Spring 2008 SCIENCE IN PARLIAMENT
Population Growth & Control
Predicting & Mitigating Natural Disasters
Solar Power from Deserts
David King Farewell at Annual Lunch
Atlas Detector for CERN’s Large Hadron Collider
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Find out more: Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)1752 633234 Web: www.pmsp.org.uk SCIENCE IN Science in Parliament has two main objectives: a) to inform the scientific and industrial communities PARLIAMENT of activities within Parliament of a scientific nature The Journal of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. and of the progress of relevant legislation; The Committee is an Associate Parliamentary Group b) to keep Members of Parliament abreast of members of both Houses of Parliament and British members of the European Parliament, representatives of scientific affairs. of scientific and technical institutions, industrial organisations and universities.
Why, when CSR07 increased the budget for the Science & Contents Technology Facilities Council Spring 2008 Volume 65 Number 1 by 13.6%, do they find themselves Science Policy 2 with an £80 million Opinion by Lord Taverne shortfall in their budget? Application Science Centres 3 of Full Economic Opinion by Dr Adam Hart-Davis Costs to research A Bridge over Troubled Water 4 grants is being blamed in part, but all the Professor Michael Elves and Mia Nybrant Research Councils are facing that problem. And, why are the Research Councils, who Après le déluge! 5 will now provide 80% of FECs, having to Barbara Young find the full amount when other budgets The Draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill 6 were finding some of these costs previously? Phil Willis MP The fact is that the future of Daresbury, a The Institute for Animal Health 8 science and innovation campus, is at risk for Professor Martin Shirley the second time. If the science disappears off that site, will companies be attracted to set The Large Hadron Collider 10 up business there? Changes in the STFC Dr Lyndon Evans budget appear to be hitting physics Messages from the Sea 12 departments in universities too. There are a Professor Laurence Mee lot of questions to answer. You can never predict in physics … 14 There have been some excellent debates in Beth Taylor the House of Lords on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill, with the Bill remaining Meeting the Challenges of Biosimilar Medicines 16 largely intact, even regarding research on Dr Richard Fluck ‘human admixed embryos’ (or cytoplasmic Global Population Growth – is it sustainable? 18 hybrid embryos, as they were previously Addresses to the P&SC by Dr Malcolm Potts, Dr Therese Hesketh and known). But, why has the Human Fertility the Earl of Selborne and Embryology Authority decided to grant two licences for research in this area before How can Science help to prevent Natural Disasters becoming the HoC has even debated the Bill? The HoL Economic and Human Catastrophes? 24 has not got embroiled in the abortion debate. Addresses to the P&SC by Prof RSJ Sparks, Prof Chris Rapley and Prof John Dewey Scientists at the University of Manchester Annual Luncheon of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee 30 have developed a way of altering the Guest of Honour Sir David King structure of calcium-dependent lipopeptide Concentrating Solar Power and the proposed HVDC Supergrid 34 antibiotics that could lead to novel drugs Dr Gerry Wolff and Neil Crumpton that are active against superbugs such as MRSA and C. difficile, and others at the John P&SC Visit to Victoria and Albert Museum 36 Innes Centre have developed a decoy system Global leadership in science and innovation alive and well for the enzymes released by bacteria that in the San Francisco Bay Area 38 destroy antibiotics, so that existing Dr Maike Rentel and Dr Charles Emrich antibiotics can remain effective. House of Commons Select Committee on Innovation, Today, more than 200 biological medicines, Universities and Skills 40 mainly large complex protein molecules, are produced by the biotechnology industry. House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee 42 However, unlike generic copies of Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology 43 conventional drugs, follow-on products in this area of medicine cannot produce House of Commons Library Science and Environment Section 45 products that are identical to the innovator Debates and Selected Parliamentary Questions and Answers 46 drugs. This raises some problems that are Parliamentary and Scientific Committee News 53 discussed in this edition of SiP. Euro-News 54 Dr Brian Iddon MP Chairman, Editorial Board Science Directory 55 Science in Parliament Science Diary 64 ISSN 0263-6271 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 1 OPINION Science Policy Dick Taverne
enerally the Government’s agricultural biotechnology. After years science policy, and especially of inaction it has only recently Gthe former science minister, permitted the experimental cultivation David Sainsbury, deserve high praise. of one GM crop, a potato resistant to My main concern, however, is with the blight. There could be no greater depth of its commitment to the contrast with China, one of our principle on which all science biggest future competitors, which ultimately depends: the evidence- plans to base its industrial growth based approach. firmly on science and especially on biotechnology. It will soon be Ministers pay lip service to the responsible for over half the world’s principle, but often fail to defend it research into the development of GM when they come under pressure from crops, particularly new varieties of rice emission of greenhouse gases from the special interest groups. There was, for and of other staple crops that will soil and stops soil erosion. Many instance, the decision of the Medicines benefit hundreds of millions of poor people object that GM crops mainly and Healthcare products Regulatory farmers. benefit big business, but new Agency (MHRA) to license claims for technologies often do. That is no more the efficacy of homeopathic products Sir David King, the former chief reason for rejecting the technology solely on the basis of homeopathic scientist, recently came out strongly in than rejecting life-saving drugs provings. While it may seem a minor favour of GM crops. He said they are because they are produced by large issue, for the first time the MHRA safe, essential for feeding the hungry pharmaceutical companies. In fact abandoned its long-standing principle and can help mitigate the effects of over 10 million small-scale farmers in that medical claims must depend on climate change. Where were the developing countries have already scientific evidence. Why? According to declarations of ministers in his increased their income and improved the Government’s explanatory support? Throughout the GM debate, their health by growing GM crops, memorandum, otherwise development with the exception of one speech by mainly cotton. Most of the next of the homeopathic industry would be Tony Blair, ministers remained silent. generation of genetically engineered inhibited! crops will be developed by public Pressure from lobby groups, supported As the President of the Royal Society funds, though chiefly in China. by restaurant and supermarket boasts stated in a House of Lords debate, for that they are “GM free”, has led the So what should the Government do? It homeopathy to work except as a public to believe that GM crops are should fight within the EU to unravel placebo requires the suspension of the laws of science. Nevertheless it is not safe to eat. Yet the experience of the over-regulation that has made it supported by public funds. Whereas hundreds of millions of people who hugely expensive and time-consuming the NHS cannot finance many life- have now been eating food with some to develop new GM crops. This saving but expensive new drugs that GM content for over a decade, has not regulation not only penalises small have been proved to be effective, it produced a single case of harm to companies, but prevents the supports four national homeopathic human health. The findings of every developing world exporting GM crops hospitals. Some 40 per cent of GPs major independent study by to Europe. Next, through DfID, it offer NHS treatment by alternative independent sources, WHO and should follow where the Gates medicine and 16 universities award numerous national academies of Foundation leads and help agriculture science degrees in complementary and science are unanimous: there is no in Africa realise the benefits science alternative medicine (including evidence that GM crops are any less can bring to such staple crops as homeopathy, reflexology, ayurveda, safe to eat than conventional crops. bananas, cassava, rice and sorghum. shiatsu and qigong). It is claimed that GM crops are bad for Above all, it should recognise publicly, Much more important is policy on biodiversity and the environment. In as China and India have, by word and biotechnology. The Government’s fact their cultivation has significantly deed, that biotechnology is a key record on stem-cell research (except reduced the use of herbicides and industry of the future, with a vital role for an early wobble on “chimera” cells) pesticides because they reduce the in feeding three billion extra mouths, is generally good. But under pressure need to spray them. They can also making better use of increasingly from green lobbies, Britain like the rest avoid or minimise the need to plough, scarce agricultural land and mitigating of Europe has virtually opted out of which saves energy, prevents the the effects of global warming.
2 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 OPINION Science Centres Adam Hart-Davis
hat are science centres for? so on. I suggest that the disappearance They are places where of science programmes from the Wanyone, especially children television screen has been a major and families, can get to grips with cause of this decline. science. There are more than 40 science centres in the UK, which in The future is science. Scientists are total attract some 5 million visitors vital to the success of the country. each year. How can we persuade young people that science and engineering are worth Thirty years ago I went to work at studying? They need to experience the Yorkshire Television, and the first item fascination of science for themselves, I put on the screen was about the and preferably by doing rather than slipperiness of banana skins*. This was merely hearing. Apart from formal for the series Don’t Ask Me, starring school classes, the best forum we have maintenance, and in order to build Magnus Pyke, David Bellamy, and is the network of science centres, novel exhibits, so that visitors come Miriam Stoppard. For six months of where children and families can back. Appealing for capital investment the year this programme went out indeed interact directly with science. from the Wellcome Trust, from RDAs, every Wednesday evening, between and from other local sources is Crossroads and Coronation Street, and This is the function of science centres. possible, but getting ongoing funding attracted ten million viewers. At the They have taken over from television is difficult. as the primary source of scientific same time the BBC showed Tomorrow’s Science centres typically obtain 50 per World, which had a similar audience, ideas and information. Just as the whole family would sit down to watch cent of their running costs from ticket plus Antenna, QED, and Horizon - and sales, and receive Government subsidy there was How, aimed specifically at Don’t Ask Me and Tomorrow’s World, so whole families visit science centres to in Wales and Scotland. In England, children. The total number of viewer- however, where museums, schools, hours of science programmes must be amazed, delighted, and informed by the interactive exhibits. The centres and libraries are funded by have averaged more than five million a Government, science centres are not, week. provide not only family entertainment – and last year at-Bristol beat places even though they perform several of There were only three channels then; like Alton Towers to be voted Family the same educational functions. Attraction of the Year – but structured now there are dozens of channels, but Four hundred years ago Francis Bacon almost no science. All those learning for school parties, and wrote that “Whether or no anything programmes have gone, apart from continuing professional development can be known, can be settled not by Horizon, which seems to have become for teachers. Their outreach arguing, but by trying.” In other words a series of disaster movies. There is no programmes deliver demonstration he was a pioneer advocate of hands-on longer any science programme to kits to schools. science. attract families, and for kids to talk As part of the millennium celebrations, about at school the next day. Children today want to be hands-on £1000 million was invested in 17 doing things – they expect instant Meanwhile in school, teachers are science centres, which were then left gratification. This is what science under pressure to steer kids away from to sink or swim. Two have already centres can provide. By linking up and difficult subjects like physics, because closed, and a third has been forced to providing outreach to schools they can the league tables have become close half its facilities and make many feed and spark off each other. Centres paramount; any pupil who risks staff redundant. This is a terrible waste shouldn’t be expected to be self- scoring less than A+ is likely to drag of money and resources. the school down the tables. financing, but an educational resource, No science centre in the world has investment in which is an investment In the last decade there has been a ever been self-sufficient. They need in the country’s future success – and drastic reduction in the number of continual investment, both for that is why the country’s science university applications to study centres deserve Government support. physics, chemistry, and engineering. As a direct result the country is now *In case you were wondering, we organised the measurement of the coefficients seriously short of engineers and of friction between shoes and concrete paving, moderated by lubricants. These physics teachers, which has led to the were the results: worst sort of positive feedback loop – Shoes dry on 20/50 motor oil on banana skins fewer physics teachers means fewer CoF (µ) 0.70 0.35 0.16 physics and engineering students, and So banana skins really do provide superb lubrication.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 3 A Bridge over Troubled Water – facilitating science into policy Professor Michael Elves and Mia Nybrant Chairman and Director, Newton’s Apple
e live in a world in which Within the policy process a major issues such as climate limitation is the lack of tools to Wchange, disease and poverty interpret science and its methodology require urgent measures that provide a and thus the ability to design effective sustainable impact. Policies and gateways to feed science into policy. strategies to address these issues – Policymakers come and go, but the whether formulated and implemented processes and the mentality within by Government, charities or industry – policy generating bodies, be they must be based upon evidence and Government, Parliament, charities or credible modelling. Key to these is a others, tend to stick. Another serious thriving science, engineering and problem is that many within the technology (SET) research base, in scientific community do not realise both academia and industry, which that their own work and research can effectively inform the policy could have an impact on the processes. development of policy and that they therefore could have an additional role The difficulties of transferring scientific to play in society. of both the science and the policy evidence into policies and strategies have been known for a long time and arenas. In order to close the gap, novel These are not novel problems, but a practical solutions must be developed the process is unlikely ever to be easy. novel approach is now needed to For example, a central and enduring – and most vitally – implemented and ensure that the gateways through evaluated. problem is that the scientific method which policymakers interpret and does not give immediate certainty, capture scientific evidence are radically Newton’s Apple was established to do which often is what policymakers are seeking. Scientific advance seldom improved. Any attempt to do this just this: to act as a bridge between the comes in tidy black and white blocks. must bring together those who science and policy communities and to At the cutting edges of SET, initial produce scientific evidence, with those foster an increase in the use, and uncertainty regarding what new who are engaged in the policy process. effectiveness, of the science-into-policy research shows, and what it means in This is not about lobbying, but about gateways. Things won’t change the bigger picture, is almost inevitable. informing. Effective and neutral overnight, but the projects Newton’s New results in one study must be facilitation of understanding is needed Apple has carried out thus far have independently verified through so that the crucial evidence base can already shown promise. Practical repetition by another research group, be used to produce policies on issues methods, training and applications as well as peer review. Different which will have a fundamental impact have to be developed jointly with, and interpretations of the same results may on the wellbeing of society – for spread within, the two communities. well be put forward. New hypotheses example in the areas of environment Currently two programmes are under will be generated and early results will and health. Not only do we need to development in these areas. The first be built upon as new questions are bring this realisation to the best of the aims to develop science policy training asked, their answers sought and, UK scientists of today, but also to for early career scientists enabling hopefully, found. Ultimately a those younger scientists who will form them to understand the impact that consensus may be built up by most the science base of tomorrow. their research could have on policy as experts in the field, although there are Practical, easily implemented well as how they could access the often a few who will disagree. To add communication and analytical tools science-into-policy gateways. The to this complexity, scientific or and evaluation frameworks must be second will provide guides to create technical data, particularly that developed within policy generating useful and practical frameworks and relating to issues such as risk, hazard bodies in order to strengthen their tools in which scientific evidence can or impacts, can be used by different ability to consider scientific evidence, be identified, evaluated and used in groups to support one position or or the lack thereof, when developing policy-making. The prime objective of another. For policy makers this can be long-term policies. The gateways both programmes is to facilitate a confusing – what is fact and what is through which policy invites science smoother flow of outputs from the UK opinion or even dogma? The long timescales required to reach a to engage and to share expertise, science, engineering and technology consensus in science also often pose a where policy interprets science, and base into the policy process. problem as policymakers tend to work where the two cultures meet, must be Ultimately this will bring great benefit in shorter cycles. adapted to the constraints and abilities to all of us in society.
4 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 Après le déluge!
Barbara Young Chief Executive, Environment Agency
he severe flooding that affected than half as large as it is today. much of the country in June Pressures on drainage infrastructure Tand July followed what we now have also been increased by new know to be the wettest May to July development, infill of previously period since records began in 1766. undeveloped land and increased levels Much of the flooding occurred because of impermeable paving. To compound drainage systems and some defences the problem, climate change is likely could not cope with the sheer quantity to make urban surface water flooding of water. more common as rainfall is predicted The vulnerability of critical to increase by 10-30% by the 2080s, infrastructure was also made obvious Whilst little reported, the Environment and intensity could increase by up to by experiences at Walham electricity Agency’s activities and previous 20%. sub-station during the summer floods. investment to protect homes and Our Receptors Vulnerable to Flooding businesses substantially reduced the New development, however, offers the project (2007) found that significant impacts of this extreme event. opportunity to look more holistically numbers of critical infrastructure Nevertheless, the effects were severe. at the drainage issue. Sustainable facilities are at risk from flooding. This Several people sadly lost their lives. drainage systems provide a more includes 15% of major energy 44,600 homes and 7,100 businesses robust and flexible way to deal with installations, 14% of fire, ambulance were flooded. Transport infrastructure urban flooding. They slow the and police stations, 9% of hospitals was disrupted, and many properties movement of surface water through and health centres, and 57% of water were without power and water for the built environment, emulating and sewerage works, as well as many days. natural processes and reducing the numerous railway stations and lines, impact of rainfall on the drainage roads, telephone exchanges and Recovery from such an event can take system. However, such systems require schools. many months, as properties are dried long term maintenance and, at out, cleaned, repaired and redecorated. present, there is no legal clarity as to Though the Civil Contingencies Act Rural areas and businesses too have whose responsibility this is or who requires business continuity plans to had to face the impacts of flooding, will fund it. be prepared, this does not extend to a with many farmers suffering significant specific duty to protect critical assets losses of livestock and crops. It is vital that there is clarification of from flooding. For example, our responsibilities for inland flooding. experience suggests that most Every flood provides a learning Whilst local authorities and water providers of these critical services do opportunity to examine the causes and companies are the key players for not have appropriate continuity plans identify areas for improvement. The urban surface water flooding, no single in place to address all the potential summer floods highlighted a number organisation has a strategic overview impacts of major flooding. of issues, many of which we were role for flooding from all sources, already tackling. Three of the most including rivers, seas and surface To ensure that adequate progress is important challenges are urban surface water. made, the Environment Agency is water drainage, the need for a strategic calling for a specific requirement for overview role for all types of flooding A national approach would have a utilities and owners of critical and the need to protect critical number of benefits, co-ordinating infrastructure to take account of infrastructure. methodologies and techniques for risk climate change adaptation to be characterisation; aligning the design included in the Climate Change Bill. In many places, flooding occurred as a capacity of surface water systems with result of prolonged heavy rainfall, those of river and coastal defences; Of course, it is not only critical leading to surface water run-off and and maximising the contributions that infrastructure that is at risk – homes drainage systems being overwhelmed. ‘whole-catchment’ approaches to water also need to be adapted to climate Most of our sewers were built in management offers. change impacts such as flooding. For Victorian times, for a population less new developments in flood risk areas
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 5 we want to see resistance and However, even with all the investment The summer floods demonstrated resilience requirements included in we put in, it is impossible to prevent some hard lessons. Building Regulations. Over 5 million flooding entirely. But by typing in their people, in over 2 million properties, postcodes to the Flood Map on the The biggest lesson is that adaptation to already live in flood risk areas in Environment Agency website, people the impacts of climate change, not just England and Wales, yet most of these can check whether they are in a flood floods but also heat and drought and people have not taken any action to risk area, and can follow advice to impacts on health, must be as much at prepare for flooding. reduce the risk of flooding to their the forefront of all our agendas as homes. Simple resilience measures can reducing greenhouse gases to mitigate We spend approximately £500m a reduce the average cost of a household climate change. year on flood risk management. flood from £26,000 to below £10,000.
The Draft Human Tissue and Embryos Bill Phil Willis MP
he 1990 Human Fertilisation Technology Select Committee, urged and Embryology Act – which the Government to review the Tbuilt on the outstanding work legislation to take account of advances of Lady Warnock and her committee – in research and clinical treatment. created a legislative platform for in vitro Though slow to react the Government fertilisation to flourish in the UK for was forced into action when the almost two decades. Indeed, despite HFEA, faced with potential new many legal, ethical and procedural research requests for work on human- challenges, the Act has stood the test animal embryos, sought Parliamentary of time and has allowed not only guidance. A Government White Paper clinical practice in IVF to flourish but produced in December 2006 proposed significantly embryo research making to ban the creation of cytoplasmic the UK a world leader in this key area. hybrid embryos – an organism to clarify issues as controversial as consisting of at least two genetically embryonic sex selection, the welfare of The Human Fertilisation and different kinds of tissue as well as the child and removing the need for a Embryology Authority (HFEA) set up other kinds of interspecies embryos. father, IVF treatment for same sex as an arms length regulatory body has couples, the register and generally served the human The outcry that resulted from the confidentiality, surrogacy, saviour fertilisation and embryology research community prompted the siblings, egg and sperm donation, community well. The HFEA has many Science and Technology Committee to embryo storage and permission to use critics and its cause was not helped by examine the proposals and conclude techniques such as mitochondrial the recent Taranissi case, but as the that regulation within a permissive (cytoplasmic) transplantation. former Science and Technology Select legal framework was a more Committee found when looking at satisfactory way to proceed. The In addition the Government sought to Government proposals to regulate Department of Health listened and in create a new regulatory authority, the ‘Hybrids and Chimera Embryos’, the July produced a Draft Human Tissue ‘Regulatory Authority for Tissue and UK regulatory framework is greatly and Embryos Bill which proposed to Embryos’ (RATE) by essentially admired around the world. allow by statute some research on a combining the HFEA with the Human limited group of interspecies embryos. Tissue Authority (HTA). The need to re-examine the legislation and the regulatory framework came, Of course the Draft Bill also took the The Government was right to seek not from a sense of failure, but from opportunity to update the law with pre-legislative scrutiny for such its success. A highly influential Report, regard to IVF treatment, taking into complex and potentially divisive Human Technologies and the Law, account research developments and proposals and I was privileged to chair produced in 2005 by the Science and societal changes. The Draft Bill sought the Draft Bill Committee which
6 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 contained some eminent and at times extended to ‘serious’ conditions which Committee agreed this, like many of quite ‘challenging’ Members. After all, would include life threatening by the research issues, should be put to a to have Lord Winston, the renowned definition. ‘free vote’ when the Bill comes before fertility expert, Baroness Deech, a the House but suggested the Bill could former Chair of the HFEA, and Lord And as regards access to the register be amended to incorporate the ‘need McKay the former Lord Chancellor, we proposed extending access to for a second parent’ seeking not to (who had been responsible for writing cohabiting couples and those planning discriminate against single women or parts of the 1990 Act) examining the intimate relationships which we felt lesbian couples. was more in line with current societal proposals was challenge enough. positions. Of course the Joint Committee found However, combined with the likes of it frustrating not to be able to call on Dr Ian Gibson who chaired the However, central to the Joint an ethics committee in the House to ‘Human Fertilisation and the Law’ Committee’s thinking was the advise on these hugely important Inquiry, the Bishop of St Albans and architecture of the Bill, which we issues. It must be a failing of our the forensic mind of Lord Patrick thought should favour a more flexible Parliamentary system that the Jenkin – it is safe to say the Draft Bill approach within clearly defined Government and Parliament does not received excellent scrutiny from the parameters. We recommended that have its own committee to advise on Joint Committee despite the tight time there should be a clear framework ethics issues – which are, after all, at constraints. based on the principle of devolved the heart of so much new medical regulation, this in contrast to the In all the Joint Committee made 31 research. The Committee considered Government’s desire for legal certainty. recommendations to which the access to a national bio–ethics The strength of the 1990 Act was an Government agreed in principle to 10, committee but rejected that in favour element of ‘future proofing’ which we rejected 7 and partially accepted, of a Parliamentary Bio-Ethics wanted to build into the new deferred or delegated the remainder. Committee. Sadly this was one legislation by allowing the regulator recommendation that the Government The flagship proposal to establish greater freedoms. We did so, refused to sanction. RATE was abandoned much to the recognising the speed at which delight of the BMA and virtually every research – particularly that involving The Human Fertilisation and other stakeholder who gave evidence. the development of embryonic stem Embryology Bill is now passing The fact that the Government accepted lines was progressing. We did not through the House of Lords and not that confidence in IVF and embryo want to create a situation where the unexpectedly many of the arguments research was best retained through the regulator would constantly have to heard by the Draft Committee are current regulator, the HFEA, come back to Parliament for new being rehearsed again. The Bill is far demonstrated, I believe, the spirit in permissions. more acceptable that when it began its which this crucial area of policy has journey in draft and as yet has not The Government opted for legal been approached. been subjected to amendments on the certainty but did accept that the HFEA 1967 Abortion Act - that pleasure This approach was applied to other should have more flexibility regarding awaits the House of Commons. What highly controversial areas where licensing decisions with respect to a was clear from the work of the Joint evidence from the Committee list of interspecies embryos as defined Committee was the need to take heed persuaded the Government to alter its in the Bill. It further conceded that, of Mary Warnock’s wise words back in position. provided the research was ‘necessary the late 1980s when she said “The law and desirable’, the HFEA should be must not outrage the feelings of too The Joint Committee had argued that able to license new research bids – a many people; but it cannot reflect the trying to create different categories of probable ‘score draw’ to use football feelings of them all. It must therefore interspecies embryos was misguided – parlance. I suspect there could be a be drawn with a view to the common that in effect once animal and human breakthrough if both the Committee good.” materials were allowed to mix in and the Government’s desire to have a whatever quantities a line had been single comprehensive definition for all Wise words for scientists and ethicists crossed and thereafter the quality of interspecies embryos could be realised. alike. the proposal should be decided by the regulator. As expected, the Joint Committee was Phil Willis MP divided in its views on some of the Chairman Draft Tissue and Embryos Bill Likewise we argued that having ethical and societal issues presented in Chairman of Innovation, Universities and accepted the principle of ‘saviour the Draft Bill. The dropping of ‘the Skills Select Committee siblings’ for ‘life threatening’ need for a father’ created heated but conditions using umbilical cord blood purposeful debate with well argued stem cells this practice should be support for both positions. The
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 7 The Institute for Animal Health; its role as a research provider and challenges being faced Professor Martin Shirley Director of the Institute for Animal Health
Introduction infectious disease research. IAH has future control of infectious diseases is formal research links with effective, timely and sustainable. IAH The Institute for Animal Health (IAH) approximately 25 UK universities, scientists have ‘a brief’ to understand plays a central role in the UK’s including all of the Veterinary Schools. the specific interactions between capability for addressing current and In the past year IAH has worked with livestock hosts and their pathogens. future infectious diseases affecting almost 200 overseas institutions in Only through knowledge of how farm livestock, and so supports the more than 30 partnering countries. infectious agents persist, are UK’s farming industry. Scientists at transmitted and cause disease in their IAH recently provided Government IAH research delivers natural hosts is it ever possible to with highly accurate advance warning benefits to animal health develop better methods of diagnosis, of the at-risk times of bluetongue (BT) improve husbandry to reduce disease virus being carried across the English and welfare transmission, improve existing Channel by infected midges and first- vaccines, develop new vaccines, class investigation, diagnostic service Events during August and September therapies and other control measures, and advice following the outbreak of 2007 were difficult for the IAH and to optimise the breeding of BT in the UK in September 2007. IAH Pirbright Laboratory because the naturally resistant stock. is working with Defra to develop the outbreak of FMD in cattle nearby was best control and eradication strategies blamed upon the escape of virus as a • The underpinning strategic nature of for the expected resurgence of BT in result of the inadequacy of the drains much of the science at IAH ensures 2008 when the midge population at Pirbright site, which are used by that it delivers practical outcomes. again becomes active. both IAH and its tenant, Merial, who Just a few of our achievements are manufacture vaccines, including described briefly below. The mission of IAH, which comprises vaccines against FMD. However, as the Compton (Berkshire) and Pirbright part of the process for UK • IAH predicted several years ago the (Surrey) Laboratories, is ‘to deliver high Government to gain control of the potential for northward spread of BT quality fundamental, strategic and applied situation, scientists and many others at virus due to global warming and science into infectious animal diseases, IAH worked almost 24/7 for very confirmed that midges in the UK some of which affect people, and, from that many weeks to deliver a state of the were competent vectors for knowledge, to advance veterinary and art diagnostic service so that the transmission of BT virus – medical science, enhance the sustainability outbreak of disease could be documented by the detection of BT of livestock farming, improve animal contained, controlled and eradicated virus in northern Europe in 2006 welfare, safeguard the supply and safety of in an informed manner. Whilst the and the spread of BT virus in the UK food, and protect public health and the scientific reputation per se of IAH in 2007. environment.’ IAH occupies a unique Pirbright has not been damaged, niche within the UK with its work public perception of its competence • IAH’s long and prominent being distinct from, but has no doubt suffered. contribution to the global eradication complementary to, that undertaken in of rinderpest (cattle plague) that is other sectors such as the Universities As amply demonstrated by BSE, FMD expected in 2010, with a benefit to and Government Agencies. in 2001, the recent incursion of highly the developing world of >$1 billion pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza, and annually and is work that addresses IAH, which is a Charitable Company, BT in 2007, animal health is a long- the UN Millennium Development is sponsored by, and its science term strategic issue for the UK, with Goal of eradicating extreme poverty programme closely aligned to the international dimensions and and hunger strategic planning of, the implications for human health. The (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals). Biotechnology and Biological Sciences risk to the UK of infection by exotic Research Council (BBSRC), with animal diseases has never been greater • Faster diagnostic tests for FMD and funding also from Defra. and has increased significantly as a BT, of proven worth in the outbreaks result of globalization, climate change of 2007. Our new diagnostic tests The Institute has a strong postgraduate and potential malicious acts. can differentiate between FMD- training programme and provides vaccinated and FMD-infected science and veterinary graduates with IAH research is a key part of the long- animals, a crucial first step for a advanced training in all aspects of term UK capability to ensure that vaccinate-to-live policy.
8 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 • Paracox, the first completely safe Redevelopment Programme started in Increasingly stringent health and vaccine against coccidiosis in 2003 and work on new animal safety, environmental, security and chickens, now used globally to accommodation, an insectary and biosecurity requirements for our type protect more than 1 billion chickens effluent treatment plant is complete. of research add an enormous overhead annually. Construction of the new Laboratory onto the work we do. If the budgets of facility (to replace the current our main funders (currently BBSRC • Torvac, a vaccine against respiratory 1950s/1960s building) is now our and Defra) were to decrease markedly, syncytial virus, to control respiratory number one priority and greatest IAH would be forced to work on fewer infections in cattle which in the UK imperative and will begin in 2008 as diseases and, for the most part, only alone affect 1.9 million cattle and the final phase of the Redevelopment those that are an immediate problem. kill 160,000 calves annually. Programme. However, costs for the Significant rationalisation of an complete Programme are now important programme of work is not • Diagnostics kits and reagents for expected to increase above the desirable because the UK is distribution worldwide. budgeted £121m for reasons that continually faced with either new include delays through the summer diseases appearing or old diseases re- The work of IAH informs and a review of the provisions for emerging as a result of changes in and supports policy-makers Biosecurity to implement lessons climate, legislation, trade or animal learned from the 2007 FMD outbreak. and human movements. While recent A critical aspect of IAH research is that Renewed commitment from all history demonstrates that it is certain it generates information and advice stakeholders is now therefore essential that these changes will happen, that is crucial for supporting UK if the UK is to have the facility that it predicting specifically which diseases Government and others, including the needs to help deliver crucial will appear next is extremely difficult European Commission; the EC surveillance, diagnosis and control of and it is essential that IAH provides Directorate General for Health and livestock pathogens that threaten the UK with expertise and facilities to deal Consumer Affairs; the Food and UK. In his independent review of the with whatever nature throws at us. Agriculture Organisation; the Office safety of UK facilities for handling Ideally, IAH should already be working International des Épizooties; the Pan FMD virus, presented to Government on these disease threats before they African Control of Epizootics in August 2007, Professor Brian Spratt happen (as was the case with BT) but programme, and the US Department wrote in Recommendation 11 that not all funders of research are of Agriculture. IAH can do this “The construction of the new currently prepared to commit to because it houses national and containment laboratories at IAH financial support for more than 1-3 international Reference and should go ahead as a matter of years. Short-term funding from any Surveillance Laboratories. These urgency. Such facilities are expensive major funder is not compatible with analyse thousands of samples from to construct and maintain and long-term research needs for the more than 50 countries each year. IAH Government must ensure that national interest, and could threaten also provides support and training in adequate funds continue to be the survival of Laboratories such as situ to smaller diagnostic laboratories available to enable the highest Pirbright and Compton. Once within developing countries, and standards of biological safety for specialised expertise, livestock and holds several training courses within dealing with FMDV and other high facilities are lost they are unlikely to be IAH for veterinarians and scientists risk viruses.” recovered – retaining competency in from the UK and all over the world. scientific research is not like a tap that A related challenge for IAH is how to can be turned on and off as required. Challenges for IAH deal with the rising costs of infectious Given the unequivocally strong disease research on a day-to-day basis, demand for research into diseases of The key challenges for IAH in 2008 especially as IAH has an intrinsic livestock that can threaten the are more than those envisaged even requirement for livestock housed in economic wellbeing of the UK, IAH just one year ago. The Pirbright Site high containment buildings. remains very optimistic for its future.
