fst journal The Journal of the Foundation for Science and Technology (formerly Technology, Innovation and Society)

Volume 18, Number 10, November 2005

Science policy and management Sir Keith O’Nions: Towards 2.5 per cent of GDP on R&D Sir David Wallace: The costs and the priorities Dr Mark Walport: Asking the right questions The education of 14-19 year olds Julie Bramman: The Government response to Tomlinson Pauline Cox: The view from the chalk face Lord May: Good science teaching matters Biotechnology Dr Doug Yarrow: From science base to market place Martin Wales: A view from the City Dr David Chiswell: A glass half full or half empty? Dr Andy Richards: Barriers to early growth Flu pandemic Baroness Finlay: The frontline is in community care Dr Jeremy Farrar: An incredibly virulent disease Dr David Harper: The vital importance of communication Bruce Mann: Addressing all contingencies Obituary Sir Hermann Bondi

THE FOUNDATION FOR SCIENCE AND fst TECHNOLOGY THE FOUNDATION The Foundation for Science and Technology FOR SCIENCE AND 10 Carlton House Terrace TECHNOLOGY London fst SW1Y 5AH Telephone 020 7321 2220 THE FOUNDATION FOR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Registered Charity No: 274727. A Company Limited by Guarantee No: 1327814 Fax 020 7321 2221

VICE PRESIDENTS e-mail The Earl of Shannon [email protected] The Lord Flowers FRS The Earl of Selborne KBE FRS Editor Sir Brian Jenkins GBE Sir John Maddox FRS Viscount Runciman of Doxford CBE PBA Sub-editors COUNCIL Wendy Barnaby, Simon Napper, CHAIRMAN Charles Wenz The Rt Hon the Lord Jenkin of Roding Production & Layout James McQuat The President of the Royal Society The Lord Rees of Ludlow PRS The President, The Royal Academy of Engineering The Lord Broers FRS FREng The President, The Academy of Medical Sciences Professor Sir Keith Peters FRS PMedSci www.foundation.org.uk The President, The Science Council Sir Gareth Roberts FRS FREng Chairman, The Arts and Humanities Research Board Professor Sir Brian Follett FRS Chairman, The Engineering and Technology Board Sir Peter Williams CBE FREng FRS Chairman, The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Dr Peter Ringrose Chairman, The Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils Professor Sir Graeme Davies FRSE FREng Chairman, The Economic and Social Research Council Ms Frances Cairncross CBE FRSE Chairman, The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Professor Dame Julia Higgins DBE FRS FREng Chairman, The Medical Research Council Sir Anthony Cleaver Chairman, The Natural Environment Research Council Mr Rob Margetts CBE FREng Chairman, The Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council Mr Peter Warry

Sir Michael Atiyah OM FRS FRSE Professor Polina Bayvel FREng The Lord Browne of Madingley FREng Sir Geoffrey Chipperfield KCB The Lord Haskel Dr Geraldine Kenney-Wallace FRSC Sir John Krebs FRS Sir Hugh Laddie The Lord May of Oxford OM AC Kt FRS FMedSci The Lord Oxburgh KBE FRSS The Lord Soulsby of Swaffham Prior FMedSci Professor Sir William Stewart FRS FRSE The Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT FBA PRSE Professor Mark Walport FMedSci The Baroness Wilcox

Dr Robert Hawley CBE DSc FRSE FREng (Deputy Chairman) Mr Patrick McHugh (Honorary Secretary) Mr Tony Quigley (Honorary Treasurer)

DIRECTOR Dr Dougal Goodman FREng

Neither the Foundation nor the Editor is responsible for the opinions of contributors to FST journal. © 2005 The Foundation for Science and Technology. ISSN 1475-1704 fst journal Volume 18, Number 10, November 2005 c o n t e n t s

THE COUNCIL OF THE FOUNDATION...... inside front cover fst journal UPDATE The Journal of the Foundation for Science and Technology (formerly Technology, Innovation and Society) Hurricanes, avian flu, energy supply...... 2 Volume 18, Number 10, November 2005 Science policy and management SCIENCE POLICY AND MANAGEMENT Sir Keith O’Nions: Towards 2.5 per cent on R&D Sir David Wallace: The costs and the priorities Dr Mark Walport: Asking the right questions The education of 14-19 year olds Towards 2 .5 per cent of GDP on R&D Julie Bramman: The Government response to Tomlinson Pauline Cox: The view from the chalk face Lord May: Teaching science Sir Keith O’Nions ...... 3 Biotechnology Dr Doug Yarrow: From science base to market place Martin Wales: A view from the City Dr David Chiswell: A glass half full? The costs and the priorities Dr Andy Richards: Barriers to growth Flu pandemic Baroness Finlay: The frontline is in community care Sir David Wallace...... 4 Dr Jeremy Farrar: An incredibly virulent disease Dr David Harper: The vital importance of communication Bruce Mann: Addressing all contingencies Obituary Asking the right questions Sir Hermann Bondi

THE FOUNDATION Dr Mark Walport ...... 6 FOR SCIENCE AND fst TECHNOLOGY THE EDUCATION OF 14-19 YEAR OLDS The Government response to Tomlinson Julie Bramman...... 8 The view from the chalk face Pauline Cox ...... 9 Good science teaching matters The Lord May of Oxford...... 11 BIOTECHNOLOGY From science base to market place Dr Doug Yarrow ...... 13 A view from the City Martin Wales...... 14 A glass half full or half empty? Dr David Chiswell...... 15 Barriers to early growth Dr Andy Richards...... 16 FLU PANDEMIC The frontline is in community care Professor the Baroness Finlay of Llandaff...... 18 An incredibly virulent disease Dr Jeremy Farrar...... 19 The vital importance of communication Dr David Harper...... 20 Addressing all contingencies Bruce Mann...... 21 OBITUARY Sir Hermann Bondi...... 23

