PROFESSOR SIR DAVID KING AND PROFESSOR JANET FINCH

2 JULY 2007

  Q20  Dr Turner: I know the Hippocratic Oath is a bit of a myth, but nonetheless it has quite a strong resonance in the public mind. Were you hoping that your universal code would achieve the same sort of resonance as the Hippocratic Oath amongst research scientists?

  Professor Sir David King: Frankly yes. If the three words "rigour, respect and responsibility" come across as heading it up, the code of science is then simply referred to, not as the Hippocratic Oath but as the "rigour, respect, responsibility" code, we would be carrying a heavy message forward. The problem is the very large number of codes that have been attempted, so why should this code be the one that gets most noticed? We have actually taken the trouble to pare it down to the bare minimum so that it would not have anything that was not required and yet, we went through this little code and looked at all of the big misdemeanours and you can find one or other of our codes is broken by it. It is a nice short pithy code and I hope it therefore has the possibility of emerging in that way, not because I started it, actually it was Chirac's idea, but more because with a single code we have more possibility of getting acceptance that there is such a code and that everyone practising science adheres to it.

  Q21  Dr Turner: So the fact that it is consisting of seven bullet points with broad principles, you think is something which will make it, instead of being motherhood and apple pie, something which is actually effective, do you?

  Professor Sir David King: Absolutely. If you want to know why we restricted it to seven bullet points, my feeling was that of the Ten Commandments, most people forgot, possibly conveniently, three of them and so it seemed to me that seven would be a good number.

  Q22  Dr Turner: Why was the Council for Science and Technology involved in the consultation on the universal code? Do you think that the consultation added value to the code when you produced it?

  Professor Sir David King: Yes. The consultation on the draft code did add value, but in particular it did get all of those institutions, universities, learned societies, et cetera thinking about the subject. What we did not want was 10,000 suggestions for redrafting the code, but we did make that clear in the consultation. It really was a question of "Take it or leave it as it is". Having spent a year and a half on choosing every word so carefully, we felt the consultation could not go down that route. Nevertheless the returns were very positive for us.

  Q23  Dr Turner: Maybe that is why you did not ask the OSI to do it. How did you define the three questions that formed the basis of the consultation process? You have explained why you did not solicit opinions on the content because you said "Take it or leave it", but how did you actually get to that content?

  Professor Sir David King: How did we derive these seven points?

  Q24  Dr Turner: Yes, how did you pare it down?

  Professor Sir David King: It began as a much longer document and we broke it down into three working groups actually, to give you a very factual answer. In breaking it down into three working groups, we had already generated the three categories that you see here but each group had very clear instructions about the number of words they could use.

  Q25  Linda Gilroy: Can you give us any illustrations of how the code is being used and how it is making a practical difference?

  Professor Sir David King: The code has been rolled out in several government departments and I chair the Chief Scientific Adviser's Committee in which all government departments and agencies are represented. Rolling it out through that committee we are getting buy-in around government departments. It takes time to find whether it is actually biting. I review the work of each government department. That is a painstaking process; it takes six to eight months to review one department. When we go in to review a department, we are looking, for example, at whether rigour, respect and responsibility, the code, are being adhered to.

  Q26  Linda Gilroy: And beyond government departments are there any individual scientists who are showing signs of being good champions for the code yet?

  Professor Sir David King: Quite a number are. For example, after going through the government experiment, I launched the code in public at a meeting at Imperial College. The meeting was packed, it was a very good discussion and I know that the people who attended that are on the whole, very keen to roll it out.

  Q27  Linda Gilroy: In their evidence the CST commented that it would be useful to produce material to sit alongside the code to show how the broad principles can be adopted in practice. Has it been developed yet and if so, what have you learned about the application of the code from that exercise?

  Professor Finch: The Council for Science and Technology recommended that the Office for Science and Innovation should take responsibility for that, so we watch with interest to see what they do. I would observe that it is early days at the moment and we are watching with interest and I am sure that we will come back and look more closely. Very recently I had drawn to my attention the recent publication, in fact it may still be in draft form, from the Royal Academy of Engineering, a statement of ethical principles, in which they have said that they have developed their statement of ethical principles very much within the framework of Sir David's code. It is beginning to show and as various different learned societies and universities look again at their own codes, and most of us do this, most organisations do this as a rolling programme, I hope we shall see this being taken on board.

  Q28  Linda Gilroy: If it going to be adopted through individual codes, does that in the end imply that perhaps there is not a need for an overarching code? Will it add value in the end?

  Professor Finch: My view is very much the same as Sir David's. The more complex science becomes and the more complex the challenges of how science is used in our world, in a sense the more need there is for something very, very simple. If we get every learned society and every professional body and every university developing their own code to suit their own circumstances, it becomes a far too complex scene and in the end, when an individual scientist gets into an individual difficult situation where they have to make a decision about what they are going to do, the simpler the code the better. This is why I am very personally committed to this very simple code. It adds a great deal of value.