The modelled plume of air that is believed to have carried bluetongue virus-infected midges to the UK on the night of 4-5th August 2007, precipitating the disease in the UK. Produced as part of a joint IAH/Met Office and Defra-funded collaborative project.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 9 The Large Hadron Collider Dr Lyndon Evans LHC project leader
ater this year, Europe will LHC Computing Grid will give them inaugurate mankind’s most seamless access to globally distributed L ambitious scientific undertaking, resources of data storage and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at processing capacity. Through the the CERN laboratory near Geneva. GridPP project, the UK is a leading Continuing a tradition of enquiry that player in developing this new dates back to the dawn of humanity, computing paradigm. experiments at the LHC are poised to change profoundly our understanding Pure research is the fundamental of the Universe. In doing so, they are driver of innovation, without it, there also pushing back the frontiers of would be no science to apply. Many technology in areas ranging from are aware that the World Wide Web communication to medical imaging, was invented at CERN by the British which has further developed them for they are setting a model for scientist Tim Berners-Lee to address use in other areas, and in turn made international collaboration on a global the needs of particle physics. Fewer them more attractive to us. Such are aware that most of what we take scale, and they are doing the kind of exchanges are essential for particle for granted in today’s technological research that has the power to inspire, physics, and for ensuring that society has roots in basic research. attracting a new generation of people advances made in the name of particle Electricity arose through Faraday’s into science. physics benefit society as a whole. curiosity about a natural phenomenon, Pure research is CERN’s reason for not through applied R&D on the The United Kingdom was one of being, but the curiosity that motivates candle. Without Einstein’s curiosity CERN’s founder members in 1954, CERN scientists requires them to about gravity, there would be no GPS, and has always been a strong develop cutting edge technology. The and without quantum mechanics, that supporter of the CERN ideal. Over the basic tool of particle physics is the most esoteric of sciences, we would years, the UK’s science, industry and particle accelerator, a device invented have no electronic devices. Today, culture have been enriched by in the 1920s and 30s for basic nobody can tell what innovation may membership of CERN. The UK was research. Today, there are thousands of arise from the fundamental science the first of CERN’s Member States to accelerators in the world, most of that the LHC provides, but it would be organise trade fairs at the laboratory them in hospitals where they are used a foolish person who said there will be under the banner of ‘Britain at CERN’. to treat cancer or produce medical no practical benefit. I for one will not Today, the UK is a key player in the isotopes, or in industry where they be joining the ranks of scientists like LHC project, with over 20 British perform a wide range of tasks. Medical Rutherford, who infamously said that Universities involved and UK scientists applications of particle physics ideas of getting energy from atoms holding many key positions at CERN. technologies are in fact a recurring were moonshine. theme. Scanning techniques such as UK scientists are playing a prominent CERN’s founding convention states PET and MRI both owe much to role in the construction of the large that the results of the laboratory’s work research in particle physics. The particle detectors that will record the ‘shall be published or otherwise made sensors in PET scanners were first results of particle collisions in the generally available’. This is a message developed for experiments in particle LHC, and are providing some of the that has shaped CERN’s relationship physics, while MRI brings together most technologically advanced techniques developed for a range of with the world. Throughout its history, components. Examples include disciplines including particle physics. the Organisation has always strived to semiconductor particle detectors with share and exchange its knowledge fast electronics using deep sub-micron One of the key technologies being with all areas of society that might technology, crystals for accurately developed for the LHC is Grid benefit. We placed the basic concepts measuring high-energy photons, a computing. Experiments at the LHC of the World Wide Web in the public detector for particle identification with will produce unprecedented quantities domain on 30 April 1993, thus unprecedented performance, and the of data, roughly the equivalent of a ensuring that everyone would have electronics that has the mission of 20 km high stack of CD-ROMs every non-proprietary access to the Internet. sifting out the interesting data from year. Analysing this data will be a Some of our detector technologies the millions of particle collisions that global community of scientists. The have been transferred to industry, the LHC will produce every second.
10 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 CERN was founded with the ambition journey that began with Newton’s The standard model gives us a of producing world-leading research in description of gravity. Gravity acts on powerful description of the matter that Europe, and on principles of openness mass, but so far science is unable to makes up all we can see in the and inclusion. Today, CERN is the explain why fundamental particles Universe, and the forces that give world’s leading laboratory for research have the masses they have. The British structure to atoms, people, planets and into the fundamental mysteries of physicist, Peter Higgs, has contributed stars. But cosmological observations nature - into the particles that make to the most probable proposal to have shown that what we can see is our Universe and the forces that bind explain why some particles have mass only a small fraction of what must be them together. CERN’s research has and others do not. If he is right, there out there. Visible matter seems to always been conducted with an open- will be a ‘Higgs’ particle, which should account for just 4% of what must door policy. Throughout the cold war, quickly be found at the LHC. exist, the rest is made up of dark CERN scientists worked freely with matter and energy, about which we their colleagues from behind the iron Finding the Higgs particle would bring know very little. Experiments at the curtain. Today, some 9000 scientists to a close an important chapter in our LHC could take our first steps into from all over the world work together understanding of nature. Over the last understanding this unknown 96% of peacefully at CERN, regardless of four decades, physicists have pieced the Universe. politics, race or religion. together a comprehensive understanding of the fundamental Another fundamental question for the Their focus is the LHC, a machine that particles of matter and the forces that LHC concerns the mystery of will collide particles of matter, act between them. The Higgs particle antimatter. Big Bang theory tells us protons, at high energy as a tool to is the last piece in the jigsaw of this that in the first moments of the address some of the most puzzling so-called standard model, but as with Universe there were equal amounts of mysteries of the Universe. The LHC’s all good stories, the conclusion of one matter and antimatter. Today there first mission will be to complete a chapter leads naturally into the next. appears to be only matter. Matter and antimatter have annihilated, and only a tiny fraction of what was created remains to make the visible Universe. By making antimatter in our accelerators, we can address the question of what mechanism is responsible for this asymmetry. The LHC will also allow scientists to reproduce and study matter as it would have been just a tiny fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the primordial soup that existed when the Universe was too hot for nuclei and atoms to be formed, and that has condensed into the nuclear matter from which we are made. When the LHC starts up in 2008, and results start to flow in the months and years that follow, the eyes of the world will be on CERN. This is a unique opportunity to attract young people into science, and to address the much- publicised deficit of physicists for UK industry. Society relies on physics. Industry relies on physics. The economy relies on physics. And our ability to attract young people into physics relies on those branches of the field, like particle physics, that are at the frontier of knowledge. UK participation in CERN is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council, an independent non-departmental public body of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills
A welder closing one of the interconnects between LHC magnets
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 11 Messages from the Sea Professor Laurence Mee Director of the University of Plymouth Marine Institute; Chair of the Plymouth Marine Sciences Partnership Executive Committee; Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the Protection of the Seas
ast September, I accepted an at those with political responsibility invitation to visit the West for failing to think outside their sector Coast of Greenland as part of a or for pursuing short-termism in the L name of political expediency. Our seas floating symposium between scientists, religious leaders and politicians who certainly provide plenty of evidence of were discussing climate change and all these failings. For years we have other human impacts on the Arctic. managed our fisheries as a production marine areas in the same way as it This was a poignant occasion because industry without considering how does to the land. This cannot be it coincided with the discovery of some activities impact the ecosystem achieved by tinkering with existing dramatic shrinkage of summer sea ice upon which fish and human welfare complex laws and entitlements; we to an area that had been predicted for depends. We have sometimes pursued need a radical step change to meet the 2040 by the Arctic Council. conservation goals as if humans do not challenges of a modern society… and exist. We have given insufficient any new management scheme should As our plane soared across the Irish importance to the key role that the sea be supported by an appropriate Sea on its way north, I spotted has in regulating climate change and science base. Blackpool pier, Morecambe Bay, to investment in improving our The case of offshore renewables Sellafield and the new 90MW offshore understanding of this vital process. We illustrates the complexities. With plans windfarm near Barrow-in-Furness. are surprised when the sea becomes announced for some 7000 new wind Fishing boats and cargo vessels were more acidic as it absorbs more CO2; generators and technology that will plying their way. Most of the previous when new species invade our shores as allow them to be installed in water as night, I had been working to complete waters become warmer or they are deep as 50 metres, vast areas of our an article on the proposed European inadvertently (but avoidably) brought continental shelf will be dedicated to Marine Strategy Directive and was by cargo ships; when seabird energy production. Operators are dealing with correspondence on the populations decline because the nervous about other legitimate users of Science Select Committee Inquiry on sandeels they depend on have been marine space in their farms, “Investigating the Oceans” for which I removed by industrial fishing; when particularly fishers with mobile gear was the Special Adviser and which was bathers find beaches inexplicably (nets, dredges, etc). Where will our launched in Plymouth, the home of covered with green algae. fish come from? There is a risk that one of the largest concentrations of But the story is not all about doom fishermen displaced from these areas marine scientists in the UK working and gloom. Our beaches are cleaner will put even heavier pressure on the together as the Plymouth Marine than they have been for over a remaining habitats. On the other Sciences Partnership. Suddenly seeing century; problems can be solved when hand, the wind and wave farms may the sea glimmering below me left me awareness is high, feelings run strong act as protected areas, though there awestruck; it is such an important part and interests coincide. The offshore will be disturbance associated with of our identity as a nation but how wind farm near Barrow is a pioneer of power generation technology. There much do we really know about it and many future marine renewable energy are difficult choices ahead and these are we really protecting it and using it projects using tides, wind and waves. require value judgements based on sensibly? There is huge untapped potential for sound science. Given the limitation in Scientists are sometimes accused of responsible marine biotechnology. We our current knowledge base, they will looking at the small details and need to revalue our relationship to the also need a precautionary approach, missing the bigger picture. On the sea if the well-accepted concept of conserving or restoring enough marine other hand, the finger is often pointed sustainable development is to apply to space to form a network of protected
12 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 areas. We simply do not understand including blue skies research. The European Marine Strategy Directive enough about the marine environment recent Select Committee report (MSD). Both instruments pursue to exploit it in its entirety; even if showed that the UK has a legacy of marine spatial planning – a different deemed ethically acceptable, the risk excellent marine science and that concept from land planning because would be too great. research councils (particularly the there are no fences in the sea – and Natural Environment Research the so-called “ecosystem approach” We are about to witness the biggest Council) are making great efforts to that accepts management to be of change in history in the use of our support it within the constraints of people and not of the environment. marine space but the needs for their own funding. But overall, the Curiously, it is the relationship providing sound long-term UK’s Marine Science is poorly co- between human welfare and the sea information have been ignored or ordinated, often inadequately that we understand the least but understated. We became aware of supported and risks falling behind our people, their representatives and rising CO2 levels because of long-term competitors. We need a national leaders, set a future vision for our seas. measurements at the Mauna Loa strategy for marine science and a high observatory in Hawaii. But few readers As I watched the melting icebergs in level mechanism to ensure delivery will have heard that the only truly Greenland and listened to local people and optimal use. This will require bold long-term (but less celebrated) data and saw some of the huge deepwater thinking, which is why the Select series on the marine food chain comes trawlers that work blindly at Committee suggested a Marine Agency from the Plymouth-based Sir Alister unprecedented depths, it was clear to with Ministerial level engagement. Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science. me that we need to radically change Many other observations have often Without a new planning process and our relationship to the sea. With been interrupted due to sporadic associated regulations, sustainable appropriate investment in marine funding however, and access to data is development of the UK’s marine science and its innovative application, often difficult. Much new marine environment will be unachievable; the UK has the potential to lead the technology is being imported from new technologies will be delayed and way towards sustainable seas. countries where entrepreneurs have conflicts will emerge. This is why the seized the opportunity based on well- proposed Marine Bill is essential, and, supported research and development, on a larger geographical scale, the
Religious representatives on the foredeck of the MS Fram off the west coast of Greenland conduct a ceremony to launch a floating symposium of scientists, religious leaders and politicians brought together to discuss science and ethical issues of climate change, September 2007.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 13 You can never predict in physics….. Beth Taylor Director of Communications, Institute of Physics (IOP)
he law of unintended bought by more than 4 million UK consequences provides a rather music lovers and is often credited by Tsolemn warning against economists as one of the most disorder. Not being able to predict the important new consumer products in effects of one’s actions in a modern national economies. and rational society is a matter for concern. Physics however is a At the time of winning the award, discipline that defies this law. Albert Fert was asked whether he Sometimes that which starts as foresaw how significant his discovery was and whether he had predicted measure the time taken for a signal to academic research, undertaken purely be sent from a satellite to a user which to extend the boundaries of our how widely-used it would become. He responded, “You can never predict in allows the global positioning systems knowledge, can result in extraordinary, to determine an extremely accurate occasionally life-changing, spin-offs. physics. These days when I go to my grocer and see him type on a location. computer, I say, ‘Wow, he’s using There are many examples of how Applying the atomic clock for use in something I put together in my mind.’ physics has changed society for the global positioning systems was largely It’s wonderful.” Fert and Grunberg better, perhaps with no targeted inspired by military activity in the provide a very clear example of how intention of doing so from the outset. Cold War. During the Cold War, a fundamental breakthroughs in physics Below are a few illuminating examples. team of American scientists were can sometimes have hugely significant monitoring the movement of the The iPod effects on national economies and Soviet Union’s Sputnik and they individual lifestyles that go far beyond realised that as they knew their own The Nobel Prize for Physics in 2007 is the original academic purposes of the location, they could pinpoint where a good place to start. It is a prime research. example of how fundamental physics the satellite was along its own orbit research not only affects people’s day- GPS using the Doppler Effect, measuring to-day lives but can also energise the changes in the frequency of the economies. People do not generally Another product that derived from signal being transmitted by Sputnik. connect the existence of MP3 players fundamental physics research which Inspiration from military techniques, with fundamental physics research. has had a dramatic effect on lifestyle, fundamental physics research and a Frenchman Albert Fert and German and in particular for drivers, is the consumer demand for easy-to- Peter Grunberg received the Nobel proliferation of global positioning understand navigation systems have Prize for Physics in 2007 for their systems (GPS). Now more than 1.5 changed the way many of us get from academic research into Giant million UK cars have GPS systems a to b. Magnetoresistance (GMR). Researching fitted but few drivers consider what GMR made it possible to miniaturise GPS actually came from. It was Space physics is also an integral part of hard disk drives and create, for research undertaken in stages by GPS systems as GPS currently uses example, the iPod. organisations such as the United States signals from more than twenty Department of Defense and the UK’s satellites orbiting the globe. This In 1988, both Fert and Grunberg National Physical Laboratory (NPL). emphasises a further aspect of independently concluded that weak developments in physics research magnetic charges which give rise to In the mid-1950s, Louis Essen which lead to the development of differences in electrical resistance finished work on the first precise modern technology – international co- could help create a perfect tool for atomic clock at NPL. An atomic clock operation across disciplines. The UK is reading data from hard disks. The keeps accurate time by keeping track widely respected in the international work was initially applied to sensitive of atomic frequencies. It defines a science community. Teams of read-out heads but has been advanced second as more than nine billion researchers in the UK contribute commercially for a range of different cycles of radiation, corresponding to massively to advances in international products. The iconic iPod is possibly the transition between two energy science and international science often the best known spin-off from this levels of the atom caesium-133. This provides information which underpins research. Since 2001 it has been impeccable precision is used to UK breakthroughs.
14 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 MRI Scanning understanding of how the climate is classrooms decreasing as the changing stem from fundamental proportion of girls choosing to study An equally striking spin-off from physics research. physics increased. Lord Sainsbury’s fundamental physics research now ‘Race to the Top’ Review emphasised dominates the world of medicine. UK Climate modelling has given scientists the need for us to further develop physicist Sir Peter Mansfield received and environmentalists the most high-value technologies as part of our the Nobel Prize in 2003 for his work conclusive evidence to prove that our knowledge economy if we want to on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). own emission of noxious greenhouse avoid becoming global losers. So, at The technique emerged from gases is contributing to climate the grass roots physics is on the rise fundamental physics research change. The computer models used to and there is official acknowledgement demonstrating that some atomic nuclei predict climate change take account of from our current Government that which can be aligned by a magnetic the range of factors that play a role in physics research needs to be nurtured. field absorb particular frequencies of modulating the climate, such as solar radio wave and then release activity, atmospheric particles, and However, funding for fundamental characteristic signals as they relax back feedback factors. The models help us physics research is under pressure. In to their original state. Mansfield is predict the future rate of change and December 2007 the Department for credited with showing how the radio have highlighted how urgently action Innovation, Universities and Skills signals from MRI can be is required. Without fundamental (DIUS) announced the Science Budget mathematically analysed, making physics research, we would not for 2008-2011. While the new budget interpretations of the signals into a understand how pressure, volume and was welcomed by the majority of the useful image. temperature interact in our UK’s science community, there was atmosphere, nor would we understand alarm among both the fundamental MRI scanners have become a crucial the way the electromagnetic spectrum physics research community and tool in early detection of fatal diseases is reflected and absorbed, and we astronomers as it became apparent that such as cancer. MRI scans allow would not be able to forecast the the Science and Technology Facilities medical practitioners to visualise the future. Council (STFC) was being allocated structure and function of the body to less money than it needed to maintain help spot dangerous anomalies such as Politicians have been influenced by its current commitments. tumours. MRI scanners create a one crucial document that drew its powerful magnetic field which aligns conclusions from extensive use of STFC was formed in April 2007 the magnetisation of hydrogen atoms computer modelling systems, the through the merger of the Council of in the body, allowing an image of the IPCC Summary for Policymakers of the Central Laboratory of the Research body to be constructed. This the Scientific Assessment. No doubt it Councils and the Particle Physics and technique is particularly advantageous was this document that world leaders Astronomy Research Councils. Its because it is non-intrusive, causing will have been re-reading on the way main responsibilities are to fund minimal physical damage to gain to Bali last December. university departments through grants important results. for research in particle physics, space The problem of climate change can science, astronomy and nuclear There are more than 500 scanners at not be solved by physics research science while managing world-class work in Britain and they form a crucial alone but physics research can play a scientific facilities in the UK and part- frontline in the NHS’s fight to key role in helping us understand the sponsoring international science minimise cancer-related deaths. In scale of the threat mankind is facing. facilities to allow UK researchers 2007 alone, almost three quarters of a Equally, it can help us in developing access to the very best facilities around million scans were undertaken in UK new, green technologies. While in the the world. hospitals and, to date, no rival imaging Twentieth Century World Wars and a technique has been developed that has subsequent Cold War dominated The shortfall in STFC’s budget has such a remarkable success rate with so international concerns, if the Twenty resulted in a delivery plan that will little harm caused in use. First Century continues as it has lead to job losses at universities and begun then climate chaos will be the three leading research laboratories; a Climate modelling and green biggest concern. It was physicists and 25 per cent cut in university grants; technology mathematicians that broke the code and withdrawal from a number of Hard disk drives, GPS and MRI and helped end the Second World high-profile programmes such as the scanners are all perfect examples of War: physicists can play just as key a International Linear Collider. role in saving the environment. how physics research shapes our In light of these concerns, the modern world. When prioritising UK A Happy New Year for physics? Government has commissioned a concerns, the economy and health care review of the health of physics. It is are certainly somewhere near the top Physics enjoyed a good 2007. For the crucial that all concerned keep in but there is an even more pressing first time in twenty years, the number mind the importance of fundamental concern that fundamental physics of A and AS Level Examination research to both the health of the UK’s research has made significant headway entrants saw a small but significant science base and to the economy. in addressing – climate change. Some increase. As encouraging were statistics of the most significant advances in our that showed the gender gap in physics
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 15 Meeting the Challenges of Biosimilar Medicines Dr Richard Fluck Lead Clinician Renal Services and Consultant Renal Physician, Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
s science and innovation have serious consequences for patient fully qualified healthcare professionals. progress they will require safety through unforeseen adverse In addition, several European A Parliamentarians to examine drug reactions. Additionally, biosimilar countries have since gone further and the changes and opportunities they medicines rely on extrapolated data introduced regulations to ban the bring to the NHS. The advent of from originator treatments and do not automatic substitution of the often biotechnology-derived medicines is an yet have the same robust data of the cheaper biosimilar treatments. The example of this progress which brings originator products. This raises European Commission director with it new challenges, in particular concerns as to whether they behave in responsible for pharmaceutical policy those of biosimilar medicines (also the same way as the originator has written to the heads of national known as biosimilars). products and therefore how they regulatory agencies, outlining a need should fit into the current prescribing to improve the pharmacovigilance Biotech medicines are a ground- mechanisms in the UK or if new systems in the countries in order to breaking development in the treatment regulation is required to safeguard ensure that the arrival of biosimilar of a number of diseases, including patient safety. Biosimilar medicines erythropoiesis stimulating agents (ESA cancer, osteoporosis and arthritis. therefore pose a number of challenges or EPOs) will not cause any problems Today there are around 230 biotech to the NHS and to the health policies – such as incorrect attribution of medicines available, benefiting over in all of the devolved regions of the adverse events. The Commission also 325 million people worldwide. Some UK. emphasises the need for the of these innovator biotech medicines prescribing doctor to know which are reaching patent expiry, and follow- The EU and the European Medicines product has been given to which on, or biosimilar, products are Agency (EMEA) has already started to patient. appearing on the market. Unlike address the challenge of biosimilars by generic copies of traditional medicines, establishing a new pathway for the The UK has yet to decide how to these follow-on products cannot be appraisal of these biosimilar drugs. respond to this challenge. Whilst identical to originator products – at They recommend that prescribing biosimilars open up alternative most, they are “similar”. This may decisions should only be made by treatment options that may save the
Case Study – G-CSF and Febrile Neutropenia Biosimilars are gradually entering the market place in the UK. One that is expected to become available in the coming months in the UK is Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF). This is a growth factor that stimulates the bone marrow to produce white blood cells. G-CSF is used to prevent a low count of a certain type of white blood cell during treatment for chemotherapy. This low white cell count is known as Febrile Neutropenia, or FN. There are currently a couple of daily G-CSF products that have different biological characteristics and are currently licensed for use in Europe, including in the UK. Comparative studies have demonstrated differences between these two products with regard to their pharmacological properties and clinical outcomes. These two products are not considered to be interchangeable. Since there will be limited clinical experience with the use of biosimilars when they are first licensed, it is important that healthcare professionals are fully informed about the possible risks of substitution. Automatic substitution, in the same way that is currently seen with generic treatments, may lead to the administration of multiple products. In this scenario it would not be possible to link an adverse reaction, or indeed particularly successful treatment, to a specific product. Furthermore, the identification of biopharmaceutical products might not be possible if multiple products share one International Non-proprietary Name (INN). In knowing how a biosimilar will work, data extrapolation can be useful and has a rational basis; however, if this is the only way by which indications for a product are approved, this should be well known to all healthcare practitioners and to patients. A particular concern with data extrapolation arises in G-CSF biosimilars, since efficacy and risks may differ in patient populations depending on age, on disease (malignant or non-malignant) and immunosuppression.
16 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 NHS money on its drugs bill, it is review, it will be important that people ensure that prescribers are aware that important that Government, are kept on treatments known to be biosimilar data are usually extrapolated healthcare professionals and patients effective for them. Where a patient has from data of the originator product. are aware of the possible associated been receptive to a biomedical risks that these treatments may bring treatment they should be maintained The decision to start treatment with with them. It was with these concerns on that particular treatment and not biosimilars, as with any potential in mind that I accepted an invitation moved to a biosimilar, which, while treatment, should be openly discussed from Dr Brian Iddon MP (Bolton designed to treat the same condition, by the prescriber and the patient. South East) to address the may do so in a slightly different Should they chose to prescribe a Parliamentary Review on Biosimilars, manner. biosimilar, there should be clear held in November 2007 and information on Patient Information supported by the biotech company, At the Parliamentary Review into Leaflets to inform patients about Amgen. Biosimilars it was explained how the potential adverse reactions to British National Formulary (BNF) biosimilars that may not occur in the At the Review, which heard evidence would be able to alert healthcare originator product. To assist in this from a number of other industry professionals to the complications process of discussion with patients, we experts, the panel agreed on a number related to biosimilars. The review believe it would be useful for the of actions that should be taken panel agreed that the BNF should be Government to launch an awareness forward across all of the devolved responsible for highlighting the campaign to educate the public about health regions in recognition of the difference between biosimilars and the biosimilars and the importance of increasing number of biosimilar originator products. In addition the reporting any adverse reactions to medicines that will become available panel called for all biosimilar biosimilars, regardless of their severity, to the NHS in the coming months and medicines to be marked with black to enable an accurate picture of the years. triangle symbols by the MHRA until efficacy and safety of each biosimilar. the available scientific data can The first recommendation agreed was provide certainty about the possible Biotechnology-derived products are at that biosimilar prescribing procedures implications of biosimilars. the cutting edge of modern medicine should be amended as a matter of and as their patents expire we enter a urgency. It is common practice to Pharmacovigilance and reporting new phase which brings new substitute existing generic medicines mechanisms of adverse reactions to challenges for policy makers. However, without discussion with the medicines is an integral component in biological therapies are complex prescribing clinician. This is because improving our knowledge of medications, and variation in both the traditional small molecule generic biosimilars. In the UK this is drug component and the delivery medicines have an identical chemical administered through the yellow card methodology (for example the solution structure to the innovator, such as scheme. Concerns were raised that this it is delivered in) may lead to aspirin. However, the “similar” nature system may need to be strengthened to unexpected consequences. Therefore, of biosimilars should now make this deal with the added until we have better information with an obsolete practice for this particular pharmacovigilance requirements that which to answer the questions they group of treatments. Much of the are necessary with biosimilars. This pose, we would be wrong to risk clinical concern revolves around both information needs to be shared patient safety by failing to impose the patient safety and treatment efficacy. between doctors and across the EU. It rigorous safety standards and is important that patients are aware of precautions we have come to expect, The key to ensuring patient safety is adverse reactions and what should be as these treatments are gradually an immediate ban on the automatic reported, together with the possible introduced to the UK market. Other substitution of biosimilars, which risks of biosimilars in the first place. countries, including France and Spain, should themselves be prescribed by Any successful programme to ensure have put restrictions on the automatic brand name alone to avoid confusion patient safety will educate all substitution of biosimilars. To ensure and inadvertent substitution. With healthcare professionals, including patient safety remains our highest healthcare becoming increasingly doctors, nurses and pharmacists. A concern, the UK should not hesitate to personalised, as advocated in the Darzi crucial part of this education will be to follow suit.