EVENTS...... 23 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) update

An unusual hurricane season year. This is consistent with Defra’s working hypothesis of 23 The catastrophic hurricane season this year - Katrina, Rita, October that the likeliest origin of the infection was the birds Wilma - has raised questions about how to forecast both the from Taiwan. frequency and intensity of hurricanes and the related storm The facility had not been used since 9 March 2005. surges. The insurance industry has properly to price the risk On 16 September a consignment of 148 parrots (Caiques, of damage to homes and businesses in the hurricane-prone Pionus, Macaws and Amazons) arrived from Surinam. On 28 states in the USA. To do this an estimate of the likely number September a consignment of 186 birds (Mynahs, Mesias and and intensity of hurricanes that will cross the coast needs to Laughing Thrushes) documented as coming from Taiwan be made. From the intensity estimates and the likely track, loss entered the facility. The 30-day quarantine period restarted estimates can be made from vulnerability curves for a wide with the arrival of the birds from Taiwan. range of building construction types. The insurer not only Chief Veterinary Officer at Defra Debby Reynolds said: wants to know the loss for a given address but more impor- “This report contains significant epidemiological findings and tantly, because of reinsurance arrangements, the aggregated helps to further our understanding of Highly Pathogenic Avian loss expected for a given storm. Influenza. In particular the apparent lack of transmission of The exceptional hurricane season of 2005 has severely H5N1 between species in the facility will be of interest to the tested the models used by the industry and will lead to new international community.” ❐ research questions. Over the summer Kerry Emmanuel, 1www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/disease/ai/ Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of pdf/ai-epidemrep111105.pdf Technology, published in Nature1 an analysis of the increasing destructive force of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years: he argued that the increase in intensity is correlated with the Google Scholar observed increase in sea surface temperature (SST). Not every- Google, the web search facility, now has an academic offshoot. one agrees but the paper has stimulated an interesting debate Google Scholar enables searches to be carried out across many on how such correlations should be tested and the confidence disciplines and sources: from peer-reviewed papers, theses and limits on such tests. abstracts to articles and books. Sources include academic pub- Elsewhere efforts have been made to improve the coupled lishers, professional societies and universities. ❐ atmospheric and ocean models to use physical understanding http://scholar.google.com of the processes in the atmosphere and in oceans to improve hurricane forecasts (for example the work of the Hadley Centre2 on the unexpected hurricane observed off the coast of Plugging the UK energy gap Brazil – Hurricane Catarina). ❐ Maintaining the UK’s standard of living while energy becomes 1Nature Vol. 436, No. 4 August 2005 p686-688 scarcer and more expensive will require fundamental changes 2www.metoffice.com/sec2/sec2cyclone/catarina.html in the way we produce and use energy, according to a report launched at the Geological Society in London in November. President of the Royal Society How to Plug the Energy Gap was written by the executive A member of the Council of the Foundation for Science and director of the UK Energy Research Centre, John Loughhead. It Technology will take up office as President of the Royal Society represents a distillation of the conclusions from a two day con- on 1 December. Lord Rees of Ludlow, better known to many ference held in October at which 150 delegates, with expertise as Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, succeeds Lord May of from across the whole field of energy, discussed the issues fac- Oxford. His term of office will last for five years. ❐ ing the UK. The meeting was sponsored by the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics, the IEE and the Institution of Civil Engineers. Avian flu case in UK The report aims “to provide the Government with a coher- It was widely reported in the UK press in late October that a ent, feasible solution to the acknowledged problem of the UK’s parrot imported from Surinam had died of Highly Pathogenic looming energy gap”. It concludes that the market alone will Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5N1, having acquired it from other not deliver the goals of energy policy and argues that “clear birds in a quarantine facility in Essex. means to encourage the necessary changes are essential”. The report1 of the National Emergency Epidemiology It says that fossil fuels will remain the most important Group into the incident has now been published by the energy source for the coming 50 years, despite a growing role Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) for renewable energy. “Clean systems”, including carbon capture and this casts doubt on that interpretation of the evidence. and storage, should be pursued urgently it says. The main findings of the report are: With regard to nuclear power, the report says that fission • within the species documented as coming from Taiwan energy is a proven and reliable technology that “will inevitably only the Mesia birds were infected with H5N1 and 53 out have a key role in a future clean energy mix”. The main source of 101 birds had died; of uncertainty about the economic viability of the technology • infection with H5N1 was transmitted between the Mesias, lies in the continuing uncertainty about the costs of disposing but there is no evidence of transmission to other species in of nuclear waste and decommissioning nuclear plants – “both the facility including the sentinel birds. being uncertain chiefly because there remains uncertainty in The original identification of HPAI H5N1 on 21 October was Government policy” says the report. made from a pool of tissues derived from a Pionus Parrot Energy demand reduction measures will be as important as (Surinam) and a Mesia (Taiwan). It has not been possible to generation technologies, it says, requiring both technological say whether the virus isolated came from the parrot tissue or and behavioural changes. Existing technology for energy effi- the Mesia tissue or both, says the report. However, in the light ciency is not yet fully exploited and remedying this situation is of the other evidence, the balance of probabilities is that the as important as new technology development. ❐ source was the Mesia sample. The H5N1 strain is most closely www.geolsoc.org.uk associated with a virus isolated from ducks in China early this

 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) science policy and management