  Q29  Linda Gilroy: That is the outcome you would hope to see over time, the specific codes that are there or being developed would coalesce around something broadly resembling ... ?

  Professor Finch: Yes.

  Professor Sir David King: In terms of your earlier question, the roll-out process is already generating some good practice in government departments, for example the annual appraisal process now including questions about use of the code and application of the code. In fact two agencies indicated that their external research contractors would also be expected to comply with the code. This is one way in which government bodies are able to affect private bodies with the expectation of adherence to the code. These practices that are just emerging now, the good practices, are those that we shall flesh out and then make a determined effort to see that we move forward with them.

  Q30  Dr Iddon: Coming back to this retribution angle that Dr Turner referred to some minutes ago, I asked you the question: if a scientist breaks this code or any other code, what enforcement measures are we expecting? Would it be the employer who would be expected to act, in the case of the university for an academic, or would it be the professional society to which the scientist belongs? I am not quite sure what the power of this code is?

  Professor Sir David King: Or all of the above. First of all the employer, certainly. I have just referred to examples of the good practice in government departments that is emerging and so employers not only taking a strong misdemeanour but even general practice and saying "Have you adhered to this code?" and using this as one of the questions in deciding on promotions, for example. The question of enforcement has first of all to lie with the employer and secondly with the learned societies but I suppose I lean more heavily on the former than on the latter.

  Q31  Chris Mole: The code has also been circulated to your colleagues internationally in the G8 and EU. Have you had any feedback from them yet? Given the international nature of science, how can the development of an international code be taken forward?

  Professor Sir David King: That is a very good question. I have a feeling that it will probably take off once we get it properly translated into several languages and I am thinking particularly of French. When I saying "properly translated", actually translating in a way that keeps every meaning of the code carefully in place; so that is not a trivial exercise I am referring to.

  Q32  Chris Mole: What about into Chinese as well?

  Professor Sir David King: Chinese as well. I may just add that the G8 Carnegie group has, at its last meeting a month ago, decided that it will in future be a G8-plus-five Carnegie group. The science advisers/ministers from China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil are all being invited on a permanent basis and the group has been expanded.

  Q33  Chris Mole: And within the EU? Is there a mechanism perhaps to get a more immediate reach, more continentally locally?

  Professor Sir David King: One of the members of G8-plus-five group—it is actually G8 plus one plus five—is the EU Research Commissioner, so he is one of those. I am not sure that the Commission is the right way to propagate this, but it is worth investigating.

  Q34  Chairman: Have the European Research Council adopted the code as part of their process for giving of grants?

  Professor Sir David King: Not that I know of. We have not actually, in full answer to Chris Mole's question, so far put our heads above the British parapet.

  Q35  Chris Mole: What do you think about extending the debate, moving it on by looking at specific issues that you have already identified within the code such as the role of peer review, ghost-writing of papers and commercial sponsorship to nail down some of the detail a bit more perhaps?

  Professor Sir David King: If I may take them in the other order, what is required with commercial sponsorship, as with the Wakefield case, is a declaration so that it is absolutely clear where the funding for the piece of research has come from. In terms of the research, the code stays in place, as we have been saying, whether the sponsor is commercial or otherwise, but it is certainly extremely helpful to make it quite clear that there is a commercial sponsor. I am picking your questions in the order I find easiest. Peer review is an inherent part of the scientific publication process and one of the problems we are faced with through blogging and emailing is the fact that there are ways of eroding this. The tradition of the peer review process is absolutely vital so that there is some safety valve on the publication process. Whatever happens we need to keep a very close eye on peer review.

  Q36  Chris Mole: What was the adjective? You said something needs to be kept there. Was it the independence of the peer review?

  Professor Sir David King: The independence of the peer review process; I have forgotten what I actually said.

  Q37  Chris Mole: I see the point you are making. In some areas of science presumably the community could be quite small and therefore often in communication with each other. What you are saying is that somebody may not be as independent as you might wish them to be because they have a regular dialogue with the individual submitting the paper. Is that the sort of problem you are describing?

  Professor Sir David King: It can be a problem of that kind. It is a problem that can be dealt with by making sure that you use international peer review teams. If there is a small team available to you for a peer review in Britain, then it is very important that you go outside the country. Your ghost-writing point was the more challenging of your questions and I would like to ask for amplification before I deal with it.

  Q38  Chris Mole: I guess there is a question about the independence of the authorship, if you like, if you are getting somebody else to do some of the work for you.

  Professor Sir David King: So this is not a co-author, but an example of somebody who is professionally writing and whose name does not appear anywhere on the paper.

  Q39  Chris Mole: Yes.

  Professor Sir David King: That is a very good point that I have not given any thought to.