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ISSUE 48 AUTUMN 2015 rThee Newslettersourc of Scotland’s Nationale Academy The RSE hosts an Awards Reception every year, at which the achievements of all of its awardees are announced and celebrated. The event took place this year on Monday 7 September. Pictured are eight of the awardees, recipients of various awards, all from the University of Aberdeen. A full list of all the awardees is on pages 12–15 and further details of the evening can be found on the back page. Also featured in this issue: Options for Scotland’s Gas Future Interview with Professor Sue Black Full list of RSE Awardees 2015 resource AUTUMN 2015 The RSE Comments Entrepreneurial Education in Scotland The Scottish Government has • Skills for growth for practitioners to oversee a declared its ambition for Scotland entrepreneurs and business comprehensive programme for to become a world-leading leaders who are ready to the delivery of entrepreneurial entrepreneurial nation. The scale up an existing venture. education in Scotland, with the Business Innovation Forum (BIF) strong endorsement and support From the outset, it was clear that of the Royal Society of Edinburgh of the Scottish Government and a joined-up approach is crucial to welcomes this vision but Scottish Funding Council. ensuring the consistency and quality recognises also that achieving In addition, the report calls on it will require a fundamental universities to consider how shift in the mind set, skills and they can best support all confidence of Scotland’s academic staff to understand current, and future, workforce. the relevance and importance Scottish universities have a of enterprise education across pivotal role to play in shaping the full curriculum, and to an innovative and dynamic develop their capacity to workforce. Research funding introduce enterprise skills into bodies, public and private courses. Increased engagement business support agencies with non-academic lecturers, and industry are also crucial particularly those who have actors. The BIF, therefore, experienced both success established a Working Group and failure in entrepreneurial to discuss the question of ventures, would have a particular entrepreneurial education impact on developing ambitious, with stakeholders from confident students who will be across the ecosystem, more willing to take risks and starting a discussion on seize opportunities in the future. how to effectively deliver Universities have powerful the key skills and experiences potential to ensure that that will support Scotland’s world-class leadership capacity students of today to be and the ambitions for growth, confident, entrepreneurially- which are crucial to achieving minded leaders in the future. a step change in Scotland’s The report of the Working Group, innovation economy, are of entrepreneurial skills and published in June 2015, set out a embedded at the earliest stages support across Scotland. The number of emerging recommendations of learning. Through their business report therefore recommends that aim to ensure Scotland-wide schools, and in partnership with the creation of an access to three levels of Scotland’s key support agencies Entrepreneurship Education entrepreneurial skills training: and industry, universities should Forum, bringing together consider how to deliver such skills • Enterprise education for everyone, high-level representatives of to emerging entrepreneurial to encourage basic business academic institutions, public leaders, both within the formal awareness, employability skills and private business support higher education sector and and a creative mind-set that will organisations and industry across Scotland more widely. benefit students in all future career paths; • Entrepreneurship education for The full discussion paper, Entrepreneurial Education in Scotland those interested in applying these (Advice Paper 15-09 June 2015) can be found on the RSE website at: skills specifically to the creation of www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/advice-papers/2015/AP15_09.pdf a new venture; and 2 resource AUTUMN 2015 Options for Scotland’s Gas Future In light of the significant recent public and political debate that has surrounded unconventional gas, and the process of hydraulic fracturing in particular, a working group of RSE Fellows, Young Academy members and other experts was convened to proactively produce an Advice Paper examining Scotland’s future options for sourcing gas. The Working Group included members from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds and was Chaired by RSE Fellow, Professor Rebecca Lunn. In June, Professor Lunn presented the findings of the paper to the Scottish Parliament’s Cross- Party Group on Science and Technology. The paper analyses the four choices Scotland has available for sourcing the gas that it will require over the coming decades – demand reduction; import; onshore production; offshore production – and presents the Onshore production would improve benefits and risks associated with each. energy security and allow Scotland In the Advice Paper, to control regulation, but could cause Options for Scotland’s disruption and face opposition from Gas Future, the Working communities. Offshore production Group stressed the high could improve energy security without level of reliance disturbing communities, but may Scotland has on natural prove more expensive and gas for both residential potentially uneconomic. Both onshore and commercial and offshore industries suffer from heating. Gas is further large uncertainty over whether required for both significant viable reserves in Scotland electricity generation actually exist. and as a chemical Irrespective of which option, or feedstock for the options, Scotland decides to take petrochemical industry. The UK currently imports over 50% of the gas it forward, it is imperative that it is done consumes and so to increase energy security in addition to meeting future with the support of the Scottish demand, the UK may wish to increase domestic onshore or offshore public. The decision must be made production. Reducing the demand for gas across the country should also be following meaningful participation considered, albeit in conjunction with one or several of the other options. of a well-informed public. Major Scotland is also committed to meeting statutory climate change targets decisions over energy must be addressed at a societal level and not and any action that is taken must be consistent with these goals, in addition be imposed from above, nor left to to addressing energy security, cost to the consumer and public acceptance. individual communities to accept Sourcing more gas domestically would give Scotland greater control over or decline on a case-by-case basis. environmental control measures such as carbon capture and storage. The Working Group, while wishing to Demand reduction is vital, but significant government investment would be avoid endorsing a particular course needed to ensure extensive uptake by the public. It is also important that of action, made two recommendations: the positive effect demand reduction would have on fossil fuel consumption is not negated by simply moving heat demand from gas to electricity, as this 1. The Scottish Government should could result in increased levels of fuel poverty and a higher electricity consider investing funds to reduce demand that Scotland would struggle to meet. the areas of large uncertainty, notably those surrounding health Importing would eliminate the adverse impacts of production on the Scottish impacts and potential reserves. public, but would serve to move them abroad; leaving Scotland without the ability to enforce strong regulation surrounding the environment and worker 2. Public participatory decision safety. Furthermore, this course of action leaves the UK reliant on other making should be used in reaching countries, with potentially very different values, for its energy and has a a verdict on which option, or greater climate change impact due to transportation and pipeline leakage. options, Scotland takes forward. The Advice Paper can be found on the RSE website at: www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/BriefingPaper15-01.pdf 3 resource AUTUMN 2015 Tuesday 27 October Wednesday 4 November Tuesday 1 December 2015 at 7 pm at Moffat 2015 at 6 pm 2015 at 6 pm Academy, Moffat MACCORMICK JAMES BLACK RSE@THE HOLYWOOD EUROPEAN LECTURE PRIzE LECTURE TRUST – PUBLIC TALK Enlightenment: Sleeping Sickness in Gravitational-Wave a matter of urgency Sub-Saharan Africa Astronomy: Opening Professor Gunter Stock Professor Peter Kennedy CBE FRSE a New Window on President, ALLEA (the federation of Burton Chair of Neurology, the Universe All European Academies) University of Glasgow Professor Martin Hendry MBE FRSE Director, Head, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow Professor Kennedy will describe his work on a new oral drug, which promises improvement in the lives of the rural poor affected by human African trypanosomiasis – sleeping sickness. Gravitational waves are ripples in the This killer disease, which occurs in 36 fabric of Space and time, predicted by countries in sub-Saharan Africa, putting Einstein and produced by the most 70 million people at risk, is transmitted violent events in the Cosmos: exploding The great societal challenges ahead of by the bite of the tsetse fly and is stars, colliding black holes, even the Big us, such as climate change and health, invariably fatal if untreated. The current Bang itself. Using a global network of can only be tackled if we are able to treatment is excuciatingly painful and