On 11 May 2005 the foundation held a dinner/discussion at the Royal Society to clarify the policy of public support for the science base. Towards 2.5 per cent of GDP on R&D Keith O’Nions overnment science policy has two research supporting translation and clini- objectives. The first is to sustain a cal research, and with the help of £25 mil- Gworld-class science base in Britain: lion from central funds now has a budget the international competitiveness of UK of £140 million a year in this area. science is a key goal. The second is the There has been a similar development exploitation of the science base using in the field of energy. The Engineering science for the public good and for eco- and Physical Research Council (EPSRC) Sir Keith O’Nions has been Director- nomic benefit. has now assumed the leading role in the General of Research Councils since Earlier this year, we allocated some £10 development of future energy options. the beginning of 2004. He is an earth billion to building the science base. The With an extra £25 million, the council will scientist and has held academic total has been growing at about 8 per cent survey everything from photovoltaics to posts at Columbia, Cambridge and a year in real terms during the course of nuclear fusion. The budget may not be Oxford (as head of the Department the current Spending Review. The largest enough for the long term in my view and of Earth Sciences). He was chief element of the increased resources goes I believe the issue will re-appear in the scientific adviser to the Ministry of into sustaining the infrastructure. My next spending review. Defence from January 2000 to July sense is that most people feel that this is The allocations to the research councils 2004. He was elected a Fellow of the an appropriate investment. should not be regarded as indications of We are now moving towards recovery winners and losers. Circumstances affect Royal Society in 1983 and knighted of the full economic costs of research car- them differently. Research councils car- in 1999. ried out at academic institutions. This rying out a substantial proportion of year will be a test of the system, and we the research they support in their own shall have our fingers crossed. Our goal is institutes will, by definition, already be to move towards full-cost recovery while meeting the full economic costs incurred. avoiding a highly bureaucratic approach. Councils such as EPSRC, which is very The sums of money involved are already much a grant-based organisation, will be quite substantial; 80 per cent of research affected more noticeably. costs will be paid from September, and I now turn to the second of the two will amount to £200 million in 2007-08. objectives of the 10-year framework – Meanwhile, the infrastructure fund improved exploitation of the science base, will remain at £500 million a year for the especially for economic benefit. I begin remainder of this spending review (that with the target in the 10-year framework is why there are so many cranes around document to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP universities nowadays). There will be a on R&D ten years from now. The role of further £250 million for new facilities the business sector is evidently relevant to and projects. These new funds take up a the process of fruitful innovation. In some large proportion of the new money and fields, notably in pharmaceuticals and will also have to feature large in the next information technology, R&D accounts Spending Review. You cannot suddenly for a substantial proportion of companies’ stop these things. turnover. Elsewhere (as, for example, in How well does Britain perform in the financial services sector), R&D may be international comparisons? By now, there only a small proportion of turnover, but is a great deal of analysis of the relative for good business reasons. Our concern, performance of UK science and engineer- now and for the years ahead, is that we ing. Without going into detail, there are should use what resources there are to many, many areas in which we are second stimulate the process of innovation. only to the United States. But there are We already have a number of tools at also some areas of engineering, some our disposal. One is the relatively new fields of mathematics and some quantita- system of R&D tax credits: if all com- tive areas of the social sciences where the panies claimed what they are due, that comparisons are not nearly as flattering. would amount to half a billion pounds The question naturally arises of wheth- a year. There are also public funds for er we could make good such perceived the support of knowledge transfer and deficiencies. The research councils have innovation. For example, there is the paid particular attention to this question. Higher Education Innovation Fund But this will be a long term process. (HEIF), which will have a budget of about The Medical Research Council has £120 million a year at the end of the hugely re-oriented its priorities towards Spending Review. Much of that will be fst journal >> november 20200505 >>>> vovoll.. 1818 (10)(10)  science policy and management

UK 1.90 each of them will depend on the rela- tive importance of the different sectors. science base 0.35 Specifically, part of the reason why the other Government departments R&D 0.31 UK spends less on R&D than the US is that, although information technology private sector 1.24 is equally research-intensive in both France 2.20 countries, information technology is a Germany 2.51 smaller part of the economy in Britain than in the United States. USA 2.67 So our 1.9 per cent is more a reflection of the make-up of our economy than it is Table 1. The ratio of R&D to GDP. of under-spending or under-investment in a particular sector. That is a first approxi- shared among academic institutions on R&D. After all, 1.9 per cent of GDP seems mation to the truth. a formula basis, but over the allocations miserly compared with the 2.7 per cent of The various sectors of a modern period about £50 million will be awarded GDP spent in the United States. What can economy can also be categorised by the competitively in the hope of backing a be the explanation? I have already referred value they add to the overall economy small number of adventurous projects. to the high proportion of sales revenues (technically, value added is the value of I should also refer to the Public Sector spent on R&D in the pharmaceutical total sales minus the cost of bought- Research Establishment (PSRE), which sector. That appears to be the case in all in goods and services, and is a good will have £20 million a year to spend on technically advanced countries: R&D is approximation to ‘wealth creation’). In projects linked with this agenda. In addi- typically more than 10 per cent of turno- Britain, banking and financial services tion, there is the New Technology Strategy ver. Much the same is true in electronics come top of the list, oil and gas come Board within the Department of Trade and information technology. In other next, followed by support services, tel- and Industry, which will have £160 mil- sectors of modern economies – banking, ecommunications and pharmaceuticals. lion a year to spend at the end of this for example – spending on R&D may be The last of these is the first industrial spending review. That is a new board relatively much smaller everywhere. sector in the list where the research chaired by Graham Spittle of IBM; among So different sectors of an economy intensity exceeds 2 per cent. other things, it is formulating a technol- may be characterised by research of dif- I have not directly addressed the ques- ogy strategy in support of the innovation ferent intensities. The research intensity tion of the link between research and agenda. of a particular sector of industry will useful innovation. Part of my purpose Taken together, the cost of these activi- be similar from one country to another, has been to suggest that the connection is ties is relatively small compared with the but there will routinely be marked dif- complex and not well understood. It goes funds going into the science base. There ferences between the size of each indus- without saying that, for the British econo- are obviously questions of whether we are trial sector in national economies. The my as a whole, what matters is that wealth on the right track and whether we should consequence is that when the research creation should satisfy the ambitions of its increase the funds we now spend on them. spending of industrial sectors is aggre- people. I emphasise again that we are still I conclude with a few remarks on the gated for comparable countries, the feeling our way in the management of our relatively poor performance of the UK in proportions of GDP spent on R&D in efforts in this field. ❐

