertainty by keeping half of the timetable secret is a little paternalistic.

  Professor Goodfellow: I agree.

  Q24  Chairman: Colin, can you respond to Brian's point?

  Professor Blakemore: I recognise the problems that are generated by uncertainty and delays in the decision-making process. Surely the key to success is mutual trust and confidence in the nature of the process and that must involve engagement between the council and the staff of the institute at the earliest possible stage. That engagement must be on the basis of the recognition of the nature of the process. If I could refer to NIMR one thing that has been difficult to achieve is recognition that fundamentally the decision-making has to be in the hands of the council during the radical re-organisation of an institute. It is not in the end for institute staff to make decisions about the future. Of course they must be completely involved; they must be confident in the quality of the decision-making and the advice that is feeding into that, but they should not actually run the process themselves.

  Q25  Dr Iddon: Everybody recognises of course that Research Councils are run by our top scientists but that does not mean to say that they are all good managers. Do you feel that you have the management structures in place to manage these rather considerable re-organisations? If not, do you appoint consultants? Do you feel that the Office of Science and Innovation could play a role in these re-organisations (maybe they do)?

  Professor Blakemore: It depends at what level you think expertise is needed. In relation to the expertise in making the fundamental strategic and scientific decisions about the future of an institute I think the Research Councils have adequate access to that knowledge and those skills, not only through its own boards and advisers internally but external advisers too. Certainly in the case of institute reviews—quinquennial reviews, strategic reviews and the kind of reviews that lead to re-organisation—we involve external experts. To manage the project of re-organisation—a major project such as that of NIMR—of course we have to engage external expertise and we are using consultants to draw the details of the project plan in that case.

  Professor Goodfellow: I agree with Colin that in terms of making the decision and realising how much effort is going into the implementation, in the Research Councils—I think over the years with the re-organisation of the BBSRC previously, AFRC and previously ARC, with institutes in the agricultural areas—there is quite a lot of knowledge on consolidation as that whole area of agricultural research has declined in the UK. We also have quite strong institute administrations. There is normally a senior person there; but that does not mean we do not have to bring in a consultant to handle a specific area but they are not normally making decisions; they are bringing information together, handling the consultation for example.

  Professor Thorpe: I would pick up on the directors' roles and skills which you mentioned about management. I think in our case the recruitment of the directors of our big institutes is definitely on the grounds that they are managing a big operation. The British Antarctic Survey for example is a £40 million a year major logistics exercise and we need not only scientific credibility and leadership from our directors but also some serious management skills. We would and have recruited for those skills. You are looking for some special individuals, I agree with that. We certainly look for management skills in recruitment. I would also say that in NERC we have an executive board which is composed of myself and quite a large number of the major institute directors which meets very regularly to have an extended management of NERC as a whole so there is a lot of sharing of practice between our institutes in terms of management.

  Q26  Dr Iddon: How much does increasing the bringing in of grants to these institutes from the Research Councils drive this re-organisation? Is it a major player?

  Professor Blakemore: If I could answer for MRC, in general institutes do not apply for grant support through the normal extramural process from the MRC itself. They can be eligible to apply for special calls, for instance our recent call for work in the area of pandemic potential NIMR which has a great strength in that area certainly made bids for funding. Members of staff in our institutes can apply and are encouraged to apply for funding elsewhere if it is within their capacity to take on additional work. Through a very valuable agreement between BBSRC, MRC, Wellcome Trust, the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK we have now agreed that institute staff, supported by those organisations, can be eligible to apply for research support from any of the other funders.

  Q27  Dr Iddon: Is that a major consideration, Julia, or not really?

  Professor Goodfellow: No, it is not a major consideration. We do run a different system in that before I started a decision was made by council to take some of the money away from the institutes and put it into the responsive mode competitive pot and they have to compete along with the universities. They are capped; there is a limit on how much the institutes can apply for each year but it does enable them to tension themselves against the universities. I would say it can help them to see where their science is in relation to the university base but it is not a major driver in any re-organisation. Funding from other areas like Defra which historically has put a lot of money in is a driver, but not the responsive mode from the Research Councils and again I welcome the agreement we have with MRC and Wellcome in our reciprocal funding mechanisms.

  Professor Thorpe: We have a similar situation to the BBSRC except we do not have a cap. Some of our institutes are rather successful at bidding for other NERC grants and funding. It becomes a relevant part of their commissioned research portfolio in some cases. We have quite a mixture in terms of the proportion that that accounts for in institutes. It is not part of the specific drivers for restructuring; it is part of the general equation of their financial sustainability. They have to be successful in that component, in winning that commissioned research income. As I say, a number of them are very successful at it.

  Q28  Chairman: Just before we leave this question can I ask whether in fact the OSI has a strategic involvement in a restructuring? Does it offer you additional capacity or do you just basically get on with it?

  Professor Goodfellow: We get on with it.

  Q29  Chairman: Is that by choice or would you like them to have more?

  Professor Goodfellow: More money for science would always be welcome.

  Q30  Chairman: But you do not see them as a sort of great re-organisational expertise.

  Professor Blakemore: No.

  Q31  Mr Newmark: Lord Sainsbury has told us that RCIs may be disadvantaged because they are too specialised. Could you tell us what comments you have on this?