Biography: Dr Richard Fluck Dr Richard Fluck is a consultant renal physician and clinical lead for renal services at Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He trained at Trinity Hall, Cambridge and the London Hospital before carrying out research at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, before moving to the Medical Unit at the Royal London Hospital as a Lecturer. He was appointed to his current position in 1996. Over the last 10 years Derby Renal Services has grown from a single-handed practice to an active research and training centre. In addition to local duties, he has been a member of the Renal Association executive, Council member of the British Renal Society, programme chair for the BRS annual conference, member of the Renal Registry committee and most recently national lead for DOPPS. He has been national lead for renal associated infection and vascular access issues and has worked with the HPA and DH on renal associated infections. He has lectured widely on infection, vascular access and patient safety in renal disease. He and his team won the 2007 Hospital Doctor Renal Team of the Year award.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 17 GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH - IS IT SUSTAINABLE? MEETING OF THE PARLIAMENTARY AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE ON MONDAY 22ND OCTOBER 2007
Dr Malcolm Potts MB, BChir, FRCOG Bixby Professor Population, Family Planning and Maternal Health, University of California, Berkeley
Is population growth a every decade. Petroleum geologists problem? suggest oil production could peak as early as 2020. Perhaps less profligate Global population grows more rapidly use and alternative sources of energy now (217,000 more births than deaths will keep pace with demand, but if each day) than in the 1960s (165,000 they do not the world economy could more). Rapid population growth used spiral downwards. to command wide attention, but today it meets a collective yawn. Some scientists suggest that human activity exceeded the Earth’s capacity Ninety-nine per cent of the projected to support it in 1985. Such predictions In Kenya, prior to Cairo, when family growth in population by 2050 will have wide margins of error and even planning was emphasised, the TFR fell take place in the developing world. bringing today’s global population to from 8 to below 5. After Cairo, family Already 1.2 billion lack access to clean western standards of consumption and planning budgets dropped, unwanted water. By 2025 a staggering 3 billion pollution would probably exceed the births doubled, and the fall in the TFR people will be short of water. world’s resources. In 1993, a stalled. The population in 2050 could Population Summit of 60 national be 83 million instead of 44 million. Population projections depend on scientific academies, including the Unless there is a renaissance of interest calculating the total fertility rate (TFR) Royal Society, issued a sombre and investment in family planning, – the average number of children a warning, “science and technology may Kenya will become a failed state, like woman will have over her fertile life, not be able to prevent irreversible Somalia and the Congo. based on current age-specific fertility degradation and continued poverty for rates. The Ethiopian TFR is 5.4. The Last year, the All Party Parliamentary much of the world.” The Academies population has multiplied 15 times Group on Population, Development recommended “zero population since 1900 and unless family planning and Reproductive Health held hearings growth within the lifetime of our receives more attention it will reach on the impact of population growth on children.” 145 million in 2050. Already, 8 the Millennium Development Goals. million Ethiopians depend on external Unfortunately, a year later the After taking a great deal of expert food aid. Niger has a TFR of 8. Four International Conference on evidence, they concluded that it is out of 10 children are malnourished Population and Development in Cairo “difficult or impossible” to achieve the and 84% of adults are illiterate. If the did not listen to the world’s scientists. MDGs in high fertility countries. TFR falls to 3.6 the population will Women advocates “redefined” If population growth is a problem can grow from 14 million today to 50 population, framing anything to do anything be done about it? million in 2050: if it remains constant with “population” as intrinsically there will be 80 million. coercive, and even the word In the 1960s offering family planning “demographic” became politically to lower birth rates in the absence of For the 2 billion people living on 50p incorrect. Compelling evidence of the socio-economic improvements was a day or less, future population growth success of family planning dubbed “wishful thinking”. Now we is unsustainable. The rich also face programmes was ignored, or criticised know that socio-economic changes are formidable problems. World Bank as “target driven”. It was asserted that not a prerequisite for dropping the projections suggest a four-fold increase fertility decline would occur when birth rate. In fact, some countries in the global domestic product in the holistic social and health goals were cannot get out of poverty unless next 50 years. Past growth has reached. population growth is slowed. As a depended on doubling oil output result of rapid population growth,
18 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 developing countries need 2 million lack of access to contraception, not a which now has more women than more teachers annually, just to hold desire for bigger families which is men in universities, and, along with class size constant. driving the disparity. Family planning much slower population growth, is is often over-medicalised raising likely to be increasingly stable. Iran Slowing population growth pays what innumerable, unnecessary obstacles demonstrates that a pack of oral has been called a demographic between women and the methods they contraceptives and access to voluntary dividend. Individuals with smaller need. Providers, fearful a woman sterilisation can help start a social families have more income to invest might be pregnant, often refuse revolution from within. Ultimately, the and a rapid fall in the birth rate contraceptive advice unless she is Pill is mightier than the sword. produces a relatively large work force. menstruating when she visits the When all the other parameters are clinic. Reasons for hope fixed demographic changes by The wonderful discovery of the past themselves pushed the savings rate in India and Iran Taiwan higher than in the US or 50 years has been that people all over France where the birth rate fell more India was the first nation to develop a the world want voluntary family slowly. It is precisely the countries that national population policy, but it still planning. Tragically, 200 million have been able to slow population grew from 357 million to over one women, almost all in poor countries, growth, which are now undergoing billion in 50 years. The government cannot get access to the choices they rapid economic expansion, and often built a top-down national programme need and deserve. becoming more democratic. around western trained physicians, It is imperative to make as wide a while most of India’s population range of fertility regulation options Jeffrey Sachs writes in The End of growth is in rural areas where there available, through as wide a range of Poverty, “. . . that impoverished are no doctors. Instead of correcting distribution channels as resources families choose to have lots of this shortcoming, Indira Ghandi’s permit. Priority must be given to children.” But, the decision to have a government used coercive measures to ensuring modern contraceptives and child is not like choosing to buy a car, meet demographic targets, leading to the information people need to use where the person balances their election defeat in 1977. The Islamic them. Government services are finances against their perceived need. Republic of Iran was one of the last overloaded, have weak logistics and Sex is often irrational and passionate, countries to confront rapid population lack incentives, and the very poor tend and human beings have sexual growth. In 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini to use the private/informal health intercourse up to a thousand times was pursuaded to adopt a national sector. As the All Party Report points more frequently than is necessary to family planning policy: contraceptive out, an emphasis on Sector-Wide conceive the children they want. factories were built, every newlywed Approaches (SWAps) in foreign aid Having a child is not a single decision couple is required to attend family misses some of the poorest and most made one night to turn fertility on, but planning instruction, and vulnerable groups. a difficult, consistent, prolonged appropriately trained health workers struggle to turn fertility off. are stationed in the rural areas. Iranian As the world’s scientific academies Impoverished families have “lots of family size fell from six to two - as foresaw a decade and a half ago, and children” not because they want them, rapidly as in China, but without any as the All Party Group reiterated in but because they do not have access to coercion. January this year, without a significant modern contraceptives to turn fertility slowing of population growth we face off. The 9/11 Commission Report called “a “irreversible degradation of the natural large, steadily increasing population of environment and continued poverty Over the past decade the disparities in young men [is] a sure prescription for for much of the world.” Building on family size between rich and poor in social turbulence.” Pakistan, which the All Party Report, there is no better developing countries have increased – never had a well-organised family place in the world to make this implying less education for the planning programme, will more than happen than here, in the mother of children of the poor, more hunger, double its population by 2050 and Parliaments. more women dying and more infants become increasingly violent. Iran, dying. The poor use contraception less, but the statistics also show that The Report of Hearings by the All Party Group on Population, Development and they have a much greater unmet need Reproductive Health (Return of the Population Growth factor: Its Impact upon the for family planning, suggesting it is Millennium Development Goals) is on the web at www.appg-popdevrh.org.uk
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 19 GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH - IS IT SUSTAINABLE? Lessons from China Dr Therese Hesketh Clinical Senior Lecturer, Centre for International Health and Development, University College London
urrently 1.7 billion people live consequence of high fertility, and in countries where the Total improved survival, resulting from CFertility Rate is between three relative societal stability, food security and five children for every woman of and improved public health measures. Bureau sets targets and policy reproductive age. A further 740 direction, but implementation is the Concerns about this rapid growth and million people live in countries where responsibility of local family planning particularly the possibility of food the TFR is greater than five. Almost all committees, so there is great variation shortages, led to the “Late, Long, Few” of these countries are among the least in implementation. The one child rule policy in 1970. This was a voluntary developed and this level of population applies only to urban areas and to policy focusing on late marriage, a growth is unsustainable, given limited government workers. Two children are long gap between children and fewer natural resources. China is the only allowed in most rural areas, which children. This was underpinned by country to have taken sustained, applies to around 70% of the easy access to contraception, and enforced and sometimes controversial population. There are a number of while there was considerable social measures to control its growing exceptions to the Policy. This includes pressure to comply, there was no population. The question is does ethnic groups, certain occupations like coercion. As a result fertility rates China’s experience of population mining, and where the first child has a dropped dramatically in just a decade control have any relevance for those disability or chronic illness. As with from 5.8 in 1970 to 2.9 in 1979. But countries facing rapid population the “Late, Long, Few” policy, marriage the population continued to grow growth today? is not permitted before certain ages, because the baby boomers of the 50s which vary by location and gender, and 60s were entering their Before the One Child Policy and second children are generally only reproductive years, and by 1979 two- allowed after a gap of four to five China had some lessons for other thirds of the population were under years. Sometimes this is only allowed countries long before the One Child 30. if the first child is a girl, clearly Policy was instigated. When Mao Ze This worried Deng Xiao Ping, who acknowledging the traditional Dong came to power in 1949 he assumed power in 1978, and prepared preference for boys. inherited an impoverished country, to embark on a hugely ambitious which had been ravaged by decades of The policy is underpinned by a system economic reform programme. He civil war, not unlike many of the of rewards and penalties. The rewards recognised that curbing population countries with highest population include economic incentives such as growth was essential for economic growth today. He believed that human payments of cash, low interest loans expansion and improved living resources would have to be China’s and preference in schooling. The standards. So he introduced the One main weapon in the widely predicted commonest penalties are very Child Policy. Third World War. So couples were substantial fines, and for those unable encouraged to have large families with to pay, confiscation of belongings. What is the One Child Policy? the result that in the early Mao years Government employees risk losing fertility was very high. From 1950 to The One Child Policy is a set of rules their jobs. The Policy is supported by 1970 the population increased from and regulations governing approved a massive propaganda campaign, 540 million to 850 million, as a family size. The State Family Planning stressing the societal benefits and the
20 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 personal material benefits of having But the proportion of the elderly strict enforcement necessitated under just one child. population above 65 will rise to only the One Child Policy, though perhaps 18% by 2025, about the same as most not to the levels of today. The results of the Policy Western countries today. Third, there Even in China the One Child Policy are problems with unapproved The TFR in China has now fallen to now seems somewhat anachronistic pregnancies, with women prevented around 1.7, so below replacement, with something along the lines of the from delivering in a health facility if a although the population is still “Late, Long, Few” seeming more pregnancy is not approved with expected to rise until 2030, because of appropriate. China has changed potential risk to the health of mother the baby boom of the 1950s and 60s. immensely over the 28 years since the and baby. Fourth, there is very little On the positive side the Government onset of the Policy. Its GNP has seen choice in contraception: there is strong claims that the Policy has prevented sustained two-digit growth for two reliance on long term forms of 300 million births (equivalent to the decades; it is now open to the outside contraception (the intrauterine device population of the United States) and world. The people have freedoms only initially and later sterilisation). has helped to lift over 200 million dreamed-of 30 years ago. The Policy is people out of poverty. With women So what are the lessons from the also now more difficult to enforce: having fewer pregnancies they can Chinese experience? more people can afford the fines, and acquire skills and training and thus massive rural-urban migration makes The goal for most countries is to can expect better work opportunities. it more difficult to track individuals achieve a small family culture where Abortion is legal and safe with early who might want to flout the Policy. abortion greatly encouraged, which the average preferred number of But compliance now relies more on reduces complications. This is in stark children per couple is around two. the acceptance of the small family contrast to the situation in many This has occurred in most parts of the culture than any fear of the penalties. countries where abortion is illegal, and developed world with East Asia taking Despite this the Government will not a significant contributor to maternal the lead. Hong Kong has the lowest go as far as allowing two children for mortality. TFR in the world at 0.98; Singapore everyone, which has been and Japan also have very low TFRs at recommended by many On the negative side the One Child 1.2 and 1.38 respectively. Evidence demographers, and which would be Policy has created a number of from China suggests that it too has acceptable to the majority of the problems. First, sex ratios at birth become a small family culture with the population. The Chinese response has (that is the number of male live births preferred number of children for been to tinker with the Policy allowing for every 100 female) has risen from women starting families now at for some relaxation. For example, 106 in 1979 (which is within normal between one and two. So the key urban couples consisting of two only limits) to an alarming 120 in 2005. question is how best can this be children, may now have two children However, while the Policy has achieved? We know from experience themselves. undoubtedly contributed to this, high elsewhere that wealth and education sex ratios are not unique to China: are key factors in reducing population To summarise there are two main India, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, growth. China shows that population lessons from China for those countries Nepal and South Korea also have high growth can also be brought about currently experiencing rapid growth: sex ratios, because of the combination through a combination of easy of son preference and easy access to - A period of high fertility and low availability of contraception and a sex selective abortion, though they are mortality will impact on the strong determination to reduce fertility not as extreme as those seen in parts population growth for decades and rates. of China. Second, there is a growing therefore should be avoided. aged-dependency ratio: rapidly falling Perhaps the most interesting lesson - To reduce population needs strong birth rates leading to growing numbers from China is that the totally voluntary leadership, excellent access to of elderly people who need to be cared “Late, Long, Few” policy of the 1970s contraception and a comprehensive for by the working population. In brought about the most dramatic falls public education programme rural areas where the elderly have no in fertility. Perhaps there would have extolling the benefits of limiting pensions this is a particular concern. been further reductions without the family size.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 21 GLOBAL POPULATION GROWTH - IS IT SUSTAINABLE? The Critical Role of Water The Earl of Selborne KBE FRS
alcolm Potts has reminded us There is already a physical shortage of that 99% of the expected water throughout North Africa, South Mincrease in global population Africa, the Middle East, central Asia of approximately 3 billion will take and in much of India and China. place in developing countries, Much of the rest of Africa suffers from primarily in the least developed areas. what might be described as an To what extent is a lack of water economic water shortage. In other availability likely to impact on the words, the countries do not have the desalination plants and water transfer potential population of 9 billion and financial resources to make optimal systems at great cost to the federal and with what consequences? Are there use of the available water. Very little state budgets. It would seem much water management options which water storage has been provided in better value to buy up existing could mitigate such impacts? sub-Saharan Africa where the irrigated irrigation rights for growing rice or area is only 3.7% of the arable area. watering pasture and to import any I am indebted to Professor Brian Investment in appropriate technology food needed to make up the loss, but Hoskins of Reading University for data could give much of Africa access to that does not seem acceptable to the on global water use by humans. We safe and affordable water. It is still all-important rural vote. use for food, households, industry and common for women in parts of Africa So for those relatively rare regions energy purposes a mere 0.3% of global to spend several hours each day where economic resources are precipitation, and 1.5% of walking to and from water sources available but physical water resources precipitation over land. We use 10% of with containers. A modest investment are insufficient there are stratagems for the water flowing to the sea. On the in a treadle pump can often provide a the moment at least to provide face of it these figures may seem simple, easily maintained low adequate water at a heavy cost. For reassuring, and indeed there are many technology solution to the critical most of the regions of physical water parts of the world where water problem of access to safe water. scarcity, lower cost solutions must be shortage is not a problem now or sought. likely to be in the future. However, Where physical rather than economic water scarcity exists it is instructive to demand for water outstrips supply in a As total population moves to around note how prosperous economies, such growing number of countries. These nine billion by 2050, so absolute as Singapore and Australia, make up shortages occur almost exclusively in demand for food will also increase. the deficit. Singapore is an island state developing countries, which are ill Increasing urbanisation means people and has to depend heavily on equipped to adopt the policy and are likely to adopt new diets, imported water piped from Malaysia. technology measures needed to particularly those that involve a higher However, for strategic reasons it seeks address the crisis. The United Nations consumption of meat. Changing diets to maximise, almost irrespective of Environment Programme calculated in China will have massive cost, its own water supplies. It has that in the mid 1990s about 1.7 implications for water demand. A kilo invested heavily in desalination, in billion people lived in water stressed of grain requires about a tonne of recycling grey water, that is storm countries and that 20% (ie 340 water, a kilo of beef requires about 15 water and dirty water and even million) lacked access to safe drinking times that. water. By 2030 population growth proudly advertises bottled drinking alone could almost double these water which has been purified to the Climate change is one of the factors numbers, assuming a “business as highest standard from sewage waste. that is contributing to uncertainties usual” scenario. As Malcolm Potts told Having no agriculture on the island about future water supplies. The us, a staggering 3 billion people could Singapore imports virtual water in the Hadley Centre’s climate model be short of water. form of food and drink from other predictions indicate large reductions in countries. Irrigated agriculture river flows across Southern Europe, The International Water Management currently uses 70% of the world’s the Middle East, the Amazon basin Institute reports that, globally, water developed water supplies, which is the and the Danube. Increased flows are usage has increased six times in the proportion of Australia’s water supplies predicted in the River Congo, the past 100 years. used for irrigation. Like Singapore, Yangtze, and the Ganges. The Hadley Australia is now investing heavily in Centre has reported that its models
22 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 were able to reproduce observed more food with less water. Typically systems being developed in India and changes in drought. The same models irrigation systems on extensive elsewhere which raises the prospect of project that an additional 30% of cropping systems are 30 to 40% wider adoption, provided this global land mass is likely to experience efficient. Most of the water sent down technology is backed up by more drought by the end of the 21st century irrigation channels never reaches the realistic water pricing. under “business as usual” conditions, plant it is intended for. The demands though the regional details are still of that notoriously thirsty crop, cotton, For some countries it might be very uncertain. Already more than 40 have been responsible for the realistic to move their agricultural million people regularly need depletion of the Aral Sea and one of production away from the areas of emergency food aid. The predicted the world’s worst environmental water shortage. The North East of increase in drought areas can only disasters. Many other irrigation China has many regions of over- increase this figure. schemes throughout the world are exploitation of water and a decline in hopelessly inefficient. Where water availability for agricultural use. Most climate change models predict agricultural systems are based on The authorities have been trucking in that the dry regions will get drier and temporarily flooding the fields to be water to millions of people after wells the wet regions will get wetter. This cropped, most of the water is lost and rivers ran dry in the east of the would lead to increased yields in some through evaporation. country. Rather than truck water it northern latitudes, but decreased may prove more sustainable to move yields in most of Africa, the Middle The Israelis are credited with production away from these over- East and India. developing the modern trickle exploited areas. irrigation systems, using black Johann Rockstrom, a Swedish polythene pipes. In Jordan drip The Business Council on Sustainable hydrologist, has calculated that irrigation has reduced water use on Development published assessments meeting existing and future demands farms by a third, while raising yields in last year of the implications of water for food, and with the addition of the past 30 years. Fred Pearce reports shortage made by forecasters from three billion to the world population, in his book When the rivers run dry that some of the world’s leading corporate will require an extra annual water Israeli farmers have raised water users of fresh water. The three supply of 5,600 cubic kilometres, or productivity five fold in the same published scenarios foresaw growing an additional 80% of existing water period by using drip irrigation and by civil unrest, boom and bust economic availability. The International Water recycling urban waste water for crop cycles in Asia and mass migrations to Management Institute makes a higher production. Europe. But they also believed that estimate and believes that water usage water scarcity will encourage the will double. Even the most optimistic There is great scope for adopting this development of new water saving water engineer would acknowledge irrigation system elsewhere. India drip technologies and better management that supply management, through the irrigates less than 1% of its fields. The of water by business. provision of additional dams, reason for the slow uptake is cost. To exploitation of underused resources install the full trickle irrigation I agree. There is much scope for better and water transfer schemes simply equipment might originally have use of water by agriculturists, by cannot deliver on this scale. If required an initial outlay of at least industry and by domestic users. If sustainability is to be achieved $500 per hectare. Most farmers who suitable investment is made in different solutions are needed. Supply pump the water from beneath their recycling water and in research into management has to be accompanied fields get their water at heavily low cost, low energy desalination by demand management. subsidised prices, a tenth of the real technology, then a population of nine cost is typical everywhere from India billion could just prove to be As agriculture accounts for 70% of the to California. There is little incentive sustainable without unacceptable water consumed it is sensible to look to save water. There are now some impacts on our environment. first at the opportunities for producing much cheaper trickle irrigation
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– In discussion the following points were made: ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– The impacts of HIV and IVF have been negligible in relation to the overall growth of the global population. HIV is currently concentrated in countries with about 3% of the global population. Faith-based views have had variable impacts on population growth, but generally contribute positively. For example, Islam has changed, leading to greater use of natural methods of contraception. Catholicism however has a lot to answer for. For example, from comparable starting points Thailand has moved very rapidly to a smaller family size and a higher living standard compared with the Philippines where poverty is related a large family size. The current situation in Ireland was described as appalling. Greater use of early safe abortion was recommended. Predictions of population growth beyond 2050 will see further upward momentum. The population growth factor has been a matter for military assessment in order to identify future trouble spots around the globe. Water policy urgently requires governance with unbiased regulation that does not favour urban communities in preference to the countryside. NGOs have a major role to play especially in less populated areas for family planning and in water management, which is the best way to reduce poverty. For example, Rotary International is involved with population issues by educating people, but not telling people what to do. This is more effective than the World Bank buying a billion condoms for which they receive no kudos whatever. People like children, and need information, but not being told what to do.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 23 HOW CAN SCIENCE HELP TO PREVENT NATURAL DISASTERS BECOMING ECONOMIC AND HUMAN CATASTROPHES?
MEETING OF THE PARLIAMENTARY AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE ON MONDAY 26TH NOVEMBER The Role of Science in Preventing and Reducing Natural Disasters Professor R S J Sparks FRS Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
cience has a central role in the engineering can help in many ways forecasting and mitigation of including: identifying risk, giving Snatural hazards. It underlies adequate warnings of impending technological solutions to early natural hazards, designing buildings warning, provision of advice to and structures that protect the public, effectively. There are also limits to the authorities in areas at risk, design of giving advice to assist decision-making ability of science to predict precisely effective mitigation strategies for on issues such as land-use planning, due to the uncertainties that are communities, and provides critical sustainable development, mitigation intrinsic to most natural processes. information for policy-makers and the strategies and responses during an There are epistemic uncertainties public to help save lives and avoid emergency. (what we don’t yet know) and aleatory economic losses. The fulfilment of uncertainties (natural variability). The Rapid advances are being made in these roles for science is in practice science that describes natural events understanding natural hazards as a complex and has not been entirely and characterises the inherent consequence of technological successful, as recent events such as the uncertainties is complex and also innovation and better models of 2004 Asian tsunami, the 2005 provides great challenges in Nature. There are now many different Pakistan earthquake, and hurricane communication to the public and to ways of monitoring the solid earth, Katrina illustrate. decision-makers. oceans and atmosphere, which Natural disasters are increasing potentially allow hazards to be There needs to be much more dramatically, principally because of identified and forecast so that integration of the social and natural increasing vulnerability of warnings can be given. Measurements sciences. Natural hazards only result in communities due to population of the Earth from Space provide a risk and disaster if there are people growth, globalisation and synoptic and global perspective that living on the flood plain, or next to an environmental stresses. Some hazards, allows, for example, remote volcanoes active volcano, or near a geological such as wildfires, droughts, floods, to be monitored and tsunami waves to fault. Vulnerability needs to be better storm surges and hurricanes, appear to be tracked across the ocean. Increased understood. It is a complex concept be increasing as a consequence of computer power also allows much that depends on many factors global warming. Risk from natural more sophisticated and intricate including: the economy of an affected hazards can, however, be reduced by models of hazardous processes. community; culture; social factors improving community resilience and Despite these advances the many (such as demography, poverty, the effectiveness of the application of hazards are not anticipated and the education, and religious perspectives); known science. Science and known science is not applied awareness of the hazard and its effects;
24 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 and politics. People’s perceptions of such as setting back development by disasters hold back development and risk also affect how they react to many years and even decades. The are a significant factor in the danger. These factors that affect livelihoods of some poor communities persistence of extreme poverty. Natural vulnerability need to be combined may never recover with the disaster disasters can exacerbate conflict and with understanding of the hazard itself condemning the people to long-term cause economic migrations, which to estimate risk and develop strategies poverty. Many countries lack the have big impacts on the developed that increase community resilience and resources to support or make effective world. reduce risk. Such complexity calls for mitigation strategies, such as To a large extent the focus of aid highly multidisciplinary research and earthquake-resistant buildings or agencies (such as DFID and the UNDP feeding the results of such research rehousing vulnerable communities for example) and NGOs has been on into practical applications and into safer places with alternative the role of governance, ethnic methodologies. livelihoods. Lack of human and tensions, sustainable and more financial resources for the Extreme hazards that are infrequent efficient agriculture, desease reduction development and application of but have very high consequences are a (eg aids and malaria), trade, and natural hazard science can be acute. In particular problem. As one example education in understanding the causes general the scientists in poor countries the largest explosive volcanic eruptions of poverty and in using funds for do not have easy access to knowledge, on Earth have the potential to poverty reduction. Natural disasters facilities, equipment and educational devastate whole nations, regions and have been largely seen in terms of resources that are taken for granted in may even threaten global civilisation. disaster relief; most of the resources the developed world. Mechansims to Such eruptions, however, only occur indeed go into short-term relief fund and support science in the every thousand years or so. Several operations, notwithstanding the World developing world are completely Bank’s estimates that for every $ spent megacities (Rome, Santiago in Chile, inadequate. Those that exist are on prevention $7 are saved. There are and Manila for example) are built on commonly due to the somewhat ad signs that this attitude is changing , young geological volcanic deposits hoc arrangements with scientists from but slowly. from immense eruptions, that would the developed world. Well-intentioned destroy the cites were they to occur capacity-building schemes by NGOs, Institutions and funding structures are today. Extreme events are difficult to government aid programmes are a particular problem. At national levels study because they are rare and the typically too short-term to be very in the developed world there remain factors that control them are effective or sustainable. strong barriers to the promotion of consequently not well understood. In multidisciplinary projects, The developed world in general is general, the World is unprepared. notwithstanding much rhetoric and much more resilient to natural Communities can gain experience of warm words. Focus on specialist, hazards. The same earthquake that more frequent smaller hazards and discipline-based research remains kills a handful of people in California learn to live with them, while they dominant. International structures for may kill tens of thousands in many have no experience of infrequent science related to natural disasters and Asian countries. However, even the extreme events. hazards are complex and in the UN wealthy nations appear ill-prepared for system have lacked serious levels of The effects of natural disasters are the more extreme events as funding. There are plenty of short- particularly severe in the developing exemplified by Hurricane Katrina and term projects and initiatives, but many world where the ability to anticipate the Gloucester floods. There are also of the key problems require a long- and respond to natural hazards is strong tele-connections. A next major term approach and appropriate much less than in the developed earthquake in Tokyo may be the first commitments. Too many programmes world. The World Bank analysis trillion dollar disaster and the Asian and initiatives have been too short- suggests that natural disasters tsunami caused the greatest loss of life term to be effective to address chronic commonly reduce GDP in the for Sweden in its history from a and often increasing problems of developing world by 10 to 15%. Major natural disaster. There are more subtle, vulnerability in the developing World. disasters have long term consequences, but hugely significant effects. Natural
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 25 HOW CAN SCIENCE HELP TO PREVENT NATURAL DISASTERS BECOMING ECONOMIC AND HUMAN CATASTROPHES? The Role of Science in Preventing and Reducing the Impact of Human-Induced Climate Change Prof Chris Rapley CBE Director, Science Museum
he Earth seen from space and priorities have to be sharply reveals a small blue orb in the focused and addressed. International Tinky darkness of the cosmos. co-operation and co-ordination are carbon that has been injected, The planet is unique, as far as we are essential. estimated to be about 500GtC, with aware, since it is the only location in contributions of 320GtC from fuel the universe known to harbour life. There is no planetary “Users Manual” burning and cement production, and and the Earth is finite, without spares. 180GtC from land use change, mainly Energy from the Sun is the All of life relies upon the “ecosystem deforestation. predominant driver of all activity on services” it supplies free of charge. Earth. The balance between the energy These include clean air, fresh water, The lasting product of fossil fuel intercepted and the energy radiated food, fibre, and shelter, as well as energy use is an increased loading of into space is almost exact. Small more esoteric but high value services carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. such as the pollination of crops. In differences cause the planet to warm Although the terrestrial biosphere spite of the self-evident need to care or cool. (plants, trees and soils) and the oceans for and protect our irreplaceable “Life have absorbed roughly half of the The planet itself is hugely complex, Support System”, the state of the human emissions, the atmospheric with its various components – planet is increasingly unhealthy as a content has increased rapidly – a atmosphere, ocean, ice, biosphere, consequence of human activities. thousand times faster than the natural humans and the solid earth – all cycles of climate and carbon – and by Until the late eighteenth century, more than 35% – a magnitude interacting, with a myriad of human energy use exploited the flows equivalent to the “natural” variations interconnections, many highly of wind and water and the capabilities nonlinear. This makes it a considerable of “beasts of burden”, including other between an ice age and an interglacial. scientific challenge to understand. humans. The transition to fossil fuels The “Greenhouse Effect” has been Progress through “reductionism” – the has transformed the human condition study of the component parts – is a known and understood since the mid- incomparably for the better. It has also nineteenth century. The phenomenon necessary but insufficient part of the resulted in unprecedented growth in approach. Essential is a “systems” view, is highly beneficial, since the Earth’s population, which, combined with an surface is 30°C warmer than would in which the planet is also considered equally rapid growth in economic otherwise be the case, making “life as as a whole. activity, has led to mankind we know it” possible. We have constituting a force at the global scale. A further challenge is the sheer enhanced the effect, both directly and enormity of the object of study, and Annual human emissions of carbon because a warmer atmosphere carries the vast spread of spatial and temporal have risen from a few million metric more water vapour. The upshot is an scales which need to be addressed. tons in 1850 to more than 7 Gigatons estimated net imbalance between the
Even by aggregating the entire world’s (GtC) today (the CO2 tonnage is 3.67 heat received by the surface and the resources of researchers and their times greater). What matters to the heat lost to space of approximately equipment, coverage is thinly spread, atmosphere is the total amount of 1.5W/m2.
26 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 More than 90% of the heat imbalance snowfall is more than compensated for reductions. These include improved is absorbed by the oceans, and this by losses through melting and sliding energy efficiency and conservation, can be seen in changes in the vertical around their peripheries. switching to less carbon intensive temperature profiles averaged from fuels, nuclear power, better thousands of measurements over the Of particular concern, therefore, are management of the terrestrial the major ice discharges from the last 30 years. The measured warming biosphere, especially forests, CO2 Greenland ice sheet and from the of the land surface of some 0.7°C since capture and storage, and CO2 pre-industrial times can also only be Amundsen Sea Embayment of the sequestration. accounted for by the addition of West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) human-induced forcing to “natural” revealed in data from spaceborne and The costs are significant, but the variations. airborne instruments. The stability of recent Stern report concluded that an the WAIS has been a subject of ongoing investment of 1% of GDP The geographical distribution of speculation since the 1970s, as the ($0.6Tn/y) starting now, would avoid a warming is patchy, with parts of the bulk of it lies on bedrock well below future 20% economic catastrophe. polar regions showing the strongest sea level and so experiences an These figures compare well with the increases. This is consistent with the “Archimedian” uplift. The concern is $3-5Tn estimated investment in amplification expected as a result of that a retreat may accelerate and conventional oil production necessary the “ice-albedo” feedback, in which become unstoppable, resulting in sea to satisfy the future projected world oil the loss of ice and snow, which reflect level rise worldwide. The “trillion needs on a “business as usual” basis. about 90% of incoming solar dollar questions” are “How Much?” radiation, exposes land or ocean which and “How Quickly?” A major task of A worrying fact is that over the last absorb about 80%. A very dramatic the International Polar Year 2007- seven years, despite much discussion, example of polar warming is the 2008 is to provide improved answers human carbon emissions have reduction over the last 30 years in to these questions. continued on the “business as usual” summer sea ice extent in the Arctic. trajectory, which deviates strongly The record summer minimum in 2007 Future sea level rise has the potential from the path necessary to stabilise at – some 25% less than the previous to affect the lives of millions and to 450ppm. New trajectories can be minimum in 2005 – caught the impact trillions of dollars worth of drawn up, but in the end, if these are science community by surprise. infrastructure. A single flooding of not followed, a 450ppm stabilisation London would alone cost an estimated level will become impossible to attain The Policy-Maker’s summary of £30bn, equivalent to 2% of the UK’s unless a means of active (and massive) Working Group I of the Fourth GDP. Could a flooded London be the CO2 extraction and sequestration is Assessment Report of the UN’s future? The unthinkable can happen as developed. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate we witnessed with New Orleans – for Change concludes that (i) current different reasons – in September 2005. The challenge facing the human race is atmospheric greenhouse gas unprecedented. The evidence for the concentrations far exceed the levels of Looking ahead, the temperature problem is complex and technical with at least the last 650k years as a result projections from the IPCC show uncertainties at the detailed level. The of human emissions, (ii) warming of dramatic change. The UN Framework impacts of current behaviour are the climate system is unequivocal Convention on Climate Change distributed and distant in time and based on a mass of factual evidence, commits nations to avoiding space. There is inertia in population and (iii) the climate forcing is “dangerous” climate change. Some growth, societal infrastructure and overwhelmingly human. These have adopted 2°C global mean behaviour. Strong vested-interests are conclusions are based on an evaluation temperature rise as the “safe” limit, threatened. There are significant issues of thousands of peer-reviewed corresponding to an equivalent CO2 of sharing between the developed and scientific publications and have been concentration of 450ppm. developing world. There is a major agreed by the politically appointed mismatch between the jurisdiction, In order to stabilise the CO2 capabilities and motivations of existing delegates of 113 nations, including concentration of the atmosphere, it is nations whose administrations are institutions relative to what is needed. necessary ultimately to stop adding it, And as yet, there is no market “climate sceptic”. There are indications especially as there is evidence that as that the conclusions of the IPCC tend mechanism capable of “self-correcting” the world warms the terrestrial the problem to be conservative. biosphere and the ocean will weaken Comparisons of past global as carbon sinks, and may even become Leadership is required, to a degree temperature and sea level show that sources. currently absent. whenever the world is warmer, sea No single solution exists. However, Even so, we should remain hopeful, levels rise. Any initial growth of the multiple approaches, each seeking a since: “Our problems are Man made, cold, high altitude interiors of the reduction of ~1GtC/y by 2050 can in therefore they may be solved by Man” great ice sheets due to increased principle achieve the necessary (John F Kennedy).