The costs and the priorities David Wallace

am going to talk from the perspective of my first point. higher education, and give very much Second, let me discuss TRAC Ia personal view. The first point I want (Transparent Approach to Costing), the to make relates to selectivity: in the UK, forerunner to full economic costs. It led research funding is already highly selec- us to identify the full infrastructure costs tive. This is already well known but I want of our work in universities and to allocate to illustrate it by referring to the ratios those across teaching, research and other of funding which are used for grades 3A, areas. It also added costs, some sensible; Professor Sir David Wallace CBE 4, 5 and 5* by HEFCE. If you are in a for example, you have to depreciate your FRS DL is vice-chancellor of Grade 5 department, you roughly get 2.7 assets at current values, not at historical Loughborough University. He is treas- times that for Grade 4; and 5* brings 3.4 costs. urer and vice-president of the Royal times that amount. The funding model The result is that everybody runs Society, immediate past president of has actually been changed for 2005-6 and at a loss if full overall economic cost is the Institute of Physics and a fellow these ratios are now 1:3:3.75. This degree calculated according to these rules. It is of the Royal Academy of Engineering. of selectivity is far higher than could be unclear to me whether this will actu- He is also chair of the UK e-Science justified by funding only individuals who ally become part of our Statement of Steering Committee. He was knighted do research, in RAE terms, of ‘internation- Recommended Practice in the future; I in 2004 for services to UK science, al excellence’, with no funding at all for am not convinced that it should, because technology and engineering. individuals of ‘national excellence’. That is not all costs included seem reasonable

 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) science policy and management

base. In 2004-5, the ratio of teaching Individual enthusiasm. A number of discussion funds for laboratory and non-laboratory participants argued that while it was vital subjects has decreased from 2:1 to 1.7:1. And in 2005-6, Quality-related Research to recognise the UK’s enviable record of scientific success, it should be noted (QR) funding (HEFCE were very helpful that this had come through the ability of individual scientists to pursue their in giving us the data) for non-laboratory own interests. To constrain them within set procedures and processes, and to subjects has gone up by 17 per cent and demand results in areas that might not lie within their own priorities, risked los- for the mid-laboratory subjects by 14 per cent. Yet for laboratory subjects such ing the enthusiasm and drive that had led to past successes. as engineering, physics and the like, the increase is only 8 per cent (and for chem- istry it is -1%); there has been a relative to me. However, if it does, then certainly shift out of laboratory subjects. all universities that do research will be A funding disparity Each of these changes was only at in deficit. Estimates of academic time the c. 4% level, and they were arrived at spent on teaching, research, etc, are open rationally by HEFCE, but they all add to to interpretation and this has resulted in will emerge between the challenges that a university vice- a bit of bureaucracy for academics. The chancellor and a university council face in data gathered, though, was important supporting the sciences. not least because it was partly behind the project-rich areas like There are also a number of other Government’s willingness to put more agendas, e.g. 2008 RAE, the 10 Year money into infrastructure and sustain- Framework, regional agendas and so ability. much of science and forth. I think that the key word for the Some details from Loughborough future should surely be ‘impact’. It could University may be of interest; it is typical be the academic impact on peers and their of data I have seen from other research- engineering com- take-up of ideas or it could be industrial intensive universities. According to our impact, or in terms of the regional agenda TRAC data, our UK/EU student costs the impact for the region. I think that, are broadly in line with income, and the pared with project- because of the extra money, there will surplus from international students is be no getting away from the pressure to invested in the staff and facilities they demonstrate impact over the next three expect when they come to us. We lose poor areas. or four years. Provided the Government money on publicly funded research and continues to accept a wide definition of a little bit less on non-publicly funded the term, this should not necessarily be a research. We make a surplus from our funding and so what is going to happen? threat to basic science. other activities. However, under TRAC A funding disparity will emerge between Finally, as the new fee regime comes on accounting, instead of having a surplus of project-rich areas like much of science board, I hope that HEFCE – as minority around 3 per cent on our annual accounts and engineering compared with project- funders even of teaching – will recognise we would have a loss of 5 per cent. poor areas in, for example, the economic that we have a million and a half stake- Third, I turn to full economic and social sciences. Over the next few holders out there who will be pressing, costs (FEC). The requirement here is years, the research and funding councils rightly, that we deliver quality and inno- to cost individual grants fully accord- will have to decide whether or not they vation: after all, they will be paying for ing to the principles that lie behind the respond. tuition and taking on debts to cover it. TRAC accounting scheme, including the Fourth, looking at ‘strategic subjects’ The ability of HEFCE to match teaching Principal Investigator (PI) salary. From I believe that the changes introduced in income to costs for specific subjects will September 2005, successful research coun- recent years by the Higher Education be reduced, and so also should its burden cil applications will receive 80 per cent of Funding Council for England (HEFCE) for quality assurance. All this will place FEC, a significant increase on the current have not helped the situation. The first an increasing demand on universities figure now. It is important to stress that was in 2003-4 when HEFCE changed the to allocate resources and invest in ways you receive only 80 per cent of direct costs teaching funding model: at Loughborough which are not simply driven by financial such as a Research Associate salary. There we lost £1 million as a result. It hit pre- parameters, ironically at a time when we are obviously concerns about whether dominantly the pre-92 universities, which understand our income and costs better other public and non-public research have most of the ‘hard’ science research than ever before. ❐ funders will recognise and award FEC – the EU is a particular concern here. It is a great relief that the monitoring of the HEFCE and the research councils. discussion time of the PI will be at the university level, and not, as originally appeared, at Speakers raised the question about the the level of the individual grant. relationship of the research councils and the Higher Education Funding Council There are interesting implications for for England (HEFCE). It seemed sometimes that the formula allocations from funding councils as well as research coun- HEFCE ran counter to the priorities that the research councils were developing cils. If you are in a project-rich area with lots of research council funding and you in funding projects. However, the point was also made that the dual support have good Principal Investigators, their system had been set up in order to give individual institutions the ability to use salaries are fully costed in the research their block grant in the way they wished: to suggest that HEFCE should align council grant. In areas like mathemat- its funding to research council grants would be to undermine the principle of ics, academics do not have access to the institutional autonomy. same level of additional research council fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10)  science policy and management Asking the right questions Mark Walport