  Professor Blakemore: The balance between specialisation and focus of research so as to generate the internationally competitive quality in a narrow area and the desire to produce an inter-disciplinary environment for wide ranging research and training is a tension with intramural programmes. It is not simply a matter of size. One might argue that large institutes are more likely to have the capacity for inter-disciplinary research; that is certainly true in the case of MRC's three institutes (LMB, Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge; NIMR and the Clinical Sciences Centre). However, even in some of the smaller institutes it is possible to create inter-disciplinary environments. There is the example of the Anatomical Neuropharmacology Unit in Oxford which, although it one of the smallest—perhaps the smallest—MRC unit has work in biophysics, in pharmacology and molecular biology, in anatomy and computing all within a single institute. I think one has to question whether even very large isolated research institutes can continue to provide sufficient inter-disciplinarity into the future because the demands of the biological sciences in terms of interaction with other scientific disciplines is growing all the time. It is that argument that has driven MRC strategic thinking—and I think it is shared by the other Councils—that where possible intramural support ought to be embedded in a university environment, giving several advantages, one of which is the possibility to extend the range of inter-disciplinary collaboration. The other great advantage is that is brings the special qualities and strengths of the intramural programme to support work in the universities; special facilities, skills and training environments if embedded in the university are accessible to that university more easily than if the institute is isolated.

  Q32  Dr Harris: That means that no standalone institute basically can be sure that it is going to stay that way. That is a generaliseable point; none of them are safe.

  Professor Blakemore: It depends what you mean by safe. If you think that embedding in a university environment is unsafe I am the wrong person to ask; you should be asking the directors of units that are in that position. Many of them would say that they gain a great deal.

  Q33  Dr Harris: No standalone institute can be confident that it will remain in its current state and will not be embedded in a university if the argument you have just made is as strong as you say it is.

  Professor Blakemore: As far as MRC is concerned that is the case. Why I mentioned the desire to increase translational work being the principal driver for the move of NIMR, in addition it was the wish to place NIMR in an environment where it could increase its inter-disciplinary range of interactions, particularly the physical sciences, mathematics and so on. When that move is complete virtually every MRC unit will be so embedded. We do have units on the Harwell Campus but they are closely associated with Oxford.

  Q34  Mr Newmark: There is a belief that more multi-disciplinary research takes place in RCIs than universities but it sounds to me like your answer to the last question is that that is not necessarily the case.

  Professor Blakemore: I think that is right; it is not necessarily the case. Large institutes with 500 or more staff—that is true for three of the MRC institutes as I said—certainly are in a stronger position to provide inter-disciplinary interactions in-house as it were.

  Q35  Mr Newmark: Inter- or multi- or both?

  Professor Blakemore: Both.

  Q36  Mr Newmark: Those are two different things.

  Professor Blakemore: I would be grateful if you would explain the subtleties of the difference. Inter-disciplinary to me means interaction between several different disciplines; multi-disciplinary simply means have those available in a single place. It is easy to say that universities must be capable of providing inter-disciplinary interaction because they are by definition multi-disciplinary. It does not always happen; it depends very much on the structure of the university, on the ease with which researchers can communicate with their colleagues. Even the geography of university campuses can often be a deterrent to a disciplinary interaction. Simply having more disciplines on one campus or in one university does not guarantee those interactions.

  Q37  Mr Newmark: How can you best promote multi-disciplinary research?

  Professor Blakemore: I think by the combination of providing the resources where necessary to the scientific mission of the institute in-house, within the institute or unit.

  Q38  Mr Newmark: That sounds to me like it is a top-down approach rather than trying to create a culture of a multi-disciplinary approach to this whole issue.

  Professor Blakemore: Scientists will always seek the collaboration that they need to pursue their scientific ideas. The vast majority of scientists working in MRC institutes and units have an extensive network of collaborations with colleagues not only in this country but overseas.

  Professor Goodfellow: I think the institutes, because there is usually a strategic objective for them, can bring any discipline they want to bear, and they can appoint what staff they want unlike a university department where if you are in a specific discipline you need to be able to teach that discipline. On the other hand, universities are changing and have changed a lot already. We have, for instance, put in more money in biology to specifically bring maths and engineers in with the biologists within the university to make sure that these inter-disciplinary interactions go forward, and that is together with EPSRC.

  Q39  Mr Newmark: Are there many social scientists getting involved?

  Professor Goodfellow: In some areas yes. Rural economy and land use is a specific initiative after the Spending Review 2002 I think and that was a joint process with NERC, BBSRC and the Economic and Social Research Councils specifically bringing those communities together.

  Professor Thorpe: In the case of NERC I would say that we have a mixture and we would defend this. Some of our institutes are embedded in universities; some are standalone. I think we may be a little different in that I think all our institutes have actually quite a mixture of disciplines because of their mission and strategic nature of environmental science, so nearly all of them will have physicists, chemists, biologists, mathematicians within each institute. I think they are actually hotbeds of multi-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity. As Colin says, to deliver their mission they need to be so. I would not go quite as far as Colin in that we feel that where it is appropriate we are happy to embed within a university but we also think that some of our standalone institutes, because they have in-house the disciplines they need, are definitely leaders in that.