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 27 HOW CAN SCIENCE HELP TO PREVENT NATURAL DISASTERS BECOMING ECONOMIC AND HUMAN CATASTROPHES? Geohazards Professor John F Dewey FRS University College, Oxford
e live on a “dangerous” zones (Assam 1950). Sophisticated Earth with objective hazards monitoring is now intense in Wof varying duration and California and Japan, where the magnitude. Hazards become dangers, engineering standards of building and a chronic nuisance, disaster or codes and retro-fitting are high, but catastrophe, when man interfaces with much less so in risk areas elsewhere them. The problem is whether a where codes and adherence are hazard generates random, episodic, or weaker. Forecasting is still a great periodic events. Forecasting the problem; most promising is the precise location, time, and magnitude network-linkage model of Rundle and of an event is the central issue, which Turcotte of UC Davis. can only come with continuous 2. Tsunamis and freak waves: monitoring on local to global scales. become no-go areas, unless developers Tsunamis result from the vertical Forecasting involves: hazard are prepared to provide very expensive displacement, by large earthquakes, identification, monitoring / engineering solutions. Narrow valleys giant landslides, or meteorite impact, measurement, modelling, understanding with large catchment areas (Boscastle, of a column of water that radiates as a the geology, assessment, risk and Lynmouth) are an avoidable source of long wave-length, low-amplitude, vulnerability analysis for the 1, 10, catastrophic flooding. Hurricane- wave at about 750 kph until the water 100, 1000 etc year event, planning, driven storm surges cause catastrophic shallows and the slowing column preparedness, warning systems, pre- flooding of coastal plains (New develops a massive amplitude increase. event mitigation, civil defence, Orleans 2006), where building should Freak (rogue) waves that impinge on warning, evacuation, and post-event be prohibited. mitigation. These are not sequential rocky shores are limited in area but but iterative, and involve long-term pack the same momentum punch (a 4. Landslides: Downhill creep of soil commitment and money. Many live in cubic metre of water weighs a ton). and small slow landslides on steep and reoccupy, sometimes knowingly, Tsunamis flatten parking meters, drive slopes is a chronic problem. Fast- seriously-hazardous sites. The greed wood slivers through tyres, and carry moving catastrophic rock flows and ignorance of developers should be 100 ton blocks (destruction of the (Frank, Alberta, in 1903, Peru 1970) discouraged by compensation schemes Adak lighthouse 1946). Monitoring are infrequent killers of hundreds. paid by those who have not given and warning systems in the Pacific are Cliffed, soft-rock coastlines are greatly warnings. Insurance should be refused pervasive but, in the Indian Ocean, at risk (Dorset, Yorkshire Holbeck to those who ignore warnings. non-existent (2004 disaster). Hall, 1993). Behind Los Angeles, steep Knowledge and responsibility must be slopes, unstable, poorly-consolidated 3. Floods: Mega-floods result from the encouraged by national, local, and soils and rocks, forest fires and rare instantaneous inundation (Black individual understanding in which seasonal heavy rain, are a lethal Sea 7500 BC, Mediterranean 6 my data and ideas are shared, and warning combination that leads to disastrous ago, Co Durham 250 my ago) of areas systems are developed. Science is mudslides and landslides. about testing ideas not about certainty, below sea level (42 world-wide), by which can never be delivered to the catastrophic release of glacial 5. Bolides/meteorites: During Earth’s Government and the public. The meltwater (Lake Missoula), and by existence, the rate and average size of following is a list of principal catastrophic flows of hot water, ice, objects striking the Earth has declined geohazards with sketchy notes. mud, and rock from lava melting ice. exponentially as the planets swept up The greatest problem is the chronic planetesimal junk. However, if the flooding of flood plains. The economic very rare, perhaps 50 million year, 1. Earthquakes: up to about loss and the heartache of ruined event were to occur of a bolide 10 km magnitude 9.5, occur on strongly- homes are profound. Mitigation comes in diameter at 25km/sec, a surface coupled continental margin in the form of river channel dredging blast of air superheated to 4000°C and subduction zones (Chile 1960, Alaska and cutting of relief channels, and not a long “winter” from the global 1964, northwest US “imminent”, “concreting and building over”. The circulation of impact dust could cause Sumatra 2004). Events, up to 8.3, problem will be solved by the refusal a total disruption of the food chain. occur in slightly-oblique, locking of planners to allow building and of We might not survive such an event. segments of motion-parallel plate companies to insure losses in flood boundaries (San Francisco 1906, plains. Government and developers 6. Volcanoes: Volcanic hazards are Northridge 1994, Kocaeli 1999) and must compensate home-owners who becoming well understood and on the thrusts of continental collision have been cheated; flood plains must forecasting is probably attainable. The
28 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 fast flow of high-temperature basaltic soil loss, and degradation. more stable humid conditions with lava (Hawaii, Iceland) rarely kills. As Overgrazing, encouraged by EU much higher sea levels of most of silica content increases, viscosity headage subsidies, has led to severe Earth history. In the late Ordovician increases and temperature decreases to land degradation, soil instability, and and late Carboniferous, CO2 levels generate more explosive and landslides. were ten times those of today, both dangerous volcanism. Mudflows associated with unstable glacial (lahars) are destructive but fast- 11. Land heave, subsidence and periods. The present global climatic moving incandescent gas/ash instability: Caused by seasonal regime cannot be captured in “frozen avalanches (Mt Pelee, Martinique variations in wetness/dryness, and by time frame”. That we can stop or slow 1929) are incinerators. Lateral hot mining, quarrying, and excavation for climate change is absurd, as are the gas/ash surges caused by flank collapse roads and railways, and loading by hysterical headlines of “save the (Mt St. Helens 1980, Soufriere 1995) buildings. planet” and “stop climate change are extremely fast and dangerous. now”. The post-industrial revolution 12. Gas hydrates: A water/methane Eruptions that threaten mankind on a increase in CO2 and GMT is clearly global scale are the mega-eruptions combination in the sediments of anthropogenic but there is no evidence above massive magma chambers such continental margins. Submarine that this has or will cause problematic as Yellowstone and the Long Valley landslides release pressure causing climate change; the models have Caldera in the western US. water-methane dissociation and the substantial uncertainties. Sea level has massive release of methane through been rising at 1.8 mma-1 for 12,000 7. Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, the water column into the atmosphere years with no change since the storms, storm surges, twisters, leading to vast quantities of methane immense increase of gas, oil, and coal spouts: These are mainly seasonal and in the atmosphere and, perhaps, the burning from 1945. Sea level will rise generally affect well-documented sinking of vessels. by about sixty metres when the “alleys”, and can be monitored and present glacial period ends. Earth has avoided, temporarily or permanently. 13. Geology and health: Asbestos, arsenic, methylated mercury, radon, experienced the Medieval Warming and the Little Ice Age; we are back to 8. Water, hydrology, drought: heavy metals, garbage disposal, hazardous landfill chemicals, toxic and conditions during the reign of Agriculture in California (Cadillac Augustus. Glacier shortening has been Desert), depends upon a dwindling nuclear waste are very serious environmental problems. constant since long before the 1945 water supply in competition with the increase There has been no increase in needs of a growing population. severe tornados, hurricane wind-speed 400,000 year old groundwater is 14. Planetary exploration/biocontacts: Astrobiology/exobiology is a subject and landfall, in 60 years. Short-term mined! Water wars are not anthropogenic climate change, if it inconceivable. with, as yet, no material to study. This could change if a “malevolent” bug happens, is an opportunity not a 9. Forest wildfires, coal-bed and were returned, accidentally, to Earth. problem, and trivial compared with culm-bank fires: From lightning population growth, the shortage of strike, exothermic reactions in exposed 15. Climate change/global warming: clean water, food safety, obesity, coals, accident, and arson. Global climate has been changing for disease, the greed and aggression of the 4.55 billion years. Glacial periods (we human species, and the catastrophic 10. Soil erosion, overgrazing, land are in one) occur about every 300 and chronic problems 1-13 listed degradation: Deforestation and million years and have extreme and above. We should mitigate if possible intensive agriculture, starting with the rapid variations in climate and sea but it is best to avoid the hazard. US dustbowl in the 1920’s, have led to level, in contrast to the warmer and
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– In discussion the following points were made: –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The main areas of concern relate to identification, forecasting, mitigation and avoidance. The question is what can politicians do to help? Reference was made to the comparison between the Titanic and Explorer disasters with both ships sunk by icebergs but the latter without any loss of life. Satellite measurements are of great assistance, but greater interaction between science and social research is needed, which raises the question of how Institutions should respond. When you do well, no one notices. In Bangladesh floods people are now trained to go up onto nearby hills whereas 300,000 people were killed previously. Hence good practice needs to be taught and long-term preparations made. Much better research and monitoring is also required.
The UK model of embedding Chief Scientific Advisers in Government Departments is a good way of getting people together to discuss issues. Transfer of responsibility to the international scene raises problems since while there are lots of good intentions at the UN there is no money. UNESCO only has $1m for support of all its science programmes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is another potential source of funding.
Floodplain management requires awareness and knowledge based on long term monitoring, whereas it may be possible to obtain a three-year research grant but not over a longer term. Funding for interdisciplinary research is difficult to obtain. Human psychology is adapted to the best bet that tomorrow will be the same as today, and let’s just hope I am not unlucky.
Diverse topics were raised such as risks from nuclear waste, the Thames Barrier and Radon. Nuclear waste is an inevitable consequence of the use of nuclear power and therefore must be dealt with effectively as nuclear power will form an integral part of the mix of power sources in the future. The exposure to radiation from the nuclear industry is insignificant in comparison to variations in the natural background and medical sources of radiation. The current estimate for sea level rise at the Thames Barrier in the next 100 years is 40cm but this takes no account of the fate of icesheets, or of rare extreme events superimposed on sea level rise. Training to respond to the dangers from tsunami in Japan forms part of every child’s basic education. The history of extreme events can be very variable. More recent events may leave a clear mark in the geological record whereas older events may be under-recorded.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 29 ANNUAL LUNCHEON OF THE PARLIAMENTARY AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE The Annual Lunch was held on Wednesday 5th December at the Savoy Hotel
ord Soulsby, the Lord Soulsby then turned to President, welcomed and introduced distinguished everyone to the Annual member and Guest of Honour, L David King, who, as Chief Lunch in the Committee’s 68th year as an Associate All Scientific Adviser, has taken Party Parliamentary Group every opportunity afforded to and extended a special him to raise the profile of welcome to the guests, science during his highly including John Beddington, influential tenure of that Sally Davies, Michael Kelly, uniquely important post in Paul Wiles and twenty-three Government. guest speakers at discussion meetings, seminars and In response he began, breakfast briefings in 2006 “Lord Soulsby, Colleagues, and 2007. Friends, this is a wonderful celebration of Science and “Last year we were delighted Technology in Government! to welcome Lord Rees, The United Kingdom is the President of the Royal Society, most intensive nation in the Astronomer Royal and Master world in terms of science and of Trinity College, Cambridge, technology action. By and prolific author or co- intensive, I mean the output author of about 500 research per member of the population, papers, mainly on and it is also a country that is astrophysics and cosmology, becoming comfortable with as well as seven books. His what science and technology book Our Final Hour - a can offer in terms of better scientist’s warning: describes advice to Government. I am how terror, error and environmental come as a relief to decision makers delighted to have this opportunity to disaster threaten humankind’s future more familiar with the financial spend a few minutes talking to you, in this century. Indeed the message he terminology used there than that of a not least because my office has just presented becomes stronger rather more scientific approach. texted me to say ‘get on your way’. than weaker with the passing of time with the stark realisation that Earth System scientists, on the other I was extremely privileged to be humanity is more at risk than at any hand, are used to working with risk parachuted into Government from earlier phase in history. The United and uncertainty and the probability outside in October 2000. That was a Nations Environment Programme that many of the vital finds that the speed at which mankind factors have been has used the Earth’s resources over the significantly past 20 years has put ‘humanity’s very underestimated or remain survival’ at risk, followed by an ‘urgent unconstrained within call for action’ as the ‘point of no reasonably manageable return’ is fast approaching. Climate limits. They have change is identified as one of the most concluded that we should pressing problems, but the condition consider planning for the of fresh water supplies, agricultural worst case in ‘the last land and biodiversity are also chance saloon’, as a considered of equal importance. matter of top priority, and Climate change is recognised as the as Lord Rees and latterly greatest market failure the world has the United Nations have ever seen, resulting from a complex both predicted. The interaction of economic and European Space Agency’s population pressures that are Venus Express recently encouraged by countries that focus on described as a warning the short term need for economic the surface environment growth as important for their survival. on our sister planet, as Reassuring statements in the Stern ‘the most hellish planet in Report proposed that a commitment of the solar system’ with only 1% of GDP will stabilise scorching rocks and emissions of CO2, provided strong downpours of sulphuric action is taken now. This must have acid.”
30 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 the Research Councils has grown and Parliament. to £3.6 billion per year. We have re-funded the Science base in Sheep with BSE? the UK to the point where the infrastructure has been re- The question of the possibility of BSE established to be attractive to the occurring in sheep had resulted in world’s scientists. We are now a seven years of enormously detailed magnet to the top scientists in analysis, however when I asked the the world. Although it is simple question ‘Have you conducted fashionable in the media to a DNA test on the samples we sent focus on the closure of you?’ it transpired that not one of the chemistry departments, actually scientists had done that and when we the fact is that the Research sent it off for a DNA test it turned out Assessment Exercise that I am a that there had been a muddle eight great fan of has meant that years before and a batch of sheep excellent departments have brains had been mixed up with a flourished at the expense of batch of cow brains so that the others. Don’t believe everything samples that had been sent around the you read in the media. We now world contained absolutely no ovine have the second highest material, and it was pure cow brains proportion of 20 year olds in the that had been determined to have BSE. very different time from now, 9/11 had world studying Science, Technology, That was the occasion when David not happened, climate change was Engineering and Medicine and related Sainsbury, who was not overly barely being discussed as an issue, we subjects, after South Korea. We have generous with his praise, said ‘I think had the Kyoto protocol but nothing the highest percentage increased you have earned your salary!’ was really happening there. We had participation of women in these topics Avian Flu not had an outbreak of Foot and and especially in psychology and Mouth Disease for 23 years. medicine, but not engineering yet, There have been two outbreaks in the Government was recovering from the which will require more persuasion. UK. I think the response has been repercussions of the BSE outbreak, They now form 56% of our university tremendous. We have a well absolutely critical for me because the population and young men should get orchestrated system in place of first Commission Report into the BSE back to university. containment. If it develops into a outbreak was my mentor. I am not human pandemic we will have suggesting that John Beddington, my Animal Health something very difficult on our hands successor, should read the whole and what the Government now thirteen volumes, but volume one is The UK based team that responded to recognises is that the biggest single risk absolutely, immaculately, important for the Foot and Mouth outbreak of 2001 facing us as a country and as a world is any Government Chief Scientific also handled the incoming threats of the potential for H5N1 becoming a Adviser. So my determination to from SARS and the H5N1 bird flu. We human-to-human infective virus. develop openness, honesty and deployed the best science in the world transparency in my role as Chief based on exponential growth in If that happens somewhere in the Scientific Adviser really derives from relevant skills employing massive world, within three months it will reading that report. amounts of computer time for have reached every country in the modelling in real time the outcomes world. The avian virus has not yet And if I may say with Ian Taylor MP that were all brought to bear on these reached the Americas but will do so sitting so close to me, the country was problems in a very short time period. eventually. However, if it becomes a still recovering from a period of That was a big demonstration to human-to-human transmissible virus, massive cutbacks in science funding. Government that science is highly because of the number of people We had seen science funding as a relevant to the issues of the day, and travelling by air, it will already have percentage of GDP halved over that for me it was the only reason therefore arrived and there is no point in closing period. That is what I walked into in why I have had more significant down ports and airports. We have to Government. Since then the £1.38 impact than my predecessors when plan not only for a UK epidemic billions per year of annual funding for giving science advice to Government which might have the proportions of
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 31 the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic unless wildlife and the wildlife we manage it extremely well. We have is called badgers. I just to prepare for the low probability that note that it is possible this will happen because the impact for human beings to will be enormous. For example, one pick up TB from cattle parent will have to stay at home to and badgers. look after children being kept away from school, causing disruption to our BSE and Cows economy. Science has put us in the lead resulting to a robust response to Ten years ago, any cow this risk. over the age of 30 months might have BSE. Tuberculosis in Cattle If we put it in the food chain we might be The biggest threat to animals in the feeding people with UK at the moment is TB in cattle. BSE. As a result cattle Currently we are taking out 20,000 over 30 months old cattle annually at a cost of £80 million were removed from the to the taxpayer. That number is food chain. But a few increasing and will continue to years ago we estimated increase unless we introduce new that this programme measures. Because of the 1972 was probably costing protection of badgers, we are not about £1.3 billion per life saved. We taking out any badgers despite the fact were spending £400 million per that we have found not only a very annum. No way is that a sensible high prevalence of TB in badgers but operation. It took we have now very clear evidence that expenditure of a badgers and cattle interaction and TB further £800 million infection is a high proportion of the before we managed to problem. In other words, that overturn the old 30- epidemic which started out in Devon month rule. The Chief and Cornwall is now spreading Medical Officer was eastwards across the country and very clear. Once you northwards and will continue to had set in train a policy spread until we manage to stop it, not such as the 30-month only by taking out cattle but also by rule, you have to live taking out badgers. with it. We should think very carefully Now I know that there is a very therefore before we effective Badger Trust. I have just been take on a policy like in the House of Commons being cross- this. When the rule examined by somebody who I suspect was eventually lifted was fully briefed by this organisation there was not a called the Badger Trust. I just hope murmur, not even from there is a Cattle Trust somewhere that The Daily Mail! is going to try and stop us from culling 20,000 cattle. Why we are so sensitive about culling badgers and so insensitive about culling, for example, dairy cattle? If you were a dairy cattle farmer and you had all your cattle taken out for TB, and you know there is a badger sett on your farm, and you know from road accidents nearby that the analysis of dead badgers shows that you have TB in your badgers, would you restock your farm with dairy cattle? If the message is that we are not going to deal with the problem, that we should actually simply shrug and say we can import all the milk we need or require, I am afraid that I have no other solution to offer and I would be delighted if somebody could give me one. There are no vaccines in the arsenal to deal with this problem. We have to deal with it quickly because it is spreading from its point of origin. It is very clear that it is spreading largely because of
32 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 and enjoyed these projects. by John Beddington, my successor. For example, as a result we have the most sophisticated Finally let me say a word about programme in the world of Climate Change. My statement, ‘Global Climate Change adaptation in warming was an even more serious place. We also need to invest threat than terrorism’ was published in vastly more in energy research, Science in 2004. That statement especially since the recently certainly got me into trouble. But as a privatised gas, water and result I have literally travelled the electricity industries had all world and given 600 lectures on closed down their research Climate Change to many Parliaments, departments. We therefore acting as an unofficial Government developed the Energy ambassador on Climate Change and Technology Institute to bring thereby significantly raising the profile these privatised industries as a result. With respect to Bali, I don’t together with the public expect too much from a meeting of sector, in order to undertake talks about talks. Where do I think energy research that was action will take place? Heads of States, required to combat climate G8 +5, that’s what we set up at change. When Gordon heard Gleneagles, and we began to move about this he stood up in that. Angela Merkel, bless her, took Parliament one week later last this forward massively, much to our April saying we would raise surprise, since when I first went out to half the money from the Germany after her election she did not private sector. Half a billion seem to care about Climate Change. In pounds was raised in six Germany this year we had a very big months. We are the first step forward. If we can get the Heads country in the world to create of States of India, China, Britain and a market-based research the United States to agree on action, institute which pulls on the we can take it to the United Nations research in low carbon and get the agreement of 172 nations. technologies in universities around the world. There are many challenges with some progress in some areas. We have had International Development 10 years since Kyoto but hardly any progress. The European Union has My focus on international made the best progress so far. development has been single- Elsewhere in the world there has been GM Food minded. I am not British but African very little. On that rather sad note may with a desire to raise the profile of I end by thanking the audience for We are not going to feed the predicted Africa where Primary, Secondary, their attention.” 9.5 billion people by 2050 without Tertiary schools, Universities and GM technology. We will need another Centres of Excellence are urgently Dr Doug Naysmith MP, the Chairman, Green Revolution. GM is a remarkably needed. Clearly Africa needs capacity proposed a vote of thanks to David good technology, of no threat to building to enable it to undertake King for his speech and the P&SC human health if properly regulated. work leading to clean water and Secretariat for their organisation of a GM was invented here and is a British sanitised conditions for everyone, memorable Annual Lunch. technology. Our companies such as which we take for granted. DfID is Astra Zeneca and Unilever shut down now investing £1.2 billion a year in their GM laboratories when we said African development. ‘No’ to GM technology. Let us see to it that we don’t just leave it in the hands Civil Service of Monsanto. We are already looking at a third generation of GM products. This is where we still We will need this technology to have a little way to combat climate change and feed the go. There has been, world’s growing population. through my predecessor Bob May The New Foresight Programme in and, I hope, during Government my period, progress in the right direction. This is an in-depth process, taking the But it requires enormous reservoirs of information constant surveillance. available in the UK and splitting them Neither a wet finger up into 8 different process. Each in the air nor Classics process takes two years with a point the way minimum of 100 scientists and forward. We need to engineers, with about 450 people on a transform the culture project. The 30-40 Ministers in and that is a job that Government that were involved valued still needs to be done
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 33 CONCENTRATING SOLAR POWER AND THE PROPOSED HVDC SUPERGRID PARIAMENTARY AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE BREAKFAST BRIEFING ON TUESDAY 13TH NOVEMBER
Dr Gerry Wolff CEng Coordinator, TREC-UK Neil Crumpton Friends of the Earth and TREC-UK
Overview The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Co-operation (TREC) – an initiative of the Club of Rome – is a group of scientists and engineers developing a collaboration amongst countries in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa (EUMENA) to take sources to where it is needed • The DESERTEC concept may be advantage of the truly monumental throughout EUMENA, TREC proposes applied in many places around the quantities of energy falling as sunlight the creation of a ‘Supergrid’ of highly- world and could have a huge impact on the world’s hot deserts – and wind efficient, high-voltage DC transmission in cutting worldwide emissions of energy in those regions too. TREC-UK lines (HVDC). This would not replace CO2. is a group of volunteers who are the existing HVAC transmission grids interested in the ‘DESERTEC’ concept – it would reinforce them and • Jobs and earnings in a large new developed by TREC and aim to raise integrate with them. industry. awareness of it in the UK and beyond. With HVDC, transmission losses are • The creation of fresh water by the Further information about TREC and desalination of sea water using the TREC-UK may be found at no more than about 3% per 1000 km. Solar electricity may, for example, be waste heat from CSP plants – a www.desertec.org and www.trec- welcome bonus in arid regions. uk.org.uk, respectively. transmitted from North Africa to London with less than 10% loss of • The partially-shaded areas under the The DESERTEC concept power. It is feasible and economic to transmit electricity for 3000 km or solar mirrors have many potential uses including horticulture (using Every year, each square kilometre of more. 90% of the world’s population lives within 2700 km of a hot desert desalinated sea water) – a source of hot desert receives solar energy food and other products. equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. and could be supplied with solar Multiplying by the area of deserts electricity from there. • CSP horticulture can bring land into worldwide, this is several hundred There are several other good reasons, productive use that would not times the entire current energy otherwise be suitable for cultivation. consumption of the world. The key described below, for building a technology for tapping in to this Europe-wide or EUMENA-wide HVDC • By alleviating shortages of energy, energy is ‘concentrating solar power’ transmission grid. water, food and land (at least some (CSP), which means using mirrors to The ‘TRANS-CSP’ report from the of which may be made worse by concentrate sunlight to create heat. German Aerospace Centre calculates climate change), the DESERTEC The heat may be used to raise steam to that solar electricity imported from technologies may reduce the risks of drive turbines and generators in the CSP plants in North Africa and the conflict over those resources. Also, a conventional way or it may drive Middle East could become one of the win-win solar collaboration amongst Stirling engines with generators. CSP cheapest sources of electricity in countries of EUMENA can help to is very different from the better-known Europe, and that includes the cost of improve relations amongst different photovoltaics (PV) and should not be transmitting it. That report shows in groups of people. confused with it. detail how Europe can meet all its needs for electricity from a wide A UK Perspective: How the Less than 1% of the world’s hot UK may benefit from the deserts, if covered with CSP plants, variety of low-carbon sources, make 2 DESERTEC proposals: could produce as much electricity as deep cuts in CO emissions from the world currently uses. electricity generation, and phase out nuclear power at the same time. Plentiful and inexhaustible supplies of clean electricity: the UK may benefit Solar heat can be stored in melted salts The scenario described in the TRANS- directly or indirectly from ‘clean power or other media so that electricity from deserts’ generation may continue at night or CSP report provides for greater on cloudy days. Also, gas may be used security of energy supplies than we have now. Imports of solar electricity on short as a stop-gap source of heat when timescales there is no sun. Potential benefits of the DESERTEC concept include: On relatively short timescales, the UK Efficient, long-distance may import solar electricity via transmission of electricity • Plentiful and inexhaustible supplies existing HVAC transmission grids in To transmit electricity from renewable of inexpensive, clean electricity. Europe, even before any HVDC
34 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 transmission lines have been laid. It Security of supplies of wind power by integration across a seems likely that as much as 2 GW wide area. could be imported in this way, The TRANS-CSP scenario up to 2050 possibly more. More information may provides for greater security of A Supergrid would provide access to be found at www.trec- European energy supplies than we large-scale but remote sources of uk.org.uk/elec_eng/cascade.html. In have now: renewable energy such as offshore this connection, a single European wind farms, wave farms, tidal stream market for electricity – like the one There would be an overall reduction generators, tidal lagoons-and CSP! which we have in the UK – would in imports of energy. CSP imports – facilitate the trading of electricity. The not more than 15% of European A large-scale HVDC grid is needed to European Commission and the British electricity supplies – would be an enable the single European or Government have both called for the exception to that rule. EUMENA-wide market for electricity to operate at full capacity. creation of such a market. There would be a greater diversity of Imports of solar electricity on longer sources of energy. CSP adds to that The Supergrid will allow the UK to timescales diversity. become a net exporter of clean electricity from the renewable sources On longer timescales, the UK may The HVDC Supergrid can be designed (wind, waves, tides) with which it is import progressively larger quantities to accommodate damage (like the so richly endowed. of clean solar electricity as HVDC internet). Many opportunities for “UK plc” transmission lines are installed, as The HVDC Supergrid would, in itself, bottlenecks in the existing improve the security of energy The worldwide potential of CSP and transmission grid are removed and as supplies: HVDC cables may be laid HVDC transmission is huge. There are existing transmission grids are under the sea (as proposed by many opportunities for business, upgraded with technologies of the Airtricity) where they would be investment and employment in the Flexible Alternating Current relatively safe from attack or other design, manufacture, installation, Transmission System (FACTS). disruption. management, and maintenance of these technologies. Location of energy-intensive A wide range of countries have hot industries deserts (not like oil or gas). Bringing down worldwide emissions of CO2 Some of the pressure on UK supplies CSP plants are hard to disrupt and of energy may be eased by appropriate easy to repair. CSP has great potential to help bring siting of new energy-intensive down worldwide emissions of CO2 industries. For example, the large There can be strategic stores of solar and this would be a major benefit to amounts of heat and electricity needed energy in chemical form. everyone, including people in the UK. to convert bauxite into aluminium could, with advantage, be supplied Benefits from the creation of an Global Security from CSP plants in the Australian HVDC Supergrid desert, close to where the bauxite is An indirect but potentially important mined. Apart from the import of solar benefit for the UK from the electricity from desert regions, the DESERTEC proposals would be a Credits via the Clean Development proposed HVDC Supergrid has several strengthening of global security: Mechanism or European ‘green other advantages: certificates’ Reducing the risks of conflict over Security of supply: a shortfall in any shortages of energy, water, food and The development of CSP plants in one area can normally be met by spare land. sunny regions may, via the Kyoto capacity in one or more other areas. ‘Clean Development Mechanism’ (or A win-win collaboration amongst its successor), help the UK to meet its Reduces wastage: surplus power in countries of Europe, the Middle East obligations under the Kyoto protocol any one area may be moved to where and North Africa can help to improve (or its successor), and may help it to it is needed. relations amongst different groups of meet European targets for renewable people. sources of energy. A Europe-wide or EUMENA-wide Supergrid would reduce the variability
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– During discussion the following points were made –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The HVDC Grid is not seen as a replacement or alternative to either existing gas or electric grids but as an additional facility that will complement these grids and also, wherever possible, integrate with locally based CHP micro-generation networks. This is not an either/or situation but one where all available energy sources are needed with a gradual shift in time and as rapidly as possible from the more wasteful grid-based model in which fossil fuels are burnt in remote coal-fired power stations without beneficial utilisation of any of the waste heat thereby generated. Many of the renewable sources of energy, such as wave and wind, are also remotely generated in relation to their ultimate destination and will be dependent on a grid facility for delivery to customers. The use of a grid enables security of supply to be guaranteed from the integration of electricity supply from a wider area and range of renewable resources. The downside experience of grid use in the Californian desert is low although sandstorms may be a problem as in northern Nigeria. Submarine cables could provide a transport system with low environmental impact though the high cost of this solution was challenged. AC lines could be converted to DC lines or added to AC pylons. The power density from solar power is high and only requires the utilisation of 1% of the world’s deserts which thereby enables protection of much larger areas of
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 35 the world’s ecosystems such as tropical rainforests. One square mile of desert will generate as much electricity as 100 square miles of organic crops grown specifically for energy production. Electricity generation from biomass is therefore far less efficient than it is from solar power. There are major unresolved issues relating to the involvement of industry in a European supergrid. However, this would be dependent on the prior existence a single European market for electricity. In addition to Africa, Spain is also a potential source of solar power and the Spanish and German Governments have been working together on this project for over ten years. In the USA, California and Nevada are currently very interested. The use of low technology solar energy electricity generation is considered preferable to the development of high technology, fourth generation Pu-based reactor systems. The timescale required to install the grid was not presented which indicated the need for incentives based on contraction and convergence to help promote the greater use of solar power. The supply and demand system for solar electricity across the grid will also require careful management. The UK should be on a war footing in relation to climate change and this could accelerate the wider use of solar power in Europe as it only takes three years to build a solar power plant with an energy pay-back time of only five months compared with a total of 20 years for a nuclear plant built in the UK. However, wider public acceptance of solar power is currently expected to take several years.