cience needs to be managed flexibly, between the bottom-up and the top-down supported by policy that provides approaches to the support of research. Sthe right drivers to foster the process Joshua Lederberg, an American geneti- of discovery and nurture the individuals cist and microbiologist who received a and teams involved with it. The difficult Nobel prize in 1958 for his work on bac- questions for funding agencies, whether terial genetics, presented a prescription public or private, are: for funding agencies in 1991: “…simply put, the best way to administer a creative Dr Mark Walport FMedSci is direc- • how to distribute money in the best research environment is to find people tor of The Wellcome Trust. He was way to support research? of great talent and reasonable ambition professor of medicine and head of • how and whether to set research pri- – whatever their specific disciplines – and the Division of Medicine at Imperial orities? leave them to their own devices.” This College of Science, Technology and • how to pick the best scientists? approach has great merit and is the pre- Medicine, London. His clinical and • how to know whether, through the scription used for a large fraction of the research interests focus on immu- above, they are making a difference? funding that is provided by the Wellcome nology and the genetics of rheu- Unlike today, where the governments Trust. matic diseases. He won the Roche of the leading economic powers aspire In the UK, science has always had Rheumatology Prize in 1991 and the to support basic and applied scientific a strong strategic component. One of Graham Bull Prize in Clinical Science research from the public purse, prior to the principal objectives of the Royal (Royal College of Physicians) in 1996. the twentieth century research was mostly Greenwich Observatory, London, which funded privately or by industry. was established in 1675 by King Charles Vannevar Bush, the visionary engi- II, was to solve the problem of determin- neer and scientific administrator who ing longitude at sea for the benefit of directed the USA’s wartime Office of naval and commercial fleets. Scientific Research and Development, The top-down approach provides was a key contributor to the evolution of the scientific community with money research funding. He presented a report to tackle specific scientific problems. to President Roosevelt entitled Science The However, there are two problems with Endless Frontier in which he outlined the this approach. The first is ‘unripe time’ means of supporting scientific research – that is, working on a problem when after the end of the war. In it he noted the necessary toolkit is not available. that progress in the “war against disease President Nixon’s War on Cancer, which depends on the flow of new scientific was initiated in 1971, was a limited suc- knowledge. New products, new industries cess because the molecular tools were not and more jobs require continuous addi- widely available to tackle the problem tions to knowledge of the laws of nature, at that time. The second problem is the and the application of that knowledge to danger of funding second-rate science practical purposes. This essential, new because of restrictions on use entailed by knowledge can be obtained only through ring-fenced funds. basic scientific research.” The bottom-up approach to funding is Today, similar rhetoric can be found in exemplified by the Nobel Prize-winning the UK’s 10-year Science and Innovation Paul Nurse. He was trying to understand Investment Framework, which reaffirms his observations of dividing yeast cells Vannevar Bush’s principle of funding and set himself the challenge of tackling excellent basic research and encouraging what he felt was a tractable problem: knowledge transfer. this has now helped us understand some But who drives the process of discov- fundamental cell biology. It is extremely ery and who asks the research questions? important that we preserve this kind of A key tension for all funding agencies is curiosity-driven, bottom-up investigation

Peer review. Peer review was attacked discussion as being responsible for much delay, and a hindrance to radical thinking. But it was a method that was tried and trusted; scientists and researchers would be very unwilling to see it dropped in favour of what might be a quicker, but would certainly be a more arbitrary, method of assessment. But it should be used carefully, and with the aim of promoting projects, not rejecting them.

 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) science policy and management of science. However, there is an attractive mid- The management dimension. More discussion dle ground between the bottom-up and top-down approaches. This may be par- funding was essential, and should not ticularly useful when there are areas of be swallowed up by an over-managerial culture. Ministers were account- research that, using the language of the able to parliament and the public and so they needed to have some pharmaceutical industry, can be classified as ‘unmet need’. measures, or outputs, which they could use to justify expenditure. The The Grand Challenges in Global danger lay in setting management targets which took no account of Health programme, funded by the Bill professional realities or the uncertainty about the outcome from any and Melinda Gates Foundation with financial contributions from the National research project. Institutes of Health, the Wellcome Trust and the Canadian Institutes of Health unmet need. If a problem does not con- scientific research – and show that a long Research, is an example of an excellent front scientists then they are not going to view is essential. The Wellcome Trust approach to stimulating scientific activity work on it – so it is sometimes important supports a series of ‘witness seminars’. in areas of unmet need. The world’s scien- to bring opportunities to their attention. Developed and run by Dr Tilly Tansey at tific community was asked to identify the For example, there is a mismatch between University College London, these collate important questions and the roadblocks the burden of much parasitic infectious the oral histories of the participants who to solving critical health problems in the disease and the location of state of the art were involved in major discoveries. One developing world. Fourteen ‘grand chal- laboratories in the developed world. But example is that of obstetric ultrasound; if lenges’ were distilled from the responses equally, there is no shortage of fascinating you look at clinical papers on this subject, by an expert committee. These challenges and important science that can be pur- you will not find basic research cited. The formed the basis of an invitation to the sued on diseases such as malaria, trypano- history, though, was that Ian Donald, an world’s scientific community to propose somiasis and leishmaniasis. obstetrician working in Glasgow in the first-class approaches that would provide Having given out a grant, how can we early 1950s, had been interested in naval solutions and health benefits. measure its success? This is vital if we are research on sonar detection during the As Sydney Brenner argues, identifying to persuade politicians and the public that war. He thought this could be applied good science involves identifying scien- research is a fundamental activity worthy to human situations. The result was a tists who have important questions to of sustainable support. remarkable collaboration with the people answer coupled with sound experimental A great deal rests on persuading the that supplied Glasgow shipyards with approaches. Maintaining this kind of flex- politicians. In 1966, Project Hindsight equipment to scan metal welds and detect ibility in the discovery process is impera- (funded by the US Department of defects. An ultrasound machine used in tive and is perhaps sometimes forgotten Defense) looked at the science behind 20 shipyards was translated into an extremely by funding agencies. Key questions for military weapons, including the Polaris useful clinical advance, but this would funding agencies to ask would seem to be: and Minuteman nuclear warheads. The never have become clear from any kind of “Are you a good scientist?” “What have report concluded that the contribution bibliometric analysis. you actually discovered?” “Who have you of university research had been minimal, So, we have to be sure that we are trained?” that mission-orientated science was the measuring metrics that are sensible and Maybe we should also actually read an most successful and that the lag between provide the right drivers by avoiding applicant’s two or three best papers, rather discovery and application was shortest perverse incentives. We need a mixture than just the titles of the journals in when scientists worked in an area targeted of managerial measures (the input, the which they are published. Then we need by a sponsor. activities, the output), but we must not to know the researcher’s question, why it The flaws in this argument are fairly neglect the case studies and other qualita- is important, how they will approach it obvious. While developing a missile or tive measures. What really matters is what and what resources are needed. a gun is not likely, in the short term, to has actually been discovered, whether this How should one train and support have been influenced by what happens in is important new knowledge and whether young scientists? Key is to ensure that the university laboratories, it would be sur- training has been provided to the scien- brightest youngsters are trained in the prising if the nuclear warheads had not tists of the next generation. best laboratories. There is an important been significantly influenced by a great In summary, the important questions duty of care for all of those involved in deal of rather basic physics research that for us to answer when developing the sci- the training of scientists to act as role had gone before. To say that university ence policies of the future are: models and provide mentorship to their research had not been important, though research trainees. History shows that one it may not have been the desired outcome • what are the correct drivers for the great scientist begets another. Personal of that research, was not true. research environment that we want to fellowship schemes are a very powerful This exposition of the importance of foster? way of supporting young scientists on a mission-orientated research infuriated • do current management approaches path to their own independent scientific many in the scientific community and led stifle creative scientific research? careers. to a bibliometric analysis by Comroe and • how do we best capture the outcomes There are, of course, limits to plan- Dripps. They published a paper in Science of research? ning science; science after all sets its own in 1976 which showed that 10 major clini- • finally, and I think most importantly, how do we continue to persuade poli- priorities. You cannot predict discoveries cal advances in cardiovascular medicine ticians and the public that fundamen- or anticipate what may come from new could be traced back to roots in basic sci- tal research really matters? knowledge. It is therefore important to ence. This conclusion became a powerful ❐ support a balance of the best ideas and advocacy tool for increasing basic science best people – and we have to provide flex- budgets in the USA. ible mechanisms for doing so. We also Historical case studies are a power- cannot completely ignore the issue of ful method for evaluating the impact of fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10)  education of 14–19 year olds

The Government’s response to the Tomlinson Report has divided educationalists. The issues raised were considered at a dinner/discussion on 25 May 2005. The Government response to Tomlinson Julie Bramman

irst I would like to sketch out the tional in English, maths and also informa- Government’s vision for second- tion and communication technologies Fary education: I will focus on our (ICT). To ensure that the curriculum response to Mike Tomlinson’s report, as imparts these skills and that qualifications set out in the 14-19 White Paper that we judge their mastery, it will not be possible published in February. to achieve a Grade C or above at GCSE We are, of course, aware of the criti- without having mastered the basics. cism that the Government has not fully It is vital that we stretch and challenge Julie Bramman is head of curriculum embraced the recommendations of the young people so that they can realise at the Department for Education and Tomlinson report. We have decided to their full potential. Some students need a Skills, a role that includes responsibil- retain the existing GCSE and A-level qual- greater degree of stretch and challenge in ity for all 14 subjects in the National ifications system, rather than adopt an their studies; this is why the new diploma Curriculum for primary and second- over-arching diploma for both vocational and A-levels will offer gifted students the ary schools. It also includes cross- and academic routes. It is important to option to answer more challenging ques- cutting curricular themes such as build on what is good within the cur- tions. We will also allow schools to offer sustainable development, culture and rent education system rather than replace higher education modules, where the creativity, as well as learning outside it wholesale. GCSE and A-levels are pupils are ready for this level of study. the classroom. She has a leading role high-quality, internationally recognised It is a top priority to secure voca- in implementing the Government’s qualifications and – perhaps most impor- tional pathways for the young. Traditional 14-19 White Paper. tantly – they are universally understood academic qualifications have served the by young people, parents, employers and needs of many students successfully, yet universities. We consider the real chal- there are a number of students with dif- lenge is bringing the same levels of qual- ferent needs who would benefit from a ity, coherence and understanding to what greater variety of teaching and learning has been described as the ‘alphabet soup’ approaches. For these young people there of vocational qualifications. will be 14 diplomas covering the main The development of the new diploma occupational sectors. system will provide a real opportunity We are working with key stakehold- to break down the academic and voca- ers, including employers and Sector Skills tional divide. This requires a fundamental Councils, to ensure that the diplomas change in cultural attitudes, which by its have suitable content. There will then be a nature will take time: it can only be done phased delivery of diplomas, with the first if everyone fully supports and recognises four in ICT, engineering, health and social these qualifications. care, while the creative and media diplo- Apart from retaining GCSEs and A- mas will be introduced in 2008. All 14 will levels, we have used the Working Group’s be available by 2015. analysis of the system and adopted many of It is important to re-motivate young its major recommendations. The reforms people who drop out of the system. are based around these key principles: Proposals in the White Paper will allow securing the basics; stretching every young students access to a much wider range person to their full potential; offering a of environments and types of learning. high-quality vocational route; re-motivat- The new package of qualifications and ing disengaged learners; and preparing all other changes to the system will result young people for the world of work. in a clearer framework of progression What do these broad principles mean pathways so that, through to the age of in practice? Employers have consistently 19 and beyond, students will have real raised concerns about the basic skills of choice and a range of options available young people, focusing predominantly to them. This will provide a framework on communication and maths but also to ensure that all young people will be including wider skills such as team work- prepared for the world of work. ing. That is why we will ensure that every Now I would like to consider the young person must leave school com- implications for science. The Tomlinson petent in English and mathematics. We report was fairly silent on the issue of sci- intend to define what it means to be func- ence, and that contrasts with the White

 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) education of 14–19 year olds