PARLIAMENTARY AND SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE VISIT TO VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM TUESDAY 11TH DECEMBER 2007 Report by Dr Douglas Mills, Technical Secretary, Institute of Corrosion
On a lovely sunny day (it seems a visit million items (or 4.6 million objects) were other examples or work that the by the Committee guarantees good that the V&A and its sister museums Science section got involved with. weather!) seventeen members of the have. A very important aspect is Committee visited the Conservation education and the sharing of We then went on a studio visit. Some Department of the V&A Museum. It knowledge. Work is published of the analysis techniques used by the was only a three hour visit – not whenever and wherever it can be and V&A include FTIR, NMR and Raman enough time really to obtain more expertise exchanged with other spectroscopy. During this part of the than a glimpse of what goes on. museums and galleries throughout the tour we also met people involved in a However what a fascinating glimpse it world. major project (OCEAN) which is was! This correspondent’s interest is in designed to monitor the environment corrosion and a fellow Committee Within the conservation group there is within the museum. (It was suggested member (Stephen Benn) asked him a Science section. Silver, sculpture, that the most destructive source in a early on whether the standard paper, stone, textiles and plastics are museum is the people that come definition of corrosion would include all “corroding” away at different rates around it!) The V&A is increasingly the majority of objects in the V&A. and it was part of the job of the utilising daylight to display its Well, a broad definition states that science section to try to understand collections and is increasingly moving corrosion is the deleterious interaction the mechanism and hence try to come away from air-conditioning to more of the surface of any material with its up with ways of ameliorating loss (this sustainable ways of using the building environment. Hence it is occurring on dovetails with what a corrosion and controlling the environment. The the V&A objects just as strongly as it scientist and engineer does). Graham success of these developments in is on the steel hulls of ships or an Martin, Head of the Science section, minimising the impact of the aluminium alloy bridge. then introduced the tour. Much of environment is something the V&A is what his group does is analysis, ie justifiably proud of. However, more We were welcomed with coffee and working out what an object is made could be done with more money! biscuits by Sandra Smith, Head of of. This is necessary to enable the Conservation, who gave a brief conservator to suggest the best This was followed by a visit to the presentation on the role and activities approach to preserve it. Sometimes paper and books studio where we saw of the Conservation Department in the this analysis enables what purport to the techniques involved in the V&A. Only since WW2, ie the last be very old items to be exposed as preservation of a unique “gradual” (an sixty years, have those working in the fakes, eg five papyrus claiming to date Italian music manuscript which is Department been known as from Ramysses III’s time (which if they being prepared for the Medieval and conservators. Before that they were had done would each have been worth Renaissance gallery). Also being known as repairers and certainly in upwards of £1million) were found to worked on was a Round the World in Victorian times most of their activities date from some 3000 years later than 80 Days mid-18th century Theatre by were conducted in dark, dingy that (1960 rather than 1000BC). Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg and basements. However, things have Problems associated with the lacquer wallpaper from the Festival of Britain. improved and now sixty people work degradation on the Mazarin chest (qv) Very interesting were some Indian in well-lit laboratories and studios and the battle between the clothes papers including a 15th century trying to help preserve the seven moth and the “Great Bed of Ware” edition of the Kama Sutra. The
36 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 darkening on these latter is difficult to Brenda Keneghan discussed preserving remove. modern materials. An early example of plastic “corrosion” occurred when the The visit concluded with a series of case containing a rare and valuable short talks in the board room and a 1927 Naum Gabo sculpture was question and answer session. Graham opened and it disintegrated. Martin gave an overview listing the Sometimes plastics or resins (eg stakeholders etc. He also described a amber) can cause metals in the same couple of products that the V&A had case with them to corrode. Work in developed for environmental Denmark is being done on monitoring which are now reintroducing plasticizer into plastics commercially available: AMECP which to prevent brittleness. So this is quite a is a glass-based dosimeter that big field and educating museums that monitors pollution at heritage sites they need to pay attention to this and LIDO a light dosimeter (marketed (most think that they do not have any under the title of “Lightcheck”). He plastic materials in their collections) is also pointed out the need to develop paramount. monitoring devices to protect human beings (both visitors and museum In the Question and Answer session a workers) from possible hazards within questioner asked whether the museum the collection, eg mercury in hats. So was still acquiring objects (it is – there is no shortage of challenges. He budget of £400,000) and whether concluded with a picture of the some objects are being disposed of Guernsey carpet beetle which, if left to (they are). Another question was, itself, would consume much of the “When something is acquired how journal and also a copy of the 2007 carpet collection! much is spent on maintaining or Conservation Symposium. conserving it?” The answer was Shayne Rivers then went into some “normally not a lot but occasionally And so it was outside once more into detail about the conservation of the amount is considerable, eg for a the sunshine carrying a feeling, at least Mazarin chest, particularly the Christian Dior ball dress costing £20k, in this correspondent’s case, that he intricate lacquer work. This object that same amount was spent again to would have liked the visit to have originates from the first half of the preserve it”. There is also a huge gone on longer! Without doubt all 17th century and there is an incredible lending programme. those who took part and who level of detail in the design. The aim subsequently visit this or any other with this project is to combine Overall then we were left with the museum will look at the objects on Japanese and Western approaches to impression of a world-class display with a bit more knowledge conservation. Inter alia an artificial conservation team doing a grand job about their conservation than they method for ageing the lacquer was with somewhat limited funding. A would have had before this excellent being developed. Further information useful pack was given to each delegate visit. about this amazing object can be with outlines of the talks, a copy of found by googling “Mazarin chest”. the latest issue of the Conservation
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 37 Global leadership in science and innovation alive and well in the San Francisco Bay Area Dr Maike Rentel, Vice-Consul Science & Innovation, and Dr Charles Emrich, San Francisco
The San Francisco Bay Area is renowned as the centre of the high- tech world. It dominates established tech industries like computer hardware and software, as well as more recent fields like biotech. How well is the Bay Area keeping pace in the latest areas of innovation? Silicon Valley, located just South of the City of San Francisco, began its rise to dominance in the IT sector in the early 20th century. It was here where Stanford University graduates William Hewlett and Dave Packard applied their grit and genius, and grew their company out of a modest garage in 1934 into today’s computer giant Hewlett-Packard. Over the past three The Golden Gate Bridge - gateway to tech heaven decades, the SF Bay Area has continued to be a leader in innovation genetics, nanotechnology, and FCO Science & Innovation team in and turned itself into a hub for alternative energy. San Francisco brought together leaders and scientists from a number of such biotech. It is home to the world’s The Bay Area’s entrepreneurial spirit is largest concentration of biotech organisations, including the Gates fed by its strong venture capital (VC) Foundation Global Health programme, companies (more than 600), including community. Within the US, the area biotech pioneers such as Genentech, to explore the potential for stronger remains the most desirable place for international collaboration in global Chiron (now part of Novartis) and VC financiers, who poured close to Gilead Sciences. The area’s newest health research and development. $10 billion into the local economy in Follow up discussions are planned for endeavour is the blossoming clean- 2007 – about one third of total US tech industry which benefits from the Spring 2008 when the FCO Science financing. Sand Hill Road, near and Innovation team will bring a blend of silicon and life science-based Stanford University, has become to and entrepreneurial talents in the area. delegation of West Coast global health private equity what Wall Street is to experts to the UK. A large part of the Bay Area’s the stock market. This triangle of innovative spirit stems from the world research institutions, commercial spirit A Stem Cell Revolution in class research and education and venture capital has created the Bay California institutions that call the area home, Area’s exceptionally vibrant and including Stanford University, the diverse science community. California has become a new hub for stem cell research, drawing researchers University of California at Berkeley, Scientific innovation is enhanced and the University of California San and companies to the state. Among further by generous private and them is Shinya Yamanaka from Japan, Francisco (UCSF, one of the US’ philanthropic funding, including leading medical institutes). The three who shot to stardom in 2007 after several major foundations set up by publishing his success in schools have garnered 54 Nobel prizes Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Major between them, received a total of $2 reprogramming ordinary skin cells gifts in 2007 included a $200 million into stem cells. Dr Yamanaka recently billion in R&D funding in 2007, and commitment from the San Francisco- produced some of the brightest opened a lab at the Gladstone based Gordon and Betty Moore Institutes, San Francisco. scientific and technical minds, Foundation (co-founder of Intel) to including the founders of Google, the University of California for a California’s rapid rise as a centre of Yahoo!, Cisco, Apple, Sun telescope, and a $150 million stem cell technology is a response to Microsystems, Intel and Genentech. donation from an anonymous Bay the federal ban on most human Both Berkeley and Stanford rank at or Area donor to the UCSF Cancer embryonic stem cell research. Three near the top of universities worldwide Centre for cancer research. The private years after President Bush’s 2001 for excellence in the science and arts sector is also directly involved in an clamp down on embryonic stem cell in 2007 (Times Higher Education impressive range of research based research, California voters passed a Supplement). The Bay Area is also programmes targeting international law creating the California Institute for home to the Lawrence Berkeley development problems eg in global Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). The National Laboratory which was key in health. These include non-profit and institute is housed in San Francisco the development of nuclear technology for-profit endeavours which draw on and will disburse $3 billion of public in the 1940’s. The lab is now heavily the scientific excellence of Bay Area funds for stem cell research over 10 dedicated to research into biology, institutions. In December 2007, the years. To date, $260 million have been
38 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 allocated, nearly 30% of which will go funding to spur development of solar In 2006 then Prime Minister Tony to laboratories at Stanford University technology and biofuels. There are also Blair and Governor Arnold and UCSF. California’s bold initiative is exciting research initiatives taking Schwarzenegger established UK- now being copied by many other place at Stanford University, eg the California collaboration on climate states, including Connecticut and Global Climate and Energy change and clean energy. This has led Massachusetts. Programme (GCEP) supported by to a busy two-way flow of information, around $250 million from the private ideas and expert visits, co-ordinated The FCO Science & Innovation team sector. by the FCO Science and Innovation in San Francisco has been engaged in team. Activities in the last year have promoting co-operation of UK and Perhaps the best indication of just how included discussions between Sir California stem cell policy makers and significant clean-tech is in the tech Nicholas Stern and California experts researchers. Building bridges, economy is VC funding. Clean-tech on climate change economics, between including through a new FCO funding from US venture capitalists the King review team and California Collaboration Development Award has risen to over $2.5 billion in the experts on low carbon transport, and a programme between the fast growing first 9 months of 2007, up 50% from best practice exchange on sustainable California stem cell research the previous year. $730 million went energy options between local community and the UK’s strong to California firms. The three biggest government leaders from London, research base in this field is paving the clean-tech investors – Khosla Ventures, Woking and Southampton and way for extensive collaboration. Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Kleiner Western USA cities. The collaboration Ultimately, this will accelerate stem cell Perkins Caufield & Byers – are all is still going strong and ranges from science in both countries and speed headquartered in the Bay Area. Al climate change communication to the development of cures for disease. Gore, champion of the environmental clean technology. movement, recently joined Kleiner The S&I team assisted a collaboration Perkins to push forward clean-tech With so much talent, dynamism and between Newcastle University investments. Indicative of the clean- research funding, the Bay Area will researchers and Shoukhrat Mitalipov’s tech boom, the solar panel continue to be an important partner high-profile research group in Oregon manufacturer SunPower was the region for the UK and a focus of – the first to successfully derive stem fastest to grow among the Bay Area’s activity for the FCO Science and cells from monkey embryos. top 200 companies in 2007 (since Innovation network, particularly in the going public two years ago, areas of stem cell research, clean tech, Getting paid to be the SunPower’s stock price has increased science for development and wider steward of the earth by about 450%). The company’s innovation. founder, Dr Richard Swanson, California has taken an important lead developed SunPower’s solar technology The San Francisco Science & Innovation in addressing the challenge of climate with his students while he was team: Annabelle Malins (Consul), Maike change including through ground Professor of Electrical Engineering at Rentel (Vice-Consul), Theresa Djirbandee breaking legislation mandating Stanford University, completing yet (Research Associate) and Charles Emrich economy wide greenhouse gas another Bay Area university – (Intern). For further information, please e- emission reductions (equivalent to company – VC circle. mail [email protected] . 25% economy wide reduction in emissions by 2020). The need to reverse the US “addiction” to oil has become a major focus of the science and innovation effort. The San Francisco Bay Area, true to its environmentalist traditions, is leading the clean-tech revolution through a remarkable combination of public and private sector initiatives. In the public realm, three of the most recent major initiatives dedicated to alternative energy have been clustered around Berkeley. BP established the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley with a $500 million endowment for research into sustainable fuels. Further up the hill at Lawrence Berkeley Silicon Valley’s Google campus, the Googleplex. The internet giant uses massive amounts of electricity to power and National Lab, two projects cool its data centres. The company installed solar panels on its rooftops in 2007, projected to “produce enough are using government electricity for approximately 1,000 California homes or 30 per cent of Google’s peak electricity demand in our solar powered buildings”, Google reports.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 39 House of Commons Select Committee on Innovation, Universities and Skills
Under the Standing Orders, the Committee’s terms of reference are to examine “the expenditure, administration and policy” of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and its associated public bodies. This includes the Government Office for Science, headed by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser. The new Committee was nominated on 8 November 2007. The current Members of the Committee are: Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods (Lab, City of Durham), Mr Tim Boswell (Con, Daventry), Mr Ian Cawsey (Lab, Brigg and Goole), Mrs Nadine Dorries (Con, Mid Bedfordshire), Dr Ian Gibson (Lab, Norwich North), Dr Evan Harris (Lib Dem, Oxford West and Abingdon), Dr Brian Iddon (Lab, Bolton South East), Mr Gordon Marsden (Lab, Blackpool South), Dr Bob Spink (Con, Castle Point), Ian Stewart (Lab, Eccles), Graham Stringer (Lab, Manchester, Blackley), Dr Desmond Turner (Lab, Brighton Kemptown), Mr Rob Wilson (Con, Reading East) and Mr Phil Willis (Lib Dem, Harrogate and Knaresborough). Mr Phil Willis was elected Chairman of the Committee at its first meeting on 14 November 2007.
A new Committee and against this decision, its timing and implementation, the exemptions from the withdrawal of funding proposed The House of Commons passed a motion on 24 July 2007 by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to replace the former Science and Technology Committee and the impact upon students and institutions, with a Committee on Innovation, Universities and Skills particularly specialised institutions such as the Open with effect from the State Opening of the current session University and Birkbeck College London. of this Parliament (6th November 2007). The new Committee has decided to exercise its powers to establish Biosecurity in UK research laboratories a sub-committee. The sub-committee will undertake On 6 December 2007 the Committee announced an inquiries on an ad hoc basis, taking its title from the inquiry into biosecurity in UK research laboratories. The inquiry and have an ad hoc chairman. Cross-cutting inquiry will focus on the capacity for research on science inquiries will be undertaken by either the main dangerous pathogenic material in the UK, the state of Committee or a sub-committee as appropriate. biological containment facilities, inspection regimes and Inquiries the licensing system, maintenance and recording practices, storage and transportation of dangerous pathogens, the Since its formation in November 2007 the Committee has measures implemented when pathogenic material cannot announced three new inquiries which will start in 2008. be accounted for as well as both biosafety training and the role of universities in overseeing security clearance for Renewable energy-generating technologies research students working with dangerous pathogens. On 28 November 2007 the Committee announced an Oral Evidence inquiry into renewable electricity generation technologies. Building upon the inquiry previously announced by the The Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee began former Science and Technology Committee, the new its programme of work with a series of single evidence inquiry will focus on issues common to all renewable sessions looking into important areas within its remit. technologies. It will consider the state of renewable electricity-generation technologies in the UK including The Sainsbury Review their funding and support, technology transfer and their On 21 November 2007 Lord Sainsbury of Turville gave commercialisation, intermittency of supply and Oral Evidence on his Review of science and innovation connection with the national grid. In addition, it will policy, “The Race to the Top”. consider the establishment and role of the Energy Technologies Institute, Government policy towards Higher Education Issues enabling existing technologies to meet targets and the UK skills base to underpin the development of renewable On 28 November 2007 the Committee heard Oral technology. Evidence from Bill Rammell MP, Minister of State, Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, Department for Funding for Equivalent or Lower Qualifications (ELQs) Innovation, Universities and Skills and Professor David Eastwood, Chief Executive, Higher Education Funding On 6 December 2007 the Committee announced an Council for England on Higher Education Issues. inquiry into the Government’s decision to phase out support given to institutions for students taking second Role of the Government Chief Scientific Adviser qualifications of an equivalent or lower level to their first qualifications. The inquiry will focus on the arguments for On 5 December 2007 the Committee heard Oral Evidence
40 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 from Professor Sir David King on the role of the Government Responses Government Chief Scientific Adviser. A number of Government Responses to Reports by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser designate: former Science and Technology Committee have been Introductory hearing received since the summer recess:
On 12 December 2007 the Committee heard Oral 2007: A Space Policy Evidence from Professor John Beddington following his appointment as Government Chief Scientific Adviser from On 23 October 2007, the Science and Technology 1st January 2008. Committee published its Fifth Special Report of Session 2006-2007, 2007: A Space Policy: Government Response to the The UK Centre For Medical Research And Innovation Committee’s Seventh Report of Session 2006-07, HC 1042.
On 17 December 2007 the Committee heard evidence Chairman of the Medical Research Council: from Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, Chief Executive, Medical Introductory Hearing Research Council, Dr Mark Walport, Director, Wellcome Trust, Professor Malcolm Grant, President and Provost, On 24 October 2007, the Science and Technology University College London and Mrs Lynne Robb, Chief Committee published its Sixth Special Report of Session Financial Officer and Executive Director of Corporate 2006-2007, Chairman of the Medical Research Council: Resources, Cancer Research UK on the plans for the UK Introductory Hearing: Government Response to the Committee’s Centre For Medical Research And Innovation. Eighth Report of Session 2006-07, HC 1043.
Science And Innovation Investment Framework 2004- International Policies and Activities of the Research 2014 Councils
On 23 October 2007 the former Science and Technology On 25 October 2007, the Science and Technology Committee heard Oral Evidence from Ian Pearson MP, Committee published its Seventh Special Report of Minister for Science and Innovation, and Professor Sir Session 2006-2007, International Policies and Activities of the Keith O’Nions, Director General, Science and Innovation, Research Councils: Government Response to the Committee’s Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on the Ninth Report of Session 2006-07, HC 1044. Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004- Scientific Developments Relating to the Abortion Act 2014, HC 1079 1967
Reports On 29 November 2007, the Government Response to the The Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee is yet report from the House of Commons Science and to publish a Report. However, four Reports were Technology Committee on Scientific Developments published by the former Science and Technology Relating to the Abortion Act 1967 was published as CM Committee in October and November 2007: 7278 by the Department of Health.
Investigating the Oceans Further Information
On 18 October 2007 the Science and Technology Further information about the work of the Innovation, Committee published its Tenth Report of Session 2006- Universities and Skills Committee or its current inquires 2007, Investigating the Oceans, HC 470. can be obtained from the Clerk of the Committee, Dr Lynn Gardner, the Second Clerks, Glenn McKee and The Funding of Science and Discovery Centres Edward Waller or from the Committee Assistant, Ana Ferreira on 020 7219 2792/8367/0859/2794; or by On 22 October 2007 the Science and Technology writing to: The Clerk of the Committee, Innovation, Committee published its Eleventh Report of Session 2006- Universities and Skills Committee, House of Commons, 2007, The Funding of Science and Discovery Centres, HC 903. 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. Inquiries can also be Scientific Developments Relating to the Abortion Act emailed to [email protected]. Anyone wishing to 1967 be included on the Committee’s mailing list should contact the staff of the Committee. Anyone wishing to On 31 October 2007 the Science and Technology submit evidence to the Committee is strongly Committee published its Twelfth Report of Session 2006- recommended to obtain a copy of the guidance note first. 2007, Scientific Developments Relating to the Abortion Act Guidance on the submission of evidence can be found at 1967, HC 1045. http://www.parliament.uk/commons/selcom/witguide.htm. The Committee has a new website address: The Last Report www.parliament.uk/ius where all recent publications, On 7 November 2007 the Science and Technology terms of reference for all inquiries and press notices are Committee published its Thirteenth Report of Session available. 2006-2007, The Last Report, HC 1108.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 41 House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee
The members of the Committee (appointed 13 November 2007) are Lord Colwyn, Lord Crickhowell, Lord Haskel, Lord Howie of Troon, Lord Krebs, Lord May of Oxford, Lord Methuen, the Earl of Northesk, Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, Lord Patel, the Earl of Selborne, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (Chairman), Lord Taverne and Lord Warner. Baroness Walmsley and Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior were co-opted on 14 January 2008.
Personal Internet Security 27 November and the Committee is now awaiting an opportunity to debate this in the House. The Committee’s report on Personal Internet Security was published on 10 August 2007, and was widely reported in Radioactive Waste Management the broadcast and print media. The inquiry, chaired by The Select Committee’s report Radioactive Waste Lord Broers, looked at a broad range of security issues Management: an Update was published on 4 June 2007 and affecting private individuals when using the Internet. Key Government’s response was received on 25 June. The recommendations included: Committee’s report was debated on 29 October. The • Increasing the resources and skills available to the police Government response has been published and is also and criminal justice system to catch and prosecute e- available on the Committee’s website. criminals; Air Travel and Health • Establishing a centralised and automated system, The Committee’s report Air Travel and Health: an Update administered by law enforcement, for the reporting of e- was published on 12 December 2007 and was widely crime; reported in the media. The inquiry examined the current • Incentivising banks and other companies trading online regulatory arrangements, the research carried out since the to improve data security by establishing a data security Committee’s original report in 2000, the cabin breach notification law; environment, infectious diseases, air crew occupational health, contaminated air events and information and • Encouraging better security standards in new software education. Key recommendations included: and hardware by taking the first steps towards the establishment of legal liability for damage resulting from • The United Kingdom must not transfer any further security flaws; responsibilities from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority to Europe until it is clear that the European agency is • Encouraging Internet service providers to improve the competent to exercise such responsibilities. security offered to customers by establishing a “kite mark” for Internet services. • Research to study flight-related factors which may increase the risk of venous thrombo-embolism and The Government’s response to the Committee’s report was effective preventive measures should be fully supported. published as a Command Paper (Cm 7234) on 24 October 2007 and it is expected that the report will be • The regulatory minimum distance between seats should debated by the House during the current session. be increased from 26 inches to 28.2 inches and the level of air passenger duty levied on “premium economy” Allergy seating should be reviewed.
The Committee’s report on allergy made national • The amount of time that passengers can remain in an headlines when it was published in September 2007. The aircraft when the ventilation systems are non- inquiry looked at the increasing prevalence of allergic operational should be limited to 30 minutes. diseases across the United Kingdom, the reasons behind this, and associated social and economic costs. The report • Airlines must ensure that pilots protect their hearing set out a series of recommendations on topics ranging and get appropriate rest periods. from NHS allergy services and the co-ordination of allergy • The manner in which information on fitness to fly is research, to food labelling, catering establishments and the offered should be reviewed. management of allergy in the school and work environment. The Government published its response on The Government’s response to the report is due at the end of February.
42 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 Waste Reduction New inquiry: Systematics and Taxonomy
In August 2007, a Sub-Committee, chaired by Lord The Select Committee has launched a short inquiry into O’Neill of Clackmannan, launched an inquiry into waste systematics and taxonomy. The inquiry will follow up on reduction, the first level of the waste hierarchy. The the Committee’s past inquiries into this subject (in 1991 inquiry will examine ways in which products and and 2002) and will investigate the UK’s capacity in this production processes can be made more sustainable and field including the state of research, data collection and thereby produce less waste. During November and management, and the skills base. The inquiry will also December oral evidence was taken from civil servants, examine new developments in the field such as in what academic experts, the Environment Agency and the way systematics contributes to ecosystem services, as well Institute for European Environmental Policy on the as the impact of genomics and internet databases. The call regulatory aspects of waste reduction and the current for evidence was published in December and the deadline challenges faced by businesses. Over the course of the for responses is 4 February. The Committee will begin next few months the inquiry aims to examine the roles taking evidence in February and it is expected that the that better design and the use of novel technologies can report will be published in July 2008. play in reducing waste, as well as take a look at the fiscal and regulatory incentives that might encourage businesses Further information to embrace these. The Sub-Committee will continue to The written and oral evidence to the Committee’s inquiries hear oral evidence until Easter and expects to publish its mentioned above, as well as the Calls for Evidence on the report in the summer of 2008. Committee’s new inquiries, can be found on the New inquiry: Genomic Medicine Committee’s website www.parliament.uk/hlscience. Further information about the work of the Committee can The Select Committee has appointed a second sub- be obtained from Cathleen Schulte, Committee Specialist committee, chaired by Lord Patel, to hold an inquiry into ([email protected] or 020 7219 2491). The genomic medicine. It is expected that the call for evidence Committee’s email address is [email protected]. will be published in early February and that the report will be published later in 2008.
Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
Recent POST Publications Panel on Climate (IPCC) concluded that most of the Public Opinion on Electricity Options observed increase in global average temperatures since the October 2007 POSTnote 294 mid-20th century is “very likely” to result from the observed increase in human caused greenhouse gases. The 2007 Energy White Paper states that the UK needs an This POSTnote examines the uncertainties of climate extra 40 to 45% of electricity generating capacity over the science, and the attribution of recent climate change. next 20 years. However, there is increasing debate about the proposed development of new power plants. Given Next Generation Telecoms Networks recent public interest in new technologies, it is important December 2007 POSTnote 296 to understand this debate not just in a technological Traditional telecommunications (telecoms) networks were framework, but also within its social context. This developed to carry a single type of service, such as voice POSTnote considers the social acceptability of different calls. In contrast, Next Generation Networks (NGNs) forms of electricity generation (mainly measured through carry all types of services, including voice, video and e- opinion polls). mail, on a common platform. BT’s planned rollout of its Climate Change Science £10bn “21st Century Network” (21CN) by 2012 will November 2007 POSTnote 295 make the UK the first country to replace its incumbent telephone network with an NGN. NGNs offer significant In February 2007 the United Nations Intergovermental cost savings to operators and new services to consumers,
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 43 but there are also challenges in maintaining the quality, Physical Sciences and IT - Digital Preservation. reliability and security of communications. Their Science Policy introduction has been described as “the most significant - International Migration of Scientists and change to telecoms networks since competition was Engineers. introduced two decades ago”. Seminars
HIV in the UK Changing Health Behaviour December 2007 POSTnote 297 On 15 October POST, in conjunction with the British HIV and Aids are one of the four most expensive areas of Psychological Society, held a seminar on changing health infectious disease, costing the NHS £400m a year for behaviour, the subject of a recent POSTnote. Participants treatment alone. New HIV diagnoses in the UK continue to heard from leading figures in the areas of health rise. The populations most affected by the virus have shifted psychology and public health, who outlined the considerably in recent years. “Men who have Sex with Men” characteristics of successful health behaviour remain at most risk of contracting HIV but diagnoses are interventions. A lively debate, chaired by Lord Rea, also particularly concentrated among Black Africans. UK- discussed the challenges facing UK policy in this area. born heterosexuals are also at increasing risk. This POSTnote presents current infection and diagnosis trends, Climate Change and discusses whether policies for HIV testing, education, On 15 November POST, in conjunction with the Natural and prevention reflect these changing patterns. Environment Research Council (NERC), held a seminar Synthetic Biology on Climate Change, the subject of POSTnote 295. The January 2008 POSTnote 298 seminar was also the parliamentary launch of the NERC’s new research strategy. Synthetic biology aims to design and build new biological parts and systems or to modify existing ones to carry out Staff, Fellows and Interns at POST novel tasks. It is an emerging research area, described by Dr Stephanie Baldwin, who has been on an exchange one researcher as “moving from reading the genetic code placement with the New South Wales Parliament, has to writing it.” Prospects include new therapeutics, decided to take a three-year career break from POST, as environmental biosensors and novel methods to produce her husband has obtained a position in Australia. food, drugs, chemicals or energy. This POSTnote outlines recent developments and the possible applications and POST doctoral fellows: risks of synthetic biology and examines policy options for Shanna Marrinan, Middlesex University, Economic and the development and regulation of the research. Social Research Council Fellowship Smart Materials and Systems Fiona McEwan, Kings College London, Medical Research January 2008 POSTnote 299 Council Fellowship “Smart” materials and systems sense and respond to their Jessie Ricketts, University of Oxford, Economic and Social environment and have applications in areas as diverse as Research Council Fellowship health, defence and packaging. The UK has a long track Teil Howard, University of Bristol, Engineering and record of research in this area and the Government has Physical Sciences Research Council Fellowship launched a number of initiatives to encourage exploitation of this research. This POSTnote gives an overview of Adele Langlois, Open University, Wellcome Trust Bioethics current research and potential applications. It also Fellowship examines the factors driving smart materials research and Simon Evans, University of Bristol, Royal Society of those holding back its exploitation. Chemistry Fellowship Current work Aidan Rhodes, University of Durham, Royal Society of Chemistry Fellowship Biological Sciences and Health - Alternatives to Custodial Sentencing for Young Adult Offenders, Assisted International Activities Reproduction, Autism, Animal Cruelty and Interpersonal In October the Chair and Director participated in the 4th Violence, Ethical Oversight of Biomedical Research in Science and Technology in Society Forum, in Kyoto, Developing Countries, UK Vaccine Industry Capacity. Japan. POST organised a highly successful workshop at Environment and Energy - Ecological Networks, Smart the Forum on “Brain Drain or Brain Gain?” which Metering, Electricity Storage Systems, Invasive Species. attracted over forty participants, including the science
44 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 ministers of several developing countries. Sciences, and the Ugandan National Council for Science and Technology (Kampala) to update them on the In October Dr Nath visited the Parliament of Uganda to programme and to discuss collaboration. discuss parliamentary capacity building activities in science and technology in the Parliament of Uganda as In November a technology assessment of Safety in Tunnels part of POST’s Africa programme. Collaborative activities in Europe, co-ordinated by POST, conducted for the identified included trialling an MP-scientist pairing European Parliament’s technology assessment unit, STOA scheme in Uganda in collaboration with the UK’s Royal by Dr Alan Beard, of Heriot Watt University, was Society, and the organisation of a workshop on science submitted to the European Parliament’s transport communication for African parliamentary staff in Autumn committee. The study will be published in early 2008. 2008. Dr Nath also attended meetings with the British Council in Kampala, the Ugandan National Academy of
House of Commons Library Science and Environment Section
Research Papers Key features of the Bill include the creation of the legal framework to require power companies to cover waste The following are summaries of papers produced for and decommissioning costs in the event of new nuclear Members of Parliament. build; banding of the Renewables Obligation to differentiate levels of support to renewable technologies; Information and copies of papers can be obtained from and encouragement of investment in gas supply and Michael Crawford at the House of Commons Library on carbon capture and storage. 0207 219 6788 or through www.parliament.uk/ parliamentary_publications_and_archives/research_papers Planning and Energy Bill .cfm Research Paper 08/06 The Planning Bill The Bill is a Private Members’ Bill introduced by Michael Research Paper 07/84 Fallon MP, who drew first place in the 2007/08 ballot for Private Members’ Bills. The Bill would enable local This Bill would establish an Infrastructure Planning planning authorities to set requirements for energy Commission (IPC) to decide development consent for generation and energy efficiency in local plans. The paper major infrastructure projects in England and Wales. This shows how that would relate to existing Government procedure would introduce a single consent regime for a policy, particularly in the Planning Policy Statement on wide range of infrastructure projects currently approved Climate Change of December 2007. under separate pieces of legislation. It would replace the need for consent under the Town and Country Planning Aviation and Climate Change Act 1990 and other legislation, such as the Electricity Act Research Paper 08/08 1989, for parts of the same project. The IPC decisions would be based upon statements of national policy issued Aviation is a growing industry. Government and the by the Government. aviation industry recognise a link between aviation emissions and climate change, although there is The Bill would also introduce a new procedure for uncertainty about the measurement of the exact effects. planning appeals for minor applications like householder Given the predicted growth in the aviation sector, it seems development. likely that unless emissions are curbed, they will cancel The Energy Bill out efforts made to reduce emissions in other sectors. Research Paper 08/05 The paper sets out to explain: the effects of emissions from aviation; the difficulties in making accurate The Bill contains the legislative provisions required to calculations about how these emissions effect climate implement UK energy policy following the publication of change; and what proposals and actions are being taken at the Energy White Paper 2007. various levels to reduce these emissions.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 45 Selected Debates and Parliamentary Questions & Answers
Following is a selection of Debates and Questions and Answers from the House of Commons and House of Lords. Full digests of all Debates, Questions and Answers on topics of scientific interest from 3rd September to 18th December 2007 from both Houses of Parliament can be found on the website: www.scienceinparliament.org.uk Please log in using the members’ and subscribers’ password (available from the Committee Secretariat) and go to Publications: Digests
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Sales of ethical foods, such as Fairtrade, Leaf, Freedom Food, Red Tractor, and Duchy Originals and organic food Organic Food have grown to £5.5 billion and are expected to rise to Debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday 16 October £7.5 billion by 2011. Organic food is described by the Dr Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East): The debate about FSA as a holistic approach to food production, making food has become extremely polarised in recent years, with use of crop rotation, environmental management and those who advocate organic farming condemning so- good animal husbandry to control pests and diseases, with called conventional farmers for their use of chemicals and restricted use of fertilisers or pesticides and with emphasis their damage to the environment, not realising that on animal welfare and soil health. In August 2007, the conventional farming has changed for the better in recent Crop Protection Association welcomed the Soil years. The reality is that the two sides of this polarised Association’s acknowledgement that organic farmers use debate are closer together than they sometimes think they pesticides which it had denied for most of its existence. are. The debate coincides with the Soil Association’s Indeed, copper sulphate, pyrethrum – a nerve toxin and organic fortnight, the National Consumer Council’s potential carcinogen – and other chemicals used by greening supermarkets project and the introduction of organic farmers are probably more dangerous to the new laws on pesticides by the European Commission. environment than the pesticides used by modern farming. Organic farming is based on a belief system that has its I am not against organic farming, but the public should roots in the anti-science backlash propagated by the not be misled by confusing information. The central vitalists, who believed that life arises from, and involves, message is that a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables, special life forces. The teaching of an Austrian spiritualist safely produced and affordable, and low in processed and mystic called Rudolf Steiner in the early 1920s gave foods with their high sugar and salt contents is better for rise to the modern organic farming movement. us all.
The pioneers of organic farming believed that the synthetic Mr James Paice (South-East Cambridgeshire): Organic nitrate fertilisers created by the Haber-Bosch process in food is the fastest growing sector of the food market, Germany in the early 20th century, which fix nitrogen albeit a very small share of the market at present. Much of directly from the atmosphere as nitric acid and to which this increase is due to the recognition of market about 60% of the people alive today owe their existence, opportunity driven by consumer demand rather than actually lack vital forces imparted by animal manure. personal conviction by the farmer and it is right and Steiner believed that these special forces come from far- proper that farmers should be able to do so. away planets. That is where the movement began. However, The Minister for the Environment (Mr Phil Woolas): to produce all the manure required to replace synthetic Ten years ago in 1997 the area under organic management nitrogen fertilisers would require an additional 5 or 6 in the United Kingdom was a little less than 51,000 billion head of cattle, all emitting methane, the greenhouse hectares. By the beginning of 2007 that figure was gas, and the destruction of countless forests to provide their 620,000, of which just over 120,000 are under grazing land and food. The Soil Association, which is the conversion, resulting in a 12-fold increase. In 1997 there largest organic trade and certification group in the UK were fewer than 1,000 farmers of organic produce in the today, is a powerful and popular movement, perhaps largely United Kingdom, but by the beginning of 2007 the because of the influence of Prince Charles and Lord number had increased to 4,600. The changes have been Melchett, the policy director of the Soil Association. brought about by consumer demand, clearly, but also by Nevertheless, we need a healthy debate about organic food Government action. In the Government’s view organic and the often spurious claims made by organic farmers. farming is beneficial to biodiversity. Mixed farming also
46 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 contributes to landscape quality and the beauty of rural Fisheries areas and generally incurs less energy than conventional Debate in the House of Commons on Thursday 6 December systems. Organic farming has its proponents, of whom the Government are one because of the environmental The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for benefits of producing organic food and the benefit of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Jonathan Shaw): farming methods used, many of which could also be used The fisheries sector continues to make a significant in conventional inorganic farming as indicated by the contribution to the UK economy. Total landings of fish Member for Bolton, South-East. from UK vessels have increased for the second year running. Their value rose to £610 million last year – up 7 It contributes to the economic sustainability of rural areas. per cent on 2005. The increase was shared across the UK Generally organic farms are better connected with those and was mainly accounted for by an increase of almost a whom they supply and therefore with local consumers, third in the value of the shellfish sector. Figures show that food processors and wholesalers. So in rural economies, species such as crabs and lobsters are growing in value as organic production generally provides more employment a proportion of the total UK catch. opportunities. Bill Wiggin (Leominster): The Minister needs to confirm Sea Bass that the demands for the forthcoming electronic recording Debate in the House of Commons on Thursday 22 November and reporting requirements are met. Like the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, the Martin Salter (Reading West): The Minister’s Marine Fisheries Agency needs financial stability to announcement on retaining the minimum landing size for function and meet its targets. If the Government cannot bass at 36cm, rather than increasing it to 40cm and then provide it, I suspect that our fisheries will suffer. The to 45cm by 2010 as recommended by the Centre for questionable financial management of the Department for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) Environment, Food and Rural Affairs means that in just two years ago, flies in the face of scientific evidence forthcoming years the number of Royal Navy fisheries and has been greeted with understandable anger and protection service control days has been slashed. dismay by hundreds of thousands of sea anglers, as well as by conservationists. He himself admitted that his Mr Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby): The cod decision was based on looking after the short-term fleet is much depleted with ten full time trawlers in interests of the inshore fleet rather than the long-tern Whitby and a similar number in Scarborough. The interests of the species and the environment. It is worth message from the fishermen that discards are a criminal reminding the House that the recreational sea angling waste is loud and clear. They do not just resent the money sector in England and Wales is worth more than £1.3 that they see being thrown away, but the fact that it is billion a year to the economy and provides 19,000 non- good fish that are being thrown back. This year the subsidised jobs. The entire commercial fleet employs only scientists recommended a 15 per cent increase in cod 12,000 people, with considerably fewer in the under-10m quota, but the Fisheries Council went for a freeze and that inshore fleet. The nub of the argument is that we were may be one reason why there have been so many discards. promised that Britain’s most popular fish in terms of its sporting and eating potential would be managed Agriculture:Defra sustainably and primarily as a recreational species. That Debate in the House of Lords on Thursday 6 December was a promise made in Downing Street and it should be Baroness Shephard of Northwold rose to call attention to kept. the role of the Department for Environment, Food and The Minister for the South East (Jonathan Shaw): Before Rural Affairs in securing the efficient and effective delivery making this decision I was aware that the consultation on of policies and funds that support and promote the the issue had generated some 2,800 responses. That is a farming industry in the United Kingdom. How are we to large postbag for a fisheries issue. The replies judge the efficiency of Defra? Is it well run? Is it able to demonstrated that views were generally polarised between cope with the crises that are part of its daily expectations? anglers who were strongly in favour of an increase in size Does it help or hinder? Sadly, we have examples over the and commercial fishermen who strongly opposed it. past year or two of problems for farmers arising from Whatever decision was reached was likely to be Defra itself. The most obvious are the single payment contentious. My approach was to ensure that my decision scheme and this summer’s double outbreak of foot and took proper account of the science. I am also particularly mouth emanating from the Government-licensed concerned about the impacts on the under-10m fleet in laboratory at Pirbright. The financial loss to English the short to medium term. It is difficult to quantify the farmers from the adoption of a dynamic hybrid system to impact on the profitability of individual vessels, but it is make single payments against EU advice amounted to clear that bass between 36cm and 40cm makes up an between £18 million and £22 million. At Pirbright the important share of the catch for these vessels. two leaks of foot and mouth virus have done little to enhance the department’s reputation for efficiency. Given
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 47 that Defra deals with issues of enormous national and remained flat or has declined over the last decade. international importance adequate resources are clearly Evidence indicated that around a quarter of state school essential to deal with issues such as climate change, flood pupils aged 11 to 16 had no access to a qualified physics defences, in-year finance cuts on the Environment Agency, teacher, and 12 per cent had no access to a qualified and bovine TB costs running at £90 million a year with chemistry teacher. Furthermore the Government had no resolution in sight. Biofuels have revealed that failed to deliver £200 million for school science although Defra’s intentions were undoubtedly good, its laboratories promised before the 2005 election. Half of all effectiveness in practice proved wanting since there has A grades achieved in physics were from candidates from been resistance in every sphere of Government towards independent schools – a sector that educates only 8 per the development of biofuels in the past 10 years. cent of our young children but enjoys far superior facilities in the teaching of science. The recent report of The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools has ranked Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): I acknowledge almost half of our schools as either unsatisfactory or that there are significant difficulties. We have to focus on inadequate. Is it any wonder that just 200 of our being a smarter regulator in order for the department to independent schools account for 48 per cent of Oxbridge be able to deliver. The number of people in the admissions, with 3,500 additional schools accounting for department is not the issue that counts. The summer the balance of 52 per cent? Even more troubling are the flooding provided a stark reminder of what we face if findings in Ofsted’s report that 200,000 of our teenagers climate change becomes a regular feature, particularly in remain outside education, training or employment. Lord the middle of the growing season. No amount of planning Leitch’s report on skills revealed that 17 million adults in could have prevented that. The members of the the UK have difficulty with numbers and that more than emergency team from the Environment Agency never one in six young people leave school unable to read, write received proper thanks for the work they did at the or add up properly. As a result the UK risks increasing switching station at Waltham, near Gloucester. Had inequality, deprivation and child poverty, and a generation Waltham failed it would have knocked out electricity for cut off permanently from labour market opportunity. I am half a million homes. The Stern review on the economics therefore eager to hear from the Minister what progress he of climate change pointed out that agriculture accounts believes has and will be made in the future. for 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. That is why we need farmers to adapt to climate change. Lord Rees of Ludlow: The Royal Society has become more engaged with school-level education and has The England Rural Development Programme has a budget convened the main learning societies into a group chaired of £3.9 billion of which £3.3 billion will be allocated to by Sir Alan Wilson to co-ordinate views and make it more agri-environment and other land management schemes, effective in its advice to Ministers. One reason why many including the environmental stewardship scheme, which pupils in the crucial 14-16 age range are turned off is open to every farmer in the country. Some £600 million science is because they never encounter an enthusiastic will be made available to agriculture and forestry to make science teacher. Science must attract the talented young, them more competitive and to enhance opportunity in but we should not focus only on the education of would- rural areas. Currently over half of English farmland is be professionals. For an informed public debate all young under agri-environment schemes and under those people need at least some feel for science and some schemes farmers are managing in excess of 180,000 engagement with its concepts. kilometres of hedgerows. We have to ask ourselves whether we want the countryside maintained and if so be The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department prepared to put a value on it and pay for it in the public for Children, Schools and families (Lord Adonis): Lord interest. Bilimoria, one of this country’s outstanding entrepreneurs, is right to emphasise the huge importance of mathematics Education and science education to our economic and social prosperity in the next generation. Lord Sainsbury’s Education: Science and Mathematics excellent review of science and innovation, The Race to the Debate in the House of Lords on Thursday 18 October Top, followed a huge piece of work designed to get to the Lord Bilimoria asked the Government how they propose roots of the challenge facing us in science and to develop teaching of science and mathematics in the UK mathematics education and is an important part of the so that future generations may be equipped to compete Government’s answer to the question before us. The effectively in the emerging global marketplace. The report presents eight main recommendations as follows: Minister will have read the report, Science Teaching in 1) Pay a £5000 incentive to general science and biology Schools, published by the Science and Technology teachers who take physics and chemistry courses. Committee which observed that the number of young people opting for science subjects at the age of 16 has 2) Change to the self-evaluation form prepared by schools
48 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 prior to the Ofsted inspection, prompting them to classroom back in favour of the teacher, and in the school highlight recruitment and retention issues in relation to back in favour of the head. science and maths teachers. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department 3) Provide long-term Government funding for the 10 new for Children, Schools and Families (Lord Adonis): It is a science learning centres, with special support to enable particular concern to the Government that more than 600 teachers from schools with a shortage of science secondary schools failed to achieve our new ambition for teachers to attend. every secondary school of 30 per cent or more pupils achieving five or more good GCSE passes, including 4) Expand the science and engineering clubs attached to English and maths. The figure was 1,600 in 1997, so schools that are geared to 11 to 14 year-olds who show there has been a great improvement. We need to see a interest and promise in science. more significant improvement still. An extensive and 5) Give all pupils who would benefit the chance to study detailed account of proposed improvements was then the new further mathematics GCSE. presented.
6) Improve science and mathematics-related careers Energy and Climate Change advice. This will start from 2008 when a contract will Energy: Radioactive Waste Management (S&T Report) be awarded for the provision of such advice to schools. Debate in the House of Lords on Monday 29 October 7) Annual monitoring of progress towards the targets for The Earl of Selborne rose to move that this House takes physics, chemistry and mathematics teachers. note of the report of the Science and Technology 8) Continue to expand the opportunity for separate Committee on Radioactive Waste Management: An Update physics, chemistry and biology GCSEs which is a key (4th Report, HL Paper 109). This is the fourth time that Government priority. the committee has returned to the subject of radioactive waste management since the first report in 1999 From September 2008 all 310 science specialist schools concluded that phased disposal in a deep geological will offer triple science. At the same time all higher repository was the most feasible and desirable method for achieving pupils reaching level 6 or above in the science dealing with radioactive waste. It called for the key stage 3 tests taken by all 14 year-olds will have an establishment of a new, statutory body with responsibility entitlement to study triple science at GCSE, irrespective of for developing an overarching and comprehensive the schools that they attend. implementation strategy, and recommended that Schools implementation proposals should be subject to explicit Debate in the House of Lords on Thursday 6 December endorsement by Parliament at regular intervals. After four years’ delay the Government appointed the Committee on Baroness Perry of Southwark rose to call attention to an Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) in 2003 to action plan to make opportunity more equal in the UK by review options and make recommendations. raising school standards and increasing the number of good school places. We have suffered for a decade from We welcomed their report in 2006 as it echoed our report the belief in Whitehall and of politicians that the way to seven years earlier. However, although CoRWM improve standards was central control, bureaucratic recommended an independent body to oversee directives, oppressive targets and a punitive inspection implementation, they did not envisage either a statutory regime, which has demoralised and disempowered basis or accountability to Parliament. Hence their teachers. The evidence is starkly clear that the top-down proposals were watered down. The Government’s response approach has not worked. Something quite different is was further diluted by the proposal to establish an needed. A third of a million pupils fail to gain five good independent overseeing body by their decision to give GCSEs including English and maths every year, while responsibility for the implementation of radioactive waste 130,000 young people each year fail to obtain a single C management to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority grade. Clever children from the poorest backgrounds fall (NDA) under its responsibilities derived from the Energy progressively behind less clever children from higher Act 2004, which does not explicitly mention geological socio-economic backgrounds. By the end of compulsory disposal, thereby increasing the potential for conflict and schooling at key stage 4, children eligible for free school confusion in the institutional arrangements. CoRWM’s meals are on average 40 per cent behind their successor will be constituted as an independent advisory contemporaries. That is unacceptable in any society and board. policy must address that issue not only for the sake of the We are firmly persuaded that this dilution of successive future economy but, above all, for the sake of social recommendations is not the way to build up public trust. justice. I therefore welcome the Conservative Party’s In view of the division of responsibilities between the commitment to shifting the balance of power in the Government, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 49 the regulators, it is critical that the remit, responsibilities There are four key principles that the Government believe and lines of accountability of the key players in the should underpin a post-2012 regime. Firstly, the post- programme are clear. The Energy Act does not appear to 2012 regime must fit the scale of the challenge. To avoid have been drafted with these extended responsibilities in the dangerous impacts of climate change, global mind and the role of the NDA in geological disposal has greenhouse gas emissions must peak within 10 to 15 years never been debated or endorsed by Parliament. It is and fall by at least 50 per cent by 2020. Secondly, the therefore recommended that the Energy Act be amended agreement must be fully effective, involving all countries accordingly. Our Committee has been critical of the years with significant emissions. A global carbon market needs that it took Government to determine a radioactive waste to develop for that to be real. Placing a price on carbon is disposal policy. Much will now depend therefore on the essential to incentivise new investment in energy efficiency right mix of skills and expertise in the membership of and clean energy sources, not just for the developed world CoRWM under its chair designate, Professor Robert but for the developing world as well. Thirdly, the principle Pickard. If we do not rebuild our specialist nuclear skills of fairness: developed countries have the greatest capacity required for the long-term geological disposal responsibility and the greatest capacity to reduce programme, the radioactive waste management emissions. The larger emerging economies also need to programme will be at risk and public confidence in the adopt new commitments that reflect their growth. Richer programme will be impossible to maintain. countries should play their part in supporting developing countries as they transfer to clean energy technologies. The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Fourthly, a post-2012 agreement must be comprehensive, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Rooker): So many people addressing emissions from energy at the same time as have been determined not to find a solution to the waste controlling emissions from land use, including as a means of stopping any discussion on new build. First, deforestation. you do not want to discuss the waste because you might find a solution and, if you do, that knocks on the head Gregory Barker (Bexhill and Battle): The Conservative any arguments about possible new build to cope with party welcomes this topical debate on climate change. climate change. The Government have conceded that the However, the Government dropped their own Energy Act may well need amending to take account of commitment, made in three consecutive manifestos, to cut the extra remit of the NDA. It is suggested that there has British carbon emissions by 20 per cent by 2010, and been dithering and procrastination. The Government will replaced it with a target of 15 per cent. The Government set the policy and take final decisions and the have ordered a U-turn on the Merton rule, having caved Government through Ministers will be fully accountable. in to the House Builders Federation. The Government The NDA will be a strong, effective implementing have chronically underfunded and are now scrapping the organisation. The regulators will ensure that the process is farce that is the low-carbon buildings programme, causing safe through robust, independent regulation. CoRWM will huge problems for the microgeneration industry. They provide independent scrutiny and advice on the have underspent, cut and then redirected budget programmes and plans. Local communities in this country commitments for energy efficiency and failed to support that are interested in hosting a geological disposal facility plans to build the world’s first carbon capture and storage will work with the NDA and others in a partnership power station in Peterhead, Scotland, opting instead for approach. Local government will be fully engaged in the yet another iterative round of consultation and a partnership approach and will play its part in decision- competition instead of just getting on with it. They were making and the operation of the planning system. caught red-handed trying to water down Britain’s commitment to the EU renewable energy target of 20 per Climate Change cent by 2020. The Minister was remarkably short on Debate in the House of Commons on Thursday 22 November solutions proportionate to the task. If we judge the The Minister for the Environment (Mr Phil Woolas): It Government’s performance this year by deeds and not is appropriate that climate change has been chosen for words, UK carbon emissions are still higher today than one of the first topical debates, because in the when the Labour Government took office 10 years ago. Government’s view it is the greatest challenge of our time. Colin Challen (Morley and Rothwell): Over the past The report from the intergovernmental panel on climate 650,000 years the highest level of carbon alone in the change has given the world the loudest possible wake-up atmosphere was 280 parts per million, and now that call and comes two weeks ahead of the meeting of the figure stands at 384 parts per million. Carbon equivalent world’s Environment and Finance Ministers in Bali as part gases are perhaps over 430 parts per million now. It is of the UN framework convention on climate change. At obvious to me that we are well into uncharted territory that meeting, along with our EU colleagues, we want to already. We do not have a window of opportunity to see see the launch of comprehensive negotiations to deliver a how much further we can test the system. I would not post-2012 agreement to tackle climate change, that being accept anyone saying that we have another 10 or 15 years the end of the first period of the Kyoto agreement. to sort the problem out. We do not.
50 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 Energy Policy users. That was the situation in Edinburgh where we had Debate in Westminster Hall on Tuesday 27 November a major epidemic in the 1980s, predominantly among our injecting drug users. It is thought that a clampdown on Mr William Cash (Stone): The UK desperately needs an the availability of needles led to an increase in needle- energy policy. Despite the length of this summer’s energy sharing, and that in turn led to the explosion of HIV White Paper – it runs to 342 pages – it dealt much more infection among Edinburgh’s drug-taking population. That with what we need to do than how to do it. It was largely interested me, and under the private Member’s Bill mute on how investment from UK companies is to be procedure, I successfully introduced the AIDS (Control) stimulated and encouraged in order to build new power Act 1987 which requires health authorities to publish stations and energy infrastructure. Our over-dependence reports annually, setting out the numbers diagnosed with on expensive gas, imported from Russia, the middle east HIV/AIDS and to provide details of the work being done and north Africa, for the generation of electricity is placing in their area on prevention, treatment and care. In the more households in fuel poverty, which is when more past year, the Government have indicated their intention than 10 per cent of household income is spent on energy to discontinue the central requirement of the Act. Health bills. We must incentivise new clean coal and nuclear authorities would no longer be required to produce build since the days when Britain could rely on plentiful annual reports. gas from the North Sea are gone. I vigorously opposed the closures of Silverdale and Trentham collieries, both of Of the 73,000 people in the UK estimated to be living which had substantial reserves and also challenged Arthur with HIV, about a third are unaware of their status. There Scargill when he was doing an enormous amount of is a great deal of work still to be done in reducing the damage to our local industry in Staffordshire and told him number of people who are unaware of their HIV positive to lay off my miners. I was aware then that those pits status. Some 37 per cent of HIV positive people visiting a represented a part of Britain’s future energy security. If we genito-urinary medicine (GUM) clinic still leave the clinic are to be able to exploit our domestic coal resources in unaware that they have the virus and there are now calls future we must place clean coal at the heart of our future for GUM clinic HIV tests to be conducted on an opt-out energy policy and stimulate investment in the basis universally, and to be provided for every attendee development of our substantial reserves. every time they attend with a new condition. There is also a funding issue as the additional £300 million pledged in The Minister for Energy (Malcolm Wicks): The UK’s the 2004 “Choosing Health” White Paper to transform remaining coal resources are a valuable national asset that England’s sexual health services has been diverted from we need to put to the best possible use. The coal authority sexual health to alternative causes, notably paying off estimated that reserves at existing and potential sites Primary Care Trust (PCT) financial deficits. amount to more than 2 billion tonnes. The principal customer for that coal is the electricity generating industry. The Minister of State, Department of Health (Dawn Coal-fired generation supplies around a third of UK Primarolo): The understanding of HIV is now much electricity and can rise to more than 50 per cent, often at greater than when he introduced the Bill that led to the very short notice when demand peaks in winter. The AIDS (Control) Act 1987. In prevention, we now focus in Government are committed to carbon capture and storage the UK on the particular sections of our communities that (CCS) which is absolutely vital, as is the emissions trading are most at risk: gay men and African communities – the scheme which is an important European way in which to groups most at risk of sexual transmission of HIV. Funds pay for CCS in future. that were previously ring-fenced for prevention are now included in the baseline for the National Health Service, Health and have been since 2002. We now also have focused delivery of treatments. HIV/AIDS Debate in Westminster Hall on Wednesday 28 November The global estimates of HIV are shocking with 33.2 million people estimated to be living with HIV in 2007, Dr Gavin Strang (Edinburgh, East): The world first 2.5 million new HIV diagnoses and 2.1 million deaths. became aware of AIDS at the beginning of the 1980s, However, the UK situation has had some successes where when it was observed that young gay men in the US were antiretroviral therapy (ART) has reduced deaths from 749 dying from rare illnesses. The first documented case in the in 1997 to 497 in 2006. Today, 90 per cent of HIV- UK was in 1981. While scientists worked to piece infected women are diagnosed before delivery, enabling together how the condition was caused, Governments had treatment to be given to prevent HIV transmission to the to work out how to respond to the new public health child. However, gay men remain the group most at risk of challenge. The main sources of infection varied in HIV transmission in the UK. The Health Protection different parts of the country. In some places, AIDS was a Agency expects a figure of 2,700 for new diagnoses disease among the gay population. In other areas among gay men in 2006. For African communities we are HIV/AIDS was primarily a problem among injecting drug working on interventions to increase awareness of the
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 51 benefits of HIV testing and the importance of using when demonstrated in an appropriate clinical situation, as condoms. We are working to achieve consensus on long as it is justified on a scientific basis. Therefore the prevention priorities, as well as strengthening the evidence type and amount of additional data to be provided shall base for HIV health promotion in African communities in be determined on a case-by-case basis in accordance with England. relevant scientific guidelines.