Paper where it is given prominence study required for careers in engineer- Education and Skills and the Department throughout. Our first priority is to ensure ing and medicine, with the emphasis on for Trade and Industry are collaborating that young people have the knowledge to explaining and theorising. Or they take to develop solutions to the problem of enable them to make informed choices the second route, focusing on developing poor uptake of physics among girls, for about their education at the age of 14. We practical scientific capability, which will instance. The Science Learning Centres therefore see reforming the curriculum engage students in the world in which network, jointly funded by the Wellcome for 11-14 year olds, which is Key Stage science is applied – occupations such as Trust and the Department for Education 3, as vital. It is important that the excite- healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and Science, will have a key role in offer- ment, relevance, and crucial importance and communications. ing training and professional development of science is clearly infused throughout By extending the successful Key Stage 3 opportunities for teachers of science in the Key Stage 3 science curriculum, rather strategy to cover the whole of the second- the wider workforce. than it being just a long list of facts that ary phase, we anticipate that the existing All these measures and more are tar- need to be learnt. success, especially the improvements in geted at improving the levels of attain- There will be a new programme of teaching and learning and attainment that ment at 16, but there is also the post-16 study at Key Stage 4. From 2006, all have been possible at Key Stage 3, will be dimension to consider. There has been students will still have to learn science, replicated at Key Stage 4. a dramatic decline in the number of but the current substantial programme It is also important to consider the students studying science subjects at A- of study will be replaced by a smaller impact of the wider education system, level and beyond. Even when students do statutory core, suitable for all students. and how other successful programmes pursue scientific study, a large number However, it is expected that the majority and initiatives can feed back into the pursue careers in other sectors. This of students will devote the same propor- system more generally, raising standards decline is dangerous, not only because it tion of their studies to science as they and expectations for all. The Specialist means that as a country we will not have a do now, taking courses that lead to the School System, for example, is the corner- labour force sufficiently skilled to take the equivalent of a double award GCSE. We stone of the Five Year Strategy published economy forward, but also because it is a have gone further, creating an entitlement last summer: these schools have a vital problem that is self-perpetuating. for KS4 pupils to study a course in science role in helping to improve the student’s I have outlined a number of initiatives equivalent to two GCSEs. experience of science. Almost two out of and commitments that we have made in The new programme of study will five current Specialist Schools specialise a variety of strategy documents. It is of include a common core — to achieve a in science or technology, and we know course important to bear in mind that single award GCSE, students will have to that Specialist Schools are improving at all these elements are ultimately pieces study some additional science. To achieve a faster rate than non-specialists at Key of a multi-dimensional jigsaw which will a double award, two alternative progres- Stages 3 and 4. ensure that we have a sufficiently knowl- sion routes will be provided through Other issues that we need to consider edgeable and skilled workforce to take the study of Additional Science GCSE. include the differences in representation the economy through, and beyond, the Students can take a course to develop a and attainment between the genders, twenty-first century. ❐ broad understanding of science. This pro- in ethnic minorities and across socio- www.dfes.gov.uk/14-19/documents/ vides preparation for the more advanced economic groups. The Department for Final%20Report.pdf The view from the chalk face Pauline Cox

have been invited to put the head teach- academic pathways – was coherent, relevant ers’ view of the Tomlinson-Kelly debate and revolutionary and reflected a genuine Isurrounding the education of 14-19 year consensus view about the future for 14-19 olds. It is a brave person who attempts to education. represent the diversity of views of the 3,500 The academic and vocational divide in secondary head teachers in the country education dates back to at least the 1944 – not forgetting all the colleges and further Education Act, and there is general agree- education establishments also charged with ment that the perceived inferior nature of Pauline Cox is head teacher at The educating 16-19 year olds. But this is what vocational education is a problem that a Tiffin Girls’ School, Kingston upon the debate sounds like and feels like from knowledge economy in the twenty-first cen- Thames. She studied geography at the ‘chalk face’ in a high-achieving selec- tury cannot afford. The Tomlinson report Birmingham University before work- tive girls’ school with a large and successful was a sound basis for tackling the problem, ing overseas in Warsaw and at Legon sixth form of 277, with most girls going on but its timing was unfortunate. Spring University in Accra. She was head of to university. We are a mathematics and 2005 brought a new Secretary of State for geography at Waldegrave Girls’ School computing specialist school – one of the Education and an election. In responding in Richmond and then spent seven first in the country. to the report, the incoming minister Ruth years as deputy head at Cranford The Tomlinson Report was eagerly Kelly threw out the baby and the bathwater. Community College in Hounslow. awaited. Few in the education world have She jettisoned the proposal for an overarch- Mrs Cox was a member of the council Mike Tomlinson’s wealth of experience ing diploma and in retaining the status quo of London South Learning and Skills and breadth of vision and even fewer have with A-levels and GCSEs she has perpetu- his diplomatic skills. Tomlinson achieved ated the academic/vocational fault line that Council from 2002 to 2004 and is something rare in education: broad agree- runs right through education. Tomlinson’s Secondary Heads’ Association repre- ment. Its main proposal – for an overarch- vision appeared to be Kelly’s nightmare. sentative for Kingston. ing diploma to unite the vocational and So what challenges were Tomlinson and fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10)  education of 14–19 year olds