NHS: Drugs The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Question and Written Answer on Tuesday 18 December Agency has not issued a specific guideline to clinicians on substitution. All medicines, including biological Dr Iddon (Bolton South East): To ask the Secretary of medicines, should be prescribed by clinicians in State for Health: accordance with the approved advice provided in the how many biosimilar medicines are licensed for use in the Summary of Product Characteristics which provides full United Kingdom; (2) if the Government will take steps to information about the product, including its side effects preclude the automatic substitution of brands with similar and its use. biological medicines to ensure patients are not put at unnecessary risk from potential adverse drug reactions; The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain’s (3) if he will hold discussions with (a) the Medicines and Professional standards and guidance for the sale and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and (b) the supply of medicines provides advice to pharmacists on European Medicines Agency to ensure that manufacturers switching from innovator biological medicines to of biosimilar medicines submit full clinical trial data on biosimilar medicines and states that except in an each indication for their products rather than extrapolated emergency, a specifically named product should not be data from the reference product; (4) if he will ensure that substituted by any other product without the approval of biosimilar medicine packaging and accompanying patient the patient or carer and the prescriber, and in the case of information leaflets (a) contain details of the formulation hospital drugs, the approval of the therapeutics and manufacturing process for the biosimilar agent and committee, or in line with other similar locally agreed (b) make reference to the potential risk of not being able protocols. to determine which drug resulted in an adverse drug reaction as a result of interchanging similar biological To date there are five biosimilar medicinal products medicines. approved for use in the EU. This includes two preparations of the recombinant growth hormone, Dawn Primarolo: The relevant European Union (EU) somatropin, namely Omnitrope and Valtropin and three legislation requires that packaging and leaflets include preparations of epoetin alfa; Abseamed, Binocrit, and information on the qualitative composition for active Epoetin alfa Hexal. substances and excipients and the quantitative composition for active substances, the pharmaceutical There are several more biosimilar medicinal products form and content of the active drug substance in weight, currently under assessment. volume or units of dosage, the name and address of the Science Policy manufacturer, the name and address of the marketing authorisation holder and, where applicable, the name of Animal Experiments his appointed representatives in the member states. Question and Written Answer on Tuesday 18 December
They must also include a description of the relevant Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South): To ask the adverse reactions which may occur under normal use of Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills the medicinal product and, if necessary, the action to be what steps the Government have taken to reduce the taken in such a case. The patient should be expressly numbers of animals used for research purposes. asked to communicate any adverse reaction which is not mentioned in the package leaflet to his doctor or Ian Pearson: In 2004 Government established the pharmacist. National Centre for the Replacement Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) to advance Details of the manufacturing processes are commercially and promote the replacement, refinement and reduction confidential and are subject to intellectual property rights of the use of animals in research. This is the first such and cannot be made publicly available. centre to be established in the world and it receives funding from the Department for Innovation, Universities The demonstration of the similar nature of two biological and Skills (DIUS) via the Medical Research Council medicinal products may not always be required for each (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences indication applied for. European legislation does not Research Council (BBSRC). In September this year, I exclude extrapolation of evidence based on the biosimilar announced NC3Rs would receive £2.4 million, an product. Existing guidance provided by European increase of £1 million, for 11 new 3Rs projects. The CSR Medicines Agency (EMEA) allows such extrapolation,
52 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 period will see further increased funding rising from £2.3 former DTI, including collaborative R and D projects, million in 2007-08 to just over £5 million in 2010-11. nanotechnology centres, and knowledge transfer network. The centre also received £250,000 funding from the Home Office in 2007-08. Home Office funding after It is currently in the process of developing its strategic and 2007-08 will be confirmed in due course. delivery plans for the next three years starting April 2008, and the role of nanotechnology will be fully considered in The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 (ASPA) developing these plans. During this period, the regulates the use of animals in scientific procedures in the Technology Strategy Board will overall co-ordinate public UK. The principles of the 3Rs are implicit in the ASPA; all sector investment worth more than £1 billion (including UK scientists are therefore legally obliged to use contributions from the English RDAs and the Research alternative approaches to the use of animals where Councils), to provide business with a coherent package of possible, to use the minimum number of animals, and to technology and innovation support, to help companies use protocols which cause the least pain, suffering or turn good ideas into new products and services. distress. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Nanotechnology: Finance Question and Written Answer on Tuesday 18 December Progress of Legislation before Parliament
Dr Gibson (Norwich North): To ask the Secretary of State A comprehensive list of Public Bills before Parliament, for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform how much giving up-to-date information on their progress through funding the Technology Strategy Board plans to allocate to Parliament, is published regularly when Parliament is nanotechnology in each of the next five years. sitting in the Weekly Information Bulletin, which can be found at: Ian Pearson: The Technology Strategy Board, established as an executive NDPB in July 2007, has inherited a http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmwib.htm number of nanotechnology-focused activities from the –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Parliamentary and Scientific Committee News
New Members members, please contact Annabel Lloyd at the secretariat on 020 7222 7085 or by e-mail to We are delighted to welcome a new Parliamentary [email protected]. member, Mr Ian Taylor MP, and two new Individual Members, Professor Robert Pickard Photo Gallery and Dr John Dudeney OBE. Some photographs taken at the Committee’s recent Annual Lunch and at the visit to the V&A The Committee’s Website Museum are also available on the Committee’s www.scienceinparliament.org.uk website. Members’ Noticeboard Forum There is now a Members’ Noticeboard on the Members are encouraged to contribute to the Committee’s Website. Forum which is established for their exclusive use. If any member of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee wishes to publish on the website brief Dinner Discussions details of a meeting, of a report which has Summaries of discussions over post-meeting recently been published, or any other information dinners are now available on the website. which they wish to make known to other
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 53 Euro-News Commentary on science and technology within the European Parliament and the Commission
European Union – Digest The third Nobel prize, in chemistry went to the German researcher professor Gerhard Ertl, chosen by the Royal Monthly digests of European legislation, taken from the Swedish Academy of Sciences “for groundbreaking studies Official Journal of the European Communities can be found on the website: www.scienceinparliament.org.uk in surface chemistry.” His work has enhanced areas as diverse as the process used to make fertilizer, the Please log in using the members’ and subscribers’ production of catalytic converters and hydrogen fuel cells. password (available from the Committee Secretariat) and go to Publications: Digests Galileo should be financed through EU budget, says European Commission European scientists awarded 2007 Nobel Prizes The European Commission has recommended that the European Community take complete responsibility for The 2007 Nobel prizes will go down in history as an funding the deployment of Galileo, Europe’s satellite exceptional vintage for European scientists and their navigation system, warning of the consequences of pioneering scientific breakthroughs. Two German, one shelving the project. Galileo is a joint EU-European Space French and one British scientist scooped this year’s Agency (ESA) initiative, and was to be financed through a prestigious awards, winning the prize in three out of six public-private partnership (PPP). It will see a network of categories: physics, chemistry and medicine. The physics 30 Galileo satellites beaming radio signals to receivers on award was the most impressive, as the discovery of giant the ground, enabling users to pin-point exact locations. magnetoresistance (GMR) by Germany’s Professor Peter Unfortunately the companies within the Galileo Grunberg and France’s Professor Albert Fert has paved the consortium were unable to agree on how to share the way for what is now the ubiquitous Apple iPod. It also led financial risks involved in the project, and so this method to the increasingly small hard disk drives found in of financing the deployment phase was abandoned. Since computers and digital devices. The phenomenon of GMR the early summer of 2007, the Commission has been is where weak magnetic changes in magnetic resistance looking into alternative funding scenarios. The give rise to big differences in electrical resistance. As it Commission, European Parliament and Council of the EU involves structures consisting of very thin layers of have rejected calls for the project to be written off on different magnetic materials, the Royal Swedish Academy account of its inherent costs. The Commission suggests of Sciences considered it “one of the first real applications that the €3.4 billion that is needed to get Galileo up and of the promising field of nanotechnology”. “Applications running could come from EC funds. The funding could of this phenomenon have revolutionised techniques for also come in the form of direct contributions from EU retrieving data from hard disks,” the prize citation said. Member States. These revised funding proposals, entirely “The discovery also plays a major role in various magnetic from public sources, arise as a direct result of “unforseen sensors, as well as the development of a new generation of circumstances” such as the the failure of the negotiations electronics.” on the concession contract within the private consortium Equally remarkable was the groundbreaking work in gene New at the top: Dr Anneli Pauli talks technology by one Italian-born and two British-born scientists. Two of the three are now American citizens about her vision for the JRC (Professor Mario Capecchi and Professor Oliver Smithies), The European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) but, together with Briton Sir Martin Evans, these has a new Deputy Director-General, and she has a vision: European-born scientists successfully developed a a JRC that is known throughout Europe and beyond for technique known as “gene targeting.” The technique its scientific excellence, independence and high societal enables scientists to silence specific genes and monitor the relevance. Dr Anneli Pauli took up her position in April effect, so that they are able to build a picture of embryonic 2007, having previously worked as Vice President of the development, adult physiology, ageing and disease, gene Academy of Finland, responsible for research. The by gene. On awarding the Nobel prize in medicine, the organisational chart of the JRC has been divided in two Nobel committee said that the pioneering work had led to with half of the seven research institutes and three many new insights into conditions such as cancer and directorates reporting to the to JRC Director-General Dr heart disease. In its citation, it heaped praise on the Roland Schenkel, and half to Dr Pauli. She appreciates the technique as “an immenseley powerful technology”, which additional responsibility that this gives her, and has is now being used in virtually all areas of biomedical already visited each institute. research.
54 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 Science Directory DIRECTORY INDEX
Aerospace and Aviation Chemistry British Society for Antimicrobial British Nutrition Foundation C-Tech Innovation C-Tech Innovation Chemotherapy CABI Semta Institution of Chemical Engineers CABI Campden & Chorleywood Food National Physical Laboratory LGC Campden & Chorleywood Food Research Association London Metropolitan Polymer Research Association C-Tech Innovation Agriculture Centre Clifton Scientific Trust Institute of Biology BBSRC Newcastle University C-Tech Innovation Institution of Chemical Engineers CABI Plymouth Marine Sciences Economic and Social Research LGC Campden & Chorleywood Food Partnership Council Newcastle University Research Association Royal Institution Engineering and Physical Sciences The Nutrition Society Institute of Biology Royal Society of Chemistry Research Council Royal Society of Chemistry LGC SCI The Engineering and Technology SCI Newcastle University STFC Board Society for General Microbiology PHARMAQ Ltd Institute of Biology SCI Colloid Science Institute of Physics Forensics Society for General Microbiology London Metropolitan Polymer Institution of Chemical Engineers LGC UFAW Centre Institution of Engineering and Royal Society of Chemistry Royal Society of Chemistry Technology Animal Health and Welfare, LGC Genetics Veterinary Research Construction and Building London Metropolitan Polymer ABPI ABPI Institution of Civil Engineers Centre BBSRC Academy of Medical Sciences London Metropolitan Polymer NESTA HFEA British Veterinary Association Centre National Physical Laboratory LGC The Nutrition Society National Physical Laboratory Natural History Museum Natural History Museum PHARMAQ Ltd Newcastle University Newcastle University Newcastle University UFAW SCI Plymouth Marine Sciences Partnership Geology and Geoscience Astronomy and Space Science Cosmetic Science Royal Institution AMSI Natural History Museum Society of Cosmetic Scientists The Royal Society Institution of Civil Engineers STFC Royal Society of Chemistry Natural Environment Research Earth Sciences Royal Statistical Society Council Atmospheric Sciences, Climate Natural England Semta and Weather Natural History Museum Hazard and Risk Mitigation Natural Environment Research Newcastle University Energy Health Protection Agency Council C-Tech Innovation Institution of Chemical Engineers Newcastle University Ecology, Environment and Institute of Physics STFC Biodiversity Institution of Chemical Engineers Health AMSI Institution of Civil Engineers ABPI Biotechnology The British Ecological Society Institution of Engineering and Academy of Medical Sciences BBSRC CABI Technology Biochemical Society Biochemical Society Economic and Social Research Newcastle University Biosciences Federation Biosciences Federation Council Plymouth Marine Sciences British Nutrition Foundation Campden & Chorleywood Food Freshwater Biological Association Partnership British Pharmacological Society Research Association Institute of Biology Royal Society of Chemistry British Society for Antimicrobial C-Tech Innovation Institution of Chemical Engineers SCI Chemotherapy Institute of Biology Institution of Civil Engineers STFC Economic and Social Research LGC Kew Gardens Council Lilly LGC Engineering Health Protection Agency National Physical Laboratory National Physical Laboratory C-Tech Innovation HFEA Newcastle University Natural England Engineering and Physical Sciences Institute of Biology Plymouth Marine Sciences Natural Environment Research Research Council Institute of Physics and Engineering Partnership Council The Engineering and Technology in Medicine Royal Society of Chemistry Natural History Museum Board LGC SCI Newcastle University Institution of Chemical Engineers Lilly Society for General Microbiology Plymouth Marine Sciences Institution of Civil Engineers Medical Research Council Partnership Institution of Engineering and National Physical Laboratory Brain Research Royal Society of Chemistry Technology Newcastle University ABPI SCI London Metropolitan Polymer The Nutrition Society Lilly Society for General Microbiology Centre Royal Institution Merck Sharp & Dohme National Physical Laboratory Royal Society of Chemistry Newcastle University Economic and Social Research Plymouth Marine Sciences Society for General Microbiology Economic and Social Research Partnership Cancer Research Council Royal Academy of Engineering Heart Research ABPI Newcastle University SCI ABPI Lilly Semta Lilly National Physical Laboratory Education, Training and Skills STFC Newcastle University ABPI Hydrocarbons and Petroleum Academy of Medical Sciences Fisheries Research Natural History Museum Catalysis Biosciences Federation AMSI Newcastle University C-Tech Innovation British Association for the Freshwater Biological Association Royal Society of Chemistry Institution of Chemical Engineers Advancement of Science Plymouth Marine Sciences Royal Society of Chemistry The British Ecological Society Partnership Industrial Policy and Research British Nutrition Foundation AIRTO British Pharmacological Society Food and Food Technology Economic and Social Research Biosciences Federation Council
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 55 Institution of Civil Engineers National Physical Laboratory British Association for the C-Tech Innovation Royal Academy of Engineering Natural Environment Research Advancement of Science STFC SCI Council British Nutrition Foundation STFC Plymouth Marine Sciences British Society for Antimicrobial SSSIs Partnership Chemotherapy Kew Gardens Information Services Clifton Scientific Trust Natural England AIRTO Oil Engineering and Physical Sciences CABI C-Tech Innovation Research Council Statistics Institution of Chemical Engineers The Engineering and Technology The Engineering and Technology IT, Internet, Telecommunications, LGC Board Board Computing and Electronics HFEA Royal Statistical Society CABI Particle Physics Institute of Biology Engineering and Physical Sciences STFC Institute of Physics Surface Science Research Council Institution of Chemical Engineers C-Tech Innovation Institution of Engineering and Patents Institution of Engineering and STFC Technology The Chartered Institute of Patent Technology National Physical Laboratory Attorneys Medical Research Council Sustainability Newcastle University NESTA NESTA Biosciences Federation STFC Newcastle University The British Ecological Society Pharmaceuticals Plymouth Marine Sciences CABI Intellectual Property ABPI Partnership C-Tech Innovation ABPI British Pharmacological Society Prospect Institute of Biology The Chartered Institute of Patent British Society for Antimicrobial Research Councils UK Institution of Chemical Engineers Attorneys Chemotherapy Royal Academy of Engineering Institution of Civil Engineers C-Tech Innovation C-Tech Innovation Royal Institution London Metropolitan Polymer Lilly Institution of Chemical Engineers The Royal Society Centre NESTA LGC Royal Society of Chemistry Natural England Newcastle University Lilly Newcastle University Merck Sharp & Dohme Quality Management Plymouth Marine Sciences Large-Scale Research Facilities PHARMAQ Ltd Campden & Chorleywood Food Partnership Campden & Chorleywood Food Royal Society of Chemistry Research Association SCI Research Association SCI LGC C-Tech Innovation National Physical Laboratory Technology Transfer London Metropolitan Polymer Physical Sciences CABI Centre Cavendish Laboratory Radiation Hazards Campden & Chorleywood Food National Physical Laboratory C-Tech Innovation Health Protection Agency Research Association Natural History Museum Engineering and Physical Sciences LGC C-Tech Innovation STFC Research Council LGC London Metropolitan Polymer Retail London Metropolitan Polymer Lasers Centre Marks and Spencer Centre National Physical Laboratory National Physical Laboratory NESTA STFC Science Policy National Physical Laboratory Physics ABPI Research Councils UK Manufacturing Cavendish Laboratory Academy of Medical Sciences Royal Society of Chemistry ABPI C-Tech Innovation Biochemical Society STFC AMSI Institute of Physics Biosciences Federation Engineering and Physical Sciences National Physical Laboratory British Association for the Tropical Medicine Research Council Advancement of Science Health Protection Agency London Metropolitan Polymer Pollution and Waste The British Ecological Society Society for General Microbiology Centre ABPI British Nutrition Foundation National Physical Laboratory AMSI British Pharmacological Society Viruses SCI CABI Clifton Scientific Trust ABPI C-Tech Innovation Economic and Social Research Health Protection Agency Materials Institution of Chemical Engineers Council Society for General Microbiology C-Tech Innovation Institution of Civil Engineers Engineering and Physical Sciences London Metropolitan Polymer London Metropolitan Polymer Research Council Water Centre Centre The Engineering and Technology AMSI National Physical Laboratory National Physical Laboratory Board Campden & Chorleywood Food Royal Society of Chemistry Natural Environment Research HFEA Research Association STFC Council Institute of Biology C-Tech Innovation Newcastle University Institute of Physics Freshwater Biological Association Medical and Biomedical Research Plymouth Marine Sciences Institution of Chemical Engineers Institution of Chemical Engineers ABPI Partnership LGC Institution of Civil Engineers Academy of Medical Sciences Lilly LGC Biochemical Society Psychology Medical Research Council Plymouth Marine Sciences British Pharmacological Society British Psychological Society NESTA Partnership British Society for Antimicrobial National Physical Laboratory Royal Society of Chemistry Chemotherapy Public Policy Plymouth Marine Sciences SCI HFEA Biosciences Federation Partnership Society for General Microbiology Lilly British Nutrition Foundation Prospect Medical Research Council British Society for Antimicrobial Research Councils UK Wildlife Newcastle University Chemotherapy Royal Academy of Engineering Biosciences Federation Plymouth Marine Sciences Economic and Social Research Royal Institution The British Ecological Society Partnership Council The Royal Society Institute of Biology UFAW The Engineering and Technology Royal Society of Chemistry Natural England Board Semta Natural History Museum Motor Vehicles HFEA UFAW UFAW London Metropolitan Polymer NESTA Centre Prospect Seed Protection Semta CABI Public Understanding of Science Oceanography Academy of Medical Sciences Sensors and Transducers AMSI Biochemical Society AMSI
56 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 Research Councils UK Arts Contact: Alun Roberts and Communications Manager Research Councils UK Humanities Polaris House Research Council North Star Avenue Contact: Jake Gilmore Swindon SN2 1ET Communications Manager AHRC, Whitefriars, Lewins Mead, Bristol, Tel: 01793 444474 BS1 2AE E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 0117 9876500 Website: www.rcuk.ac.uk E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ahrc.ac.uk Each year the Research Councils invest around £3 billion in research covering the full spectrum of Each year the AHRC provides approximately academic disciplines from the medical and biological sciences to astronomy, physics, chemistry and £100 million from the Government to support engineering, social sciences, economics, environmental sciences and the arts and humanities. research and postgraduate study in the arts and Research Councils UK is the strategic partnerships of the seven Research Councils. It aims to: humanities, from archaeology and English literature to dance and design. Awards are made • increase the collective visibility, leadership and influence of the Research Councils for the benefit after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure of the UK; that only applications of the highest quality are • lead in shaping the overall portfolio of research funded by the Research Councils to maximise the funded. The quality and range of research excellence and impact of UK research, and help to ensure that the UK gets the best value for supported by this investment of public funds money from its investment; not only provides social and cultural benefits • ensure joined up operations between the Research Councils to achieve its goals and improve but also contributes to the economic success of services to the communities it sponsors and works with. the UK.
Biotechnology Economic and Engineering and Biological Social Research and Physical Sciences Council Sciences Contact: Lesley Lilley, Senior Policy Manager, Research Council Knowledge Transfer, Research Council Contact: Jenny Whitehouse, Economic and Social Research Council, Public Affairs Mamager, Contact: Dr Monica Winstanley Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Head of External Relations Swindon SN2 1UJ EPSRC, Polaris House, BBSRC, Polaris House, North Star Avenue Tel: 01793 413033 Fax 01793 413130 North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1ET Swindon SN2 1UH. Tel: 01793 413204 [email protected] Tel: 01793 442892 Fax: 01793 444005 E-mail: [email protected] http://www.esrc.ac.uk E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.bbsrc.ac.uk The ESRC is the UK’s leading research and training Website:www.epsrc.ac.uk The BBSRC is the UK’s leading funding agency for agency addressing economic and social concerns. We EPSRC invests more than £740 million a year in academic research in the non-medical life sciences and pursue excellence in social science research; work to research and postgraduate training in the physical is funded principally through the Government’s increase the impact of our research policy and sciences and engineering, to help the nation handle Science Budget. It supports staff in universities and practice; and provide trained social scientists who the next generation of technological change. The research institutes throughout the UK, and funds basic meet the needs of users and beneficiaries, thereby areas covered range from mathematics to materials and strategic science in: agri-food, animal sciences, contributing to the economic competitiveness of the science, and information technology to structural biomolecular sciences, biochemistry and cell biology, United Kingdom, the effectiveness of public services engineering. engineering and biological systems, genes and and policy, and quality of life. The ESRC is We also actively promote public engagement with developmental biology, and plant and microbial independent, established by Royal Charter in 1965, science and engineering, and we collaborate with a sciences. and funded mainly by government. wide range of organisations in this area.
Medical Natural Science & Research Environment Technology Research Council Facilities Council Council Contact: Judy Parker Head of Communications Contact: Nigel Calvin Contact: Simon Wilde STFC 20 Park Crescent, London W1B 1AL. Polaris House, North Star Avenue Swindon SN2 1EU Polaris House Tel: 020 7636 5422 Fax: 020 7436 2665 Tel: 01793 411646 Fax: 01793 411510 North Star Avenue E-mail: E-mail: [email protected] Swindon SN2 1SZ [email protected] Tel: 01793 44 2176 Fax: 01793 44 2125 Website: www.nerc.ac.uk Website: www.mrc.ac.uk E-mail: [email protected] The UK’s Natural Environment Research Council Website: www.stfc.ac.uk The Medical Research Council (MRC) is funds and carries out impartial scientific research funded by the UK taxpayer. We are in the sciences of the environment. NERC trains Formed by Royal Charter in 2007, the Science and independent of Government, but work closely the next generation of independent environmental Technology Facilities Council is one of Europe's largest with the Health Departments, the National scientists. multidisciplinary research organisations supporting Health Service and industry to ensure that the scientists and engineers world-wide. The Council research we support takes account of the NERC funds research in universities and in a operates world-class, large-scale research facilities and public’s needs as well as being of excellent network of its own centres, which include: provides strategic advice to the UK Government on scientific quality. As a result, MRC-funded their development. It also manages international research has led to some of the most British Antarctic Survey, British Geological Survey, research projects in support of a broad cross-section of significant discoveries in medical science and Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, National the UK research community. The Council also directs, benefited millions of people, both in the UK Oceanography Centre and co-ordinates and funds research, education and and worldwide. Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory training.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 57 Association Association of the British of Marine Pharmaceutical Scientific Industries Industry Contact: Karen Gray, Secretary Contact: Mrs Mary Manning, Executive Director Contact: Dr Philip Wright Association of Marine Scientific Industries Director of Science & Technology 4th Floor, 30 Great Guildford Street Academy of Medical Sciences 12 Whitehall, London SW1A 2DY London SE1 0HS 10 Carlton House Terrace Tel: 020 7747 1408 Tel: 020 7928 9199 Fax: 020 7928 6599 London SW1Y 5AH Fax: 020 7747 1417 E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 020 7969 5288 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.maritimeindustries.org Website: www.abpi.org.uk Fax: 020 7969 5298 The Association of Marine Scientific Industries E-mail: [email protected] The ABPI is the voice of the innovative (AMSI) is a constituent association of the Society Website: www.acmedsci.ac.uk pharmaceutical industry, working with Government, of Maritime Industries (SMI) representing regulators and other stakeholders to promote a receptive environment for a strong and progressive companies in the marine science and technology The Academy of Medical Sciences promotes industry in the UK, one capable of providing the best sector, otherwise known as the oceanology sector. advances in medical science and campaigns to medicines to patients. The marine science sector has an increasingly ensure these are converted into healthcare The ABPI’s mission is to represent the pharmaceutical important role to play both in the UK and globally, benefits for society. The Academy’s Fellows are industry operating in the UK in a way that: particularly in relation to the environment, ● the United Kingdom’s leading medical scientists assures patient access to the best available security and defence, resource exploitation, and medicine; and scholars from hospitals, academia, industry leisure. AMSI represents manufacturers, ● creates a favourable political and economic and the public service. The Academy provides environment; researchers, and system suppliers providing a co- independent, authoritative advice on public ● encourages innovative research and development; ordinated voice and enabling members to project ● affords fair commercial returns their views and capabilities to a wide audience. policy issues in medical science and healthcare.
AIRTO Biochemical
Contact: Professor Richard Brook Society Contact: Dr Richard Dyer, Chief Executive AIRTO Ltd: Association of Independent Biosciences Federation Research & Technology Organisations Limited Contact: Dr Chris Kirk PO Box 502, Cambridge, CB1 0AL c/o CCFRA, Station Road, Chipping Campden, Chief Executive, Gloucestershire GL55 6LD. Tel: 01223 400181 16 Procter Street, London WC1V 6NX Tel: 01386 842247 Fax: 01223 246858 Tel: 020 7280 4133 Fax: 020 7280 4170 Fax: 01386 842010 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Website: www.airto.co.uk Website: www.biochemistry.org Website: www.bsf.ac.uk AIRTO represents the UK’s independent The Biochemical Society exists to promote and support research and technology sector - member the Molecular and Cellular Biosciences. We have nearly The Biosciences Federation is a single organisations employ a combined staff of over 6000 members in the UK and abroad, mostly research authority representing the UK’s biological 20,000 scientists and engineers with a bioscientists in Universities or in Industry. The Society expertise. The BSF directly represents 51 turnover in the region of £1.5 billion. Work is also a major scientific publisher. In addition, we bioscience organisations, and contributes promote Science Policy debate and provide resources, carried out by members includes research, to the development of policy and strategy for teachers and pupils, to support the bioscience consultancy, training and global information in biology-based research – including curriculum in schools. Our membership supports our funding and the interface with other monitoring. AIRTO promotes their work by mission by organizing scientific meetings, sustaining building closer links between members and disciplines – and in school and university our publications through authorship and peer review teaching by providing independent industry, academia, UK government agencies and by supporting our educational and policy opinion to government. and the European Union. initiatives.
British The British British Association Ecological Nutrition Society for the Advancement Foundation Contact: Ceri Margerison, Policy Officer British Ecological Society Contact: Professor Judy Buttriss, of Science - the BA 26 Blades Court, Deodar Road, Putney, Contact: Sir Roland Jackson Bt, Chief Executive London, SW15 2NU Director General The BA, Wellcome Wolfson Building, Tel: 020 8877 0740 Fax : 020 8871 9779 52-54 High Holborn, London WC1V 6RQ Website: www.BritishEcologicalSociety.org 165 Queen’s Gate, London SW7 5HD. Ecology into Policy Blog Tel: 020 7404 6504 E-mail: [email protected] http://ecologyandpolicy.blogspot.com/ Fax: 020 7404 6747 Website: www.the-BA.net Email: [email protected] The BA (British Association for the Advancement of The British Ecological Society’s mission is to Website: www.nutrition.org.uk Science) exists to advance the public understanding, advance ecology and make it count. The Society accessibility and accountability of the sciences and has 4,000 members worldwide. The BES 2007 was the 40th Anniversary of the engineering. The BA aims to promote openness about publishes four internationally renowned British Nutrition Foundation. This scientific science in society and to engage and inspire people directly scientific journals and organises the largest and educational charity promotes the well- with science and technology and their implications. scientific meeting for ecologists in Europe. Established in 1831, the BA is a registered charity which Through its grants, the BES also supports being of society through the impartial organises major initiatives across the UK, including the ecologists in developing countries and the interpretation and effective dissemination of annual BA Festival of Science, National Science and provision of fieldwork in Schools. The BES scientifically based knowledge and advice Engineering Week, programmes of regional and local informs and advises Parliament and Government on the relationship between diet, physical events, and the CREST programme for young people in on ecological issues and welcomes requests for activity and health. schools and colleges. assistance from parliamentarians.
58 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 British Society The for Antimicrobial British Chemotherapy
Contact: Kate Baillie Psychological Society Contact: Tracey Guest, Executive Officer Chief Executive British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy Contact: Dr Ana Padilla British Pharmacological Society 11 The Wharf, 16 Bridge Street, 16 Angel Gate, City Road Parliamentary Officer Birmingham B1 2JS. London EC1V 2PT The British Psychological Society Tel: 020 7417 0113 30 Tabernacle Street Tel: 0121 633 0410 Fax: 020 7417 0114 London EC2A 4UE Fax: 0121 643 9497 Email: [email protected] Tel: 020 7330 0893 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.bps.ac.uk Fax: 020 7330 0896 Website: www.bsac.org.uk The British Pharmacological Society has now been Email: [email protected] Founded in 1971, and with 800 members supporting pharmacology and pharmacologists Website: www.bps.org.uk worldwide, the Society exists to facilitate the for over 75 years. Our 2,000+ members, from acquisition and dissemination of knowledge in The British Psychological Society is an academia, industry and clinical practice, are the field of antimicrobial chemotherapy. The organisation of over 45,000 members governed trained to study drug action from the laboratory Journal of Antimicrobial by Royal Charter. It maintains the Register of BSAC publishes the bench to the patient’s bedside. Our aim is to Chemotherapy (JAC), internationally renowned for improve the quality of life by developing new Chartered Psychologists, publishes books, 10 primary science Journals and organises its scientific excellence, undertakes a range of medicines to treat and prevent the diseases and educational activities, awards grants for research conditions that affect millions of people and conferences. Requests for information about and has active relationships with its peer groups animals. Inquiries about drugs and how they psychology and psychologists from work are welcome. parliamentarians are welcome. and government.
British Veterinary Campden & Association Chorleywood Contact:Chrissie Nicholls CABI Food Research 7 Mansfield Street, London W1G 9NQ Contact: Dr Joan Kelley, Tel: 020 7908 6340 Executive Director Bioservices, CABI Association E-mail:[email protected] www.bva.co.uk Bakeham Lane, Egham, Surrey TW20 9TY Contact: Prof Colin Dennis, Director-General Tel: 01491 829306 Fax: 01491 829100 CCFRA, Chipping Campden, BVA’s chief interests are: Email: [email protected] Gloucestershire GL55 6LD. Tel: 01386 842000 Fax: 01386 842100 * Standards of animal health Website: www.cabi.org * Veterinary surgeons’ working practices E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.campden.co.uk * Professional standards and quality of service CABI brings together and applies scientific An independent, membership-based industrial research * Relationships with external bodies, particulary information and expertise to improve people’s association providing substantial R&D, processing, government lives. Founded in 1910, CABI is owned by over analytical, hygiene, best practice, training, auditing and HACCP services for the food chain worldwide. BVA carries out three main functions which are: 40 member countries. Today CABI publishes books, journals and scientific outputs, carries Members include growers, processors, retailers, * Policy development in areas affecting the caterers, distributors, machinery manufacturers, out scientific research and consultancies to find profession government departments and enforcement authorities. sustainable solutions to agricultural and Employs over 300; serves over 2,000 member sites; * Protecting and promoting the profession in environmental issues and develops innovative and has a subsidiary company in Hungary. Activities matters propounded by government and other ways to communicate science to many different focus on safety, quality, efficiency and innovation. external bodies audiences. Activities range from assisting Participates in DTI’s Faraday Partnerships and * Provision of services to members national policy makers, informing worldwide collaborates with universities on LINK projects and studentships, transferring practical knowledge research, to supporting farmers in the field. between industry and academia.
Cavendish Chartered Clifton Laboratory Institute of Scientific
The Administrative Secretary, The Cavendish Laboratory, Patent Attorneys Trust J J Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK. Contact: Michael Ralph - Contact: Dr Eric Albone E-mail: [email protected] Secretary & Registrar Clifton Scientific Trust http://www.phy.cam.ac.uk The Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys 49 Northumberland Road, Bristol BS6 7BA The Cavendish Laboratory houses the Department of Physics of 95 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1DT Tel: 0117 924 7664 Fax: 0117 924 7664 the University of Cambridge. Tel: 020 7405 9450 E-mail: [email protected] Its world-class research is focused in a number of experimental Fax: 020 7430 0471 Website: www.clifton-scientific.org and theoretical diverse fields. E-mail: [email protected] Science for Citizenship and Employability, Astrophysics: Millimetre astronomy, optical interferometry Website: www.cipa.org.uk Science for Life, Science for Real observations & instrumentation. Astrophysics, geometric CIPA’s members practise in intellectual property, We build grass-roots partnerships between algebra, maximum entropy, neutral networks. especially patents, trade marks, designs, and school and the wider world of professional High Energy Physics: LHC experiments. Detector copyright, either in private partnerships or science and its applications development. Particle physics theory. • for young people of all ages and abilities Condensed Matter Physics: Semiconductor physics, quantum industrial companies. CIPA maintains the statutory Register. It advises government and • experiencing science as a creative, effect devices, nanolithography. Superconductivity, magnetic questioning, human activity thin films. Optoelectronics, conducting polymers. Biological international circles on policy issues and • bringing school science added meaning and Soft Systems. Polymers and Colloids. Surface physics, fracture, provides information services, promoting the wear & erosion. Amorphous solids. Electron microscopy. notivation, from primary to post-16 benefits to UK industry of obtaining IP • locally, nationally, internationally (currently Electronic structure theory & computation. Structural phase protection, and to overseas industry of using transitions, fractals, quantum Monte Carlo calculations between Britain and Japan) Biological Physics. Quantum optics. British agents to obtain international protection. Clifton Scientific Trust Ltd is registered charity 1086933
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 59 C-Tech The Freshwater Innovation Engineering Biological Contact: Paul Radage and Technology Board Association Capenhurst Technology Park, Capenhurst, Chester, Cheshire CH1 6EH Contact: Clare Cox Contact: Dr Michael Dobson, Director. Tel: +44 (0) 151 347 2900 2nd Floor, Weston House Freshwater Biological Association, The Fax: +44 (0) 151 347 2901 246 High Holborn, London WC1V 7EX Ferry Landing, Far Sawrey, Ambleside, E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 020 3206 0434 Cumbria, LA22 0LP, UK. Website: www.ctechinnovation.com Fax: 020 3206 0401 Tel: 01539 442468 Fax: 01539 446914 An independent innovation and technology E-mail: [email protected] www.fba.org.uk [email protected] Website: www.etechb.co.uk development organisation. Activities range from Registered Charity Number : 214440 contract and grant funded research to The Engineering and Technology Board (ETB) is commercialisation of technology, exploitation of an independent organisation that promotes the The FBA welcomes collaboration with Government intellectual property, multi-disciplinary vital role of engineers, engineering and and Agencies. Founded in 1929 the Association promotes freshwater science through; innovative innovation consultancy and process and technology in our society. The ETB partners business and industry, Government and the research, serviced facilities, a programme of product development. meetings, scientific publications, and sound wider STEM community: producing evidence independent advice. The FBA houses one of the C-Tech now has almost 40 years experience of on the state of engineering; sharing knowledge the management and delivery of major world’s finest freshwater information resources within engineering, and inspiring young people and is the custodian of long term data sets from technology and innovation based business to choose a career in engineering, matching sites of scientific significance. Membership is support projects both nationally and regionally. employers’ demand for skills. offered on an individual or corporate basis.
Health Human Institute Protection Fertilisation of Agency and Biology Contact: Professor Pat Troop, Chief Executive Health Protection Agency Central Office Embryology Contact: Prof Alan Malcolm, 7th Floor, Holborn Gate, 330 High Holborn Chief Executive London WC1V 7PP Authority Tel: 020 7759 2700/2701 9 Red Lion Court, London EC4A 3EF Fax: 020 7759 2733 Tel: 020 7936 5900 Email: [email protected] Contact: Tim Whitaker Web: www.hpa.org.uk 21 Bloomsbury St Fax: 020 7936 5901 The Health Protection Agency is an independent London WC1B 3HF E-mail: [email protected] organisation dedicated to protecting people’s health in Tel: 020 7291 8200 Website: www.iob.org the United Kingdom. We do this by providing impartial Fax: 020 7291 8201 advice and authoritative information on health Email: [email protected] The biological sciences have truly come of protection uses to the public, to professionals and to government. Website: www.hfea.gov.uk age, and the Institute of Biology is the professional body to represent biology and We combine public health and scientific expertise, The HFEA is a non-departmental Government research and emergency planning within one biologists to all. A source of independent organisation. We work at international, national and body that regulates and inspects all UK clinics regional and local levels and have many links with many providing IVF, donor insemination or the advice to Government, a supporter of other organisations around the world. This means we can storage of eggs, sperm or embryos. The HFEA education, a measure of excellence and a respond quickly and effectively to new and existing also licenses and monitors all human embryo disseminator of information - the Institute national and global threats to health including infections, environmental hazards and emergencies. research being conducted in the UK. of Biology is the Voice of British Biology.
Institute of Physics and Contact: Public Relations Department 76 Portland Place, London W1B 1NT Engineering Tel: 020 7470 4800 E-mail: [email protected] in Medicine Website: www.iop.org Contact: Robert Neilson, General Secretary ("FCK$GQRFCFS@DMPAFCKGA?J Fairmount House, 230 Tadcaster Road, The Institute of Physics supports the physics @GMAFCKGA?J?LBNPMACQQCLEGLCCPGLE York, YO24 1ES community and promotes physics to NPMDCQQGML?JQUMPJBUGBC6C government, legislators and policy makers. Tel: 01904 610821 Fax: 01904 612279 ?PCRFCFC?PRMDRFCNPMACQQ It is an international learned society and E-mail: [email protected] AMKKSLGRW NPMKMRGLEAMKNCRCLAC professional body with over 35,000 members Website: www.ipem.ac.uk ?LB?AMKKGRKCLRRMQSQR?GL?@JC worldwide, working in all branches of physics IPEM is a registered, incorporated charity for the BCTCJMNKCLR ?BT?LAGLERFCBGQAGNJGLC and a wide variety of jobs and professions – advancement, in the public interest, of physics and DMPRFC@CLCÓRMDQMAGCRW?LBQSNNMPRGLE including fundamental resarch, technology- engineering applied to medicine and biology. It RFCNPMDCQQGML?JBCTCJMNKCLRMDMTCP based industries, medicine, finance – and accredits medical physicists, clinical engineers and KCK@CPQ newer jobs such as computer games design. clinical technologists through its membership register, The Institute is active in school and higher organises training and CPD for them, and provides !KJP=?P J@NAS$QNHKJC "ENA?PKN education and awards professional opportunities for the dissemination of knowledge R qualifications. It provides policy advice and through publications and scientific meetings. IPEM is D opportunities for public debate on areas of licensed by the Science Council to award CSci and by C?DSPJMLE GAFCKCMPE physics such as energy and climate change the Engineering Council (UK) to award CEng, IEng SSSE?DAIAKNC that affect us all. and EngTech.
60 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 Institution Institution of of Civil Engineering The mission of Kew is to inspire and deliver Engineers science-based plant conservation worldwide, and Technology enhancing the quality of life. Kew is Contact: Graham Sibley, developing its breathing planet programme Group Head of Commumications, Contact: Tony Henderson with seven key activities: One Great George Street, Westminster, Institution of Engineering and Technology •creating global access to essential information London SW1P 3AA, UK Savoy Place, London WC2R 0BL •identifying species and regions most at risk Tel: 020 7344 8403 •helping implement global conservation Tel: 020 7665 2130 programmes Fax: 020 7222 0973 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.theiet.org •extending the Millennium Seed Bank’s global E-mail: [email protected] partnership Website: www.ice.org.uk •establishing a global network for restoration The Institution of Engineering and Technology ecology ICE aims to be a leading voice in infrastructure was formed in 2006 by the Institution of •identifying and growing locally appropriate issues. With over 75,000 members, ICE acts Electrical Engineers and the Institution of species in a changing climate as a knowledge exchange for all aspects of civil Incorporated Engineers. The IET has more than •using botanic gardens as shop-front engineering. As a Learned Society, the 150,000 members worldwide who work in a opportunities to inform and inspire Institution provides expertise, in the form of range of industries. The Institution aims to lead Contact: Prof Simon J. Owens Tel: 020 8332 5106 reports, evidence and comment, on a wide in the advancement of engineering and Fax: 020 8332 5109 range of subjects from energy generation and technology by facilitating the exchange of Email: [email protected] supply, to sustainability and the environment. knowledge and ideas at a local and global level Website: www.kew.org Two stunning gardens-devoted to building and and promoting best practice. sharing knowledge
LGC London Lilly and Queens Road, Teddington Metropolitan Company Middlesex, TW11 0LY Tel: +44 (0)20 8943 7000 Polymer Centre Limited Fax: +44 (0)20 8943 2767 Sir John Cass Department of Art, Media & Design Contact: Dr Karin Briner, E-mail: [email protected] Contact: Alison Green, Managing Director, Website: www.lgc.co.uk London Metropolitan University Eli Lilly & Company, Erl Wood Manor, LGC, a science service company, is Europe’s leading 166-220 Holloway Road, London N7 8DB Windlesham, Surrey, GU20 6PH independent provider of analytical and diagnostic services Tel: 020 7133 2189 Tel: 01256 315000 Fax: 01276 483307 and reference standards. LGC’s market-led divisions - E-mail: [email protected] E-mail:[email protected] LGC Forensics, Life and Food Sciences, Pharmaceutical Website: www.polymers.org.uk and Chemical Services and LGC Standards (for reference Website:www.lilly.com or www.lilly.co.uk The London Metropolitan Polymer Centre provides materials) - operate in a diverse range of sectors for both Lilly UK is the UK affiliate of major American public and private sector customers. training, consultancy and applied research to the UK polymer (plastics & rubber) industry. Recently, pharmaceutical manufacturer, Eli Lilly and Company Under arrangements for the office and function of the LMPC has merged with the Sir John Cass of Indianapolis. This affiliate is one of the UK's top pharmaceutical companies with significant Government Chemist, LGC fulfils specific statutory duties Department of Art, Media & Design (SJCAMD) to investment in science and technology including a and provides advice for Government and the wider provide a broad perspective of materials science and analytical community on the implications of analytical neuroscience research and development centre and technology for the manufacturing and creative bulk biotechnology manufacturing operations. chemistry for matters of policy, standards and regulation. industries. SJCAMD contains Met Works, a unique LGC has its headquarters in Teddington, South West new Digital Manufacturing Centre, providing new Lilly medicines treat schizophrenia, diabetes, cancer, London, and other UK operations in Bury, Culham, technology for rapid prototyping and manufacture. osteoporosis, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Edinburgh, Leeds, Risley, Runcorn and Tamworth. It The new department will offer short courses in erectile dysfunction, severe sepsis, depression, also has facilities in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, polymer innovation, print technology and bipolar disorder, heart disease and many other Spain, Sweden and India. silversmithing & jewellery. diseases.
Marks & The
Spencer Plc Merck Sharp & Dohme Research Laboratories National Contact: Contact: Dr Tim Sparey Endowment for David Gregory Licensing & External Research, Europe Science, Technology Waterside House Hertford Road 35 North Wharf Road and the Arts Hoddesdon London W2 1NW. Herts EN11 9BU Contact: Nicholas Bojas Tel: 020 8718 8247 Tel: 01992 452838 Head of Government Relations E-mail: [email protected] Fax: 01992 441907 1 Plough Place London EC4A1DE Main Business Activities e-mail: [email protected] Tel: 020 7438 2500 Retailer – Clothing, Food, Home and www.merck.com Fax: 020 7438 2501 Financial Services Email: [email protected] Merck Sharp & Dohme is a UK subsidiary of Website: www.nesta.org.uk We have around 760 stores in 33 Merck & Co Inc a global research-driven territories worldwide, employing pharmaceutical company dedicated to NESTA’s aim is to transform the UK’s capacity for putting patients first. Merck discovers, innovation. We work across the human, financial and the 75,000 people. policy dimensions of innovation. We invest in early stage develops, manufactures and markets companies, inform innovation policy and encourage a We offer our customers quality, value, vaccines and medicines in over 20 culture that helps innovation to flourish. The unique service and trust in our brand by therapeutic categories directly and through nature of our endowed funds means that we can take a its joint ventures. Our mission is to provide longer term view, and develop ambitious models to applying science and technology to stimulate and support innovation that others can develop innovative products and society with superior products and services by developing innovations and solutions replicate or adapt. NESTA works across disciplines, services. bringing together people and ideas from science, that improve the quality of life. technology and the creative industries.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 61 National Natural Natural Physical England History Museum Laboratory Contact: Dr Tom Tew Chief Scientist Contact: Joe Baker National Physical Laboratory Natural England External Relations Manager Hampton Road, Teddington Northminster House Natural History Museum Middlesex TW11 0LW Peterborough Cromwell Road London SW7 5BD Tel: 020 8943 6880 Fax: 020 8614 1446 PE1 1UA Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5478 Tel: 01733 455056 E-mail: [email protected] Fax: +44 (0)20 7942 5075 Fax: 01733 568834 Website: www.npl.co.uk E-mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Website: www.nhm.ac.uk The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the Website: www.naturalengland.org.uk United Kingdom’s national measurement institute, an internationally respected and Natural England has the responsibility to The Natural History Museum is the UK’s premier independent centre of excellence in research, enhance biodiversity, landscape and wildlife in institute for knowledge on the diversity of the development and knowledge transfer in rural, urban, coastal and marine areas; promote natural world, conducting scientific research of measurement and materials science. For more global impact and renown. We maintain and than a century, NPL has developed and access, recreation and public well-being, and develop the collections we care for and use them maintained the nation’s primary measurement contribute to the way natural resources are to promote the discovery, understanding, standards - the heart of an infrastructure managed so that they can be enjoyed now and designed to ensure accuracy, consistency and responsible use and enjoyment of the world innovation in physical measurement. by future generations. around us.
Newcastle The Nutrition University Society Contact: Dr Douglas Robertson Contact: Frederick Wentworth-Bowyer, PHARMAQ Ltd Chief Executive, The Nutrition Society, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU 10 Cambridge Court, 210 Shepherds Bush Road Tel: 0191 222 5347 Fax: 0191 222 5219 London W6 7NJ Contact: Dr Lydia A Brown E-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 (0)20 7602 0228 PHARMAQ Ltd Fax: +44 (0)20 7602 1756 Website: www.ncl.ac.uk Email: [email protected] Unit 15 Sandleheath Industrial Estate, Newcastle University has a well-balanced Founded in 1941, The Nutrition Society is the premier Fordingbridge scientific and professional body dedicated to advance portfolio of research funding with one of the the scientific study of nutrition and its application to the Hants SP6 1PA. highest levels of research projects funded by maintenance of human and animal health. Tel: 01425 656081 UK Government Departments, as well as a very Highly regarded by the scientific community, the Society is the largest learned society for nutrition in Europe. Fax: 01425 655309 significant portfolio of FP6 EU activity of more Membership is worldwide and is open to those with a E-mail: [email protected] than 140 projects involving some 1,800 genuine interest in the science of human or animal Website: www.pharmaq.no partners. A member of the Russell Group, nutrition. Principal activities include: http://www.pharmaq.co.uk/shop Newcastle University is committed to 1. Publishing internationally renowned scientific 'excellence with a purpose' - a commitment it is learned journals taking further through the development of 2. Promoting the education and training of nutritionists Veterinary pharmaceuticals specia- Newcastle Science City and as a partner in the 3. Promoting the highest standards of professional lising in aquatic veterinary products. competence and practice in nutrition N8 group of Northern research-intensive 4. Disseminating scientific information through its Fish vaccines, anaesthetics, antibiotics universities. publications and programme of scientific meetings and other products.
Plymouth Marine Prospect Sciences Contact: Sue Ferns, Partnership Prospect Head of Research and Specialist Contact: Liz Humphreys Services, New Prospect House 8 Leake St, London SE1 7NN Contact: Philip Greenish CBE, The Laboratory, Citadel Hill Tel: 020 7902 6639 Fax: 020 7902 6637 Chief Executive Plymouth PL1 2PB E-mail: [email protected] 3 Carlton House Terrace Tel: +44 (0)1752 633 234 www.prospect.org.uk London SW1Y 5DG Fax: +44 (0)1752 633 102 Prospect is an independent, thriving and Tel: 020 7766 0600 E-mail: [email protected] forward-looking trade union with 102,000 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pmsp.org.uk members. We represent scientists, Website: www.raeng.org.uk technologists and other professions in the As Britain’s national academy for The Plymouth Marine Sciences Partnership civil service, research councils and private engineering, we bring together the country’s comprises six leading marine science and sector. most eminent engineers from all disciplines technology institutions representing one of the Prospect’s collective voice champions the to promote excellence in the science, art and largest regional clusters of expertise in marine interests of the engineering and scientific practice of engineering. Our strategic sciences, education, engineering and technology community to key opinion-formers and priorities are to enhance the UK’s in Europe. The mission of PMSP is to deliver policy makers. With negotiating rights with engineering capabilities; to celebrate world-class marine research and teaching, to over 300 employers, we seek to secure a excellence and inspire the next generation; advance knowledge, technology and better life at work by putting members’ pay, and to lead debate by guiding informed understanding of the seas. conditions and careers first. thinking and influencing public policy.
62 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 The Royal The Royal Institution Society The Royal Society Contact: Dr Gail Cardew Contact: Dr Peter Cotgreave Head of Programmes Director of Public Affairs The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace of Chemistry The Royal Institution London SW1Y 5AG. 21 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4BS Tel: 020 7451 2502 Fax: 020 7930 2170 Contact: Dr Stephen Benn Tel: 020 7409 2992 Fax: 020 7670 2920 Email: [email protected] Parliamentary Affairs E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rigb.org Website: www.royalsociety.org The Royal Society of Chemistry Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BA The core activities of the Royal Institution centre The Royal Society is the UK academy of science Tel: 020 7437 8656 Fax: 020 7734 1227 comprising 1400 outstanding individuals around four main themes: science research, E-Mail: [email protected] representing the sciences, engineering and Website: http://www.rsc.org education, communication and history. It acts as a medicine. As we prepare for our 350th anniversary unique forum for engaging people in scientific in 2010, our strategic priorities for our work at http://www.chemsoc.org debate, and has a UK-wide programme of informal national and international levels are to: The Royal Society of Chemistry is a learned, · Invest in future scientific leaders and in innovation science learning and mathematics enrichment. The professional and scientific body of over 46,000 building has been closed for the last three years, · Influence policymaking with the best scientific members with a duty under its Royal Charter advice “to serve the public interest”. It is active in the and will open in summer 2008 when the public · Invigorate science and mathematics education areas of education and qualifications, science will have access to an extended museum, new · Increase access to the best science internationally policy, publishing, Europe, information and social spaces and upgraded facilities in the historic internet services, media relations, public lecture theatre. There will also be a new focus for · Inspire an interest in the joy, wonder and excitement of scientific discovery. understanding of science, advice and assistance the Davy Faraday Research Laboratories. to Parliament and Government.
The Royal Statistical Society Contact: Public Affairs Administrator Marlborough House, Basingstoke Road, Contact: Mr Andrew Garratt Contact: Dr David J Winstanley Spencers Wood, Reading RG7 1AG. Press and Public Affairs Officer Special Advisor for Science Tel: 0118 988 1843 Fax: 0118 988 5656 The Royal Statistical Society Semta, Wynyard Park House, E-mail: [email protected] 12 Errol Sreet, London EC1Y 8LX. Wynyard Park, Billingham, TS22 5TB Website: http//www.sgm.ac.uk Tel: +44 20 7614 3920 Tel: 01740 627021 Mobile: 07973 679 338 E-mail: [email protected] SGM is the largest microbiological society in Fax: +44 20 7614 3905 Website: www.semta.org.uk E-mail: [email protected] Europe. The Society publishes four journals of Website: www.rss.org.uk Semta (Science, Engineering and Manufacturing international standing, and organises regular The RSS is a leading source of independent advice, Technologies Alliance) is the Sector Skills Council for the scientific meetings. science, engineering and manufacturing technology sectors. comment and discussion on statistical issues. It SGM also promotes education and careers in Our mission is to ensure that our industry partners have the plays a crucial role in promoting public microbiology, and it is committed to represent understanding of statistics and acts as an advocate knowledge and skills required to meet the challenges faced microbiology to government, the media and the for the interests of statisticians and users of by the workforce of the future. statistics. The Society actively contributes to Our sectors account for a significant proportion of the UK public. government consultations, Royal Commissions, economy. There are about 2 million people employed in An information service on microbiological issues parliamentary select committee inquiries, and to about 76,000 establishments in the core Science, concerning aspects of medicine, agriculture, the legislative process, most notably during the Engineering and Technology sectors, and currently passage of the Statistics and Registration Service contributes over £74 billion per annum – about ten per cent food safety, biotechnology and the environment Act 2007. – of total UK GDP. is available on request.
Society of Society of Universities Chemical Cosmetic Federation Industry Scientists for Animal Welfare
Contact: Andrew Ladds, Contact: Lorna Weston, Contact: Dr James Kirkwood, Chief Executive Secretary General Scientific Director SCI International Headquarters Society of Cosmetic Scientists The Old School, Brewhouse Hill 14-15 Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PS G T House, 24-26 Rothesay Road, Luton, Beds Wheathampstead, Herts. AL4 8AN. Tel: 020 7598 1500 Fax: 020 7598 1545 LU1 1QX Tel: 01582 831818. Fax: 01582 831414. E-mail: [email protected] Tel: 01582 726661 Email: [email protected] Website: www.soci.org Fax: 01582 405217 Website: www.ufaw.org.uk E-mail: [email protected] SCI is an interdisciplinary network for science, Registered Charity No: 207996 Website: www.scs.org.uk commerce and industry. SCI attracts forward- UFAW is an internationally-recognized independent thinking people in the process and materials Advancing the science of cosmetics is the primary scientific and educational animal welfare charity. It technologies and in the biotechnology, energy, objective of the SCS. Cosmetic science covers a wide works to improve animal lives by: water, agriculture, food, pharmaceuticals, range of disciplines from organic and physical • supporting animal welfare research. construction, and environmental protection sectors chemistry to biology and photo-biology, dermatology, • educating and raising awareness of welfare worldwide. Members exchange ideas and gain microbiology, physical sciences and psychology. issues in the UK and overseas. new perspectives on markets, technologies, Members are scientists and the SCS helps them • producing the leading journal Animal Welfare and strategies and people, through electronic and progress their careers and the science of cosmetics other high-quality publications on animal care physical specialist conferences and debates, and ethically and responsibly. Services include and welfare. our published journals , books and the respected publications, educational courses and scientific • providing expert advice to government magazine Chemistry & Industry. meetings. departments and other concerned bodies.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 63 Friday 29 February 20.00 The Royal Society Looking for life on Mars The Royal Society runs a series of Prof Max Coleman events, both evening lectures and two Science day discussion meetings, on topics Friday 7 March 20.00 covering the whole breadth of science, The polar oceans and climate change engineering and technology. All the Diary Prof Peter Wadhams events are free to attend and open to Wednesday 12 March 18.30 all. Love factually The Parliamentary and Prof David Perrett and Dr Lucy Vincent Highlights in the next few months Scientific Committee Institut Français Cultural Centre include: Contact: Annabel Lloyd Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 March 2008 Thursday 13 March 19.00 (all day) 020 7222 7085: Tracing memory: how we remember [email protected] From computers to ubiquitous Prof Alan Baddeley and computing by 2020 www.scienceinparliament.org.uk Prof Richard Morris The Dana Centre Tuesday 26 February 17.30 Monday 7 and Tuesday 8 April 2008 Science in the Regions Friday 14 March 20.00 (all day) Dr Ed Metcalfe, Chief Scientific The quest for motility The environmental e-science Advisor, SEEDA Prof Tony Ryan revolution Dr George Baxter, Director of Science Tuesday 1 April 09.15 Sponsored by NERC & Innovation, NWDA Access not excess: novel ways to Professor Colin R Whitehouse FREng, nourish the world Please see www.royalsociety.org/events Deputy Chief Executive, STFC Various speakers for the full events programme, more Magdalen College School, Oxford details about the above highlights and Thursday 13 March 10.00-14.00 web casts of past events. Friday 4 April 10.00 National Science and Engineering Week Seminar The world in eleven dimensions ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Prof Michael Duff What does British Industry want The Royal Academy of from our Scientists and Engineers? Saturday 5 April 18.00 Engineering jointly chaired by Ian Pearson MP and Peak performance 3 Carlton House Terrace, London Dr Douglas Naysmith MP Dr Hugh Montgomery SW1Y 5DG National Museum of Scotland, www.raeng.org.uk/events or Dr Tim Bradshaw, Head of Innovation Edinburgh Group, CBI [email protected] Tuesday 8 April 14.00 020 7766 0600 Sir Robin Saxby FREng, Past President, IET Ri and U3A out and about Prof Frances Balkwill, Prof Jocelyn Bell ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dr Ralph Rayner, Burnell and Dr Denny Levett Royal Society of Edinburgh Vice-President, IMarEST Friends Meeting House, Euston Road 22-26 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ. Dr John Morton, Chief Executive, ETB Friday 11 April 20.00 Professor Julia King CBE FREng, The vagus nerve: a window on Tel: 0131 240 5000 Vice Chancellor, Aston University consciousness and disease Fax: 0131 240 5024 Dr Chris Pomfrett [email protected] Tuesday 22 April 17.15 Tuesday 15 April 18.30 www.royalsoced.org.uk Annual General Meeting About blooming time: a plant’s All events require registration and, Followed by Discussion meeting - response to changing climate unless otherwise indicated, take place subject and speakers to be confirmed Dr Judith Irwin and Amy Strange at the RSE. Tuesday 19 May 17.30 Thursday 17 April 19.00 Monday 3 March 17.30 Discussion Meeting - subject and An evening with Robert Winston New Antibiotics from the Sea Bed to speakers to be confirmed Baroness Susan Greenfield and Lord the Hospital Bed Robert Winston ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Dr Andrew Mearns Spragg The Royal Institution Friday 18 April 20.00 Truth and beauty: why numbers Monday 10 March 17.30 The Royal Institution’s lecture theatre Optos: The Design Challenges and has reopened, and the rest of its really matter Andrew Dilnot Business Tribulations refurbished building will open in Mr Douglas Anderson summer 2008. All events take place at Thursday 24 April 19.00 the Royal Institution unless otherwise Flying green: making air travel more Monday 28 April 17.30 stated. See www.rigb.org or telephone sustainable Robert Cormack Bequest Lecture 020 7409 2992 for full details and to Bill Glover and Prof Ian Poll 100 Years of Radio Astronomy: book tickets. Friday 25 April 20.00 Past, Present and Future Friday 22 February 20.00 Everest intensive care: from Professor Michael Garrett Solar variability and climate mountainside to bedside Prof Joanna Haigh Dr Mike Grocott Monday 12 May 17.30 Exploring the Mysteries of the Thursday 28 February 19.00 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Universe with the Large Hadron Blogging science Collider Dr Ben Goldacre, Dr Jennifer Rohn Professor Fabiola Gianotti and Ed Yong The Apple Store, Regent Street –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
64 Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 The BA Royal Pharmaceutical (British Association for the Society of Great Britain Advancement of Science) Contact: [email protected] www.rpsgb.org Friday 7 - Sunday 16 March Events are held at the Royal National Science and Engineering Pharmaceutical Society of Great Week Britain, London As part of National Science and Engineering Week scientists, Wednesday 30 January engineers, science communicators and The control of Infectious Diseases: the general public host thousands of Virulence, Antibiotics and Bacterial events across the UK, in order to Infection Officers of the Parliamentary engage as many people as possible & Scientific Committee with science, engineering, technology Monday 10 March and their implications. It is co- Cannabinoid Medicines ordinated by the BA in partnership President: The Lord Soulsby of with the Engineering and Technology Monday 31 March - Swaffham Prior Board (ETB) and funded by the Wednesday 2 April Chairman: Dr Douglas Naysmith MP Department for Innovation, Thirteenth Arden House European Deputy Chairmen: Dr Desmond Turner MP Universities and Skills (DIUS). Conference Mr Robert Key MP Further information: http://www.the- Driving innovation, control and ba.net/nsew performance improvement on the Hon Treasurer: Dr Ian Gibson MP critical path - the pivotal role of Hon Secretaries: Dr Evan Harris MP Monday 19 & Tuesday 20 May particle and power technologies in Mr James Paice MP The BA Science Communication dosage form manufacture - 2008 Vice-Presidents: Professor Jane Plant CBE Conference at the Institution of Engineering and Thursday 1 May Dr Brian Iddon MP Technology, Savoy Place, London Biologically-Active Compounds in Dr David Dent Further information and bookings: food Professor Peter Saunders http://www.the-ba.net/ Mr Andrew Miller MP ScienceCommunicationConference. ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Mr Robert Goodwill MP ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Mr Philip Greenish CBE Mr Robert Freer Advisory Panel: Professor Julia King CBE FREng Professor Alan Malcolm Mr Paul Ridout Secretariat: Professor Peter Simpson Mrs Annabel Lloyd
Science in Parliament 3 Birdcage Walk, London SW1H 9JJ Tel: 020 7222 7085 Fax: 020 7222 7189 Editor: Professor Peter Simpson Editorial Assistant: Mrs Annabel Lloyd
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SCIENCE IN PARLIAMENT Published by the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, 3 Birdcage Walk, London SW1H 9JJ. Published four times a year. The 2008 subscription rate is £66.80. Single numbers £16.70 ISSN 0263-6271 All enquiries, including those from members wishing to take the front or back covers, advertise in the journal or appear in the directory to Mrs Annabel Lloyd, Tel 020 7222 7085 Copyright ©2008 by Parliamentary and Scientific Committee. All rights reserved. None of the articles in this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Typeset and printed by The Bridge Press.
Science in Parliament Vol 65 No 1 Spring 2008 65 Physics is how we find the answers to the big questions
How was the universe formed? Is there life on other planets? What is matter made from? What is the smallest particle? How can we prevent climate change? How can we produce all the energy we need? How can we model the financial markets?
The Institute of Physics is an international membership-based charity that promotes physics and the opportunities and benefits it brings to our lives. It provides policy advice and opportunities for public debate.
Contact Beth Taylor, Communications Director on +44 (0)20 7470 4958, [email protected]
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