Kelly trying to address? About half of 16- year-olds attain five good GCSE passes; it is A sense of déjà vu? It was pointed out discussion the other half that presents the problem. At that the Hamlyn Commission, 12 years the age of 16, many young people become ago, had come to similar conclusions about the need for an overarching diplo- disengaged from education and disappear from the system. Our educational success ma and this too had been rejected. It was argued that there were good politi- rate and staying-on rates after 16 compare cal and practical reasons for this double rejection in just over 10 years. The badly to our economic competitors. Kelly views of parents and employers had to be given due weight: there was clear is aiming to increase the participation rate evidence that these groups were strongly attached to the current GCSE and for 16-18 year olds from 75% to 90% in 10 years and to do this we need high qual- A-level structure and were suspicious of fundamental change. Ministers had to ity vocational education. weigh expert opinion against the views of voters and take a decision which, in Kelly identified four major objectives their view, would be acceptable and in the public interest. to address the problem of education and skills for 14-19 year olds: functional maths and English; tackling low staying-on rates Kelly is proposing changes that will if both providers are poor then the con- after 16; better vocational courses; and impact on teaching in every one of the sortium provision is also poor. Travel time stretching all young people and engag- seven year groups in secondary schools. for students, as well as pastoral care and ing the disaffected. This last is possibly This means rewriting every scheme of guidance, become issues. The wide range the biggest challenge of all. But Kelly has work and many lesson plans. This needs of 14-19 provision around the country cherry-picked Tomlinson – and she left extensive teacher time and planning time. shows the complexity of providing educa- out the best cherry in the bunch, the over- We have too many exams at second- tion for this age group. The introduction arching diploma unifying vocational and ary level. With Tomlinson we had hoped of the Learning and Skills Councils with academic education. to see a reduction in testing. Over-test- responsibility for 16-19 education has not Head teachers were disappointed by ing affects learner motivation, produces brought any degree of rationalisation, as the rejection of Tomlinson – but are now bureaucracy, loss of teaching time and some might have hoped. faced with the challenge of delivering above all costs money. At least the 14 spe- One of the biggest issues which will not Kelly. That will be made harder by a per- cialised diplomas will help to simplify the go away is: how do you run a coherent, ennial problem: education policy makers alphabet soup of vocational qualifications, planned 14-19 curriculum where schools usually underestimate the facilities and some 3,500 in total, with 123 awarding are only 11-16 institutions? Collaboration resource implications associated with any bodies. However, they have to be recog- of any sort takes time and effort. These are form of change. Teaching any 14-19 year nised by university admission tutors, par- not commodities too often available in our old needs good buildings and modern ents and employers. stretched education system. equipment, and this is particularly true But whatever happens we must have It is too easy in this debate about struc- of the specialist facilities needed for voca- exam syllabuses, specimen exam papers tures, funding and qualifications to lose tional courses. The 14 vocational diplo- and textbooks before we start to teach. sight of the students and parents that the mas outlined in the Government White We need a lead time of one or two years system is supposed to serve. With no over- Paper will need good industry-standard for any exam change. We must avoid the arching diploma, the academic/vocational facilities. Capital investment will be vital, debacle of the last A-level changes of divide will continue. Parents and pupils yet most head teachers struggle to access Curriculum 2000, when we were teaching want the higher status GCSEs and A-level capital funding. sixth formers with no syllabuses and no route, however inappropriate for their abil- GCSEs and A-levels are cheaper to clue as to where we were going for far too ity and aptitude. Good advice and guidance teach than vocational skills, as they long. is vital here and has been lacking in the require little in the way of specialist facili- Kelly is promising us the chance to past. Many employers still talk about O-lev- ties; yet the qualifications themselves are stretch more able pupils. Harder questions els: how will they ever cope with specialised held in higher esteem than vocational at Advanced Extension Award level are to diplomas? qualifications. And this is the basic prob- be welcomed. Unless we introduce greater Where do we go from here? We have to lem surrounding the delivery of vocation- differentiation at the top grades, the implement Kelly. Yet by the time children al courses for schools and colleges. UCAS system could fragment with more starting school today leave school in seven Both schools and colleges face desper- and more universities setting their own years time, how many secretaries of state ate shortages of qualified teachers. The entrance exams. At A-level, Kelly proposes will there have been, how many more edu- teachers we have are getting older and we that universities will be given the pupils’ cation acts and how many more changes also face a rapid turnover of young staff. grades from each module paper. An A*, of policy? Colleges face particular difficulty: col- A** system might be easier to implement. I am not advocating no change. But lege lecturers receive about 8% less than How do we organise the delivery of 14- constant change is disruptive and detracts teachers – and they are the main teachers 19 education and skills? To provide a wide from the main business of schools – edu- of vocational courses. Again we have this choice of A-levels, or the new specialised cating children. Elements of Kelly are to academic and vocational divide which diplomas, requires large schools and col- be welcomed. However, they do not fully extends also to funding: schools receive leges. A sixth form size of 250 is consid- address the problems they set out to solve. more per student than colleges – and even ered the minimum for offering at least 22 Tomlinson would have been the choice then it is a financial struggle for us. subjects at A-level. In my local authority of most of education. Above all we can- Above all, for teachers we need on-going with 10 secondary schools, six have non- not implement change without resources, professional development – both in the viable sixth forms on these statistics. teachers and buildings. If you are at methodology of teaching and also in updat- Yet parents like school sixth forms. school at a time of rapid educational ing subject knowledge, especially in science They like the structure, discipline and change, then you are a guinea pig for and technology. Introducing new courses small size of these schools. In an attempt untried and untested ideas. And we must and qualifications requires training and to be viable, school sixth forms create remember that every child has only one planning. Both are too easily brushed over. consortia, as do schools with colleges. But education – and every child matters. ❐

10 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) education of 14–19 year olds Good science teaching matters Bob May have a lot of sympathy with what the was a creatively lazy person) by handing the other two speakers have had to say about exam papers back to the class to grade each Idrawing too sharp a distinction between other’s – a brilliant pedagogic device and academic and vocational qualifications. also one that involved considerable learning Nonetheless, against that background, I am skills in relation to life. going to focus my discussion in a rather What I learnt in school more than any- different direction and talk about teaching thing else was not a set of facts from a syl- The Lord May of Oxford OM AC just science and mathematics for 14-19- labus: I learnt to question the conventional Kt FRS is the former President year-olds. wisdom – to ask what are the relevant facts of The Royal Society. Lord May The genesis of this talk is a Teachers’ and then disregard what you have been told holds a professorship jointly in the Award made by the Secretary of State and try to think it through for yourself. And Department of Zoology, University for Education in the Commonwealth of so my talk is not going to survey the cur- of Oxford and Imperial College, Australia. He wrote to Australians all over rent landscape of syllabuses and changes in London, although he started his the world for anecdotes about teachers and the syllabuses because I think that there are career as an applied mathemati- three of them gave him stories about the some issues that transcend the details. cian and theoretical physicist in same person, which seemed to him rather How does this relate to education today Australia and the US. Between 1995 remarkable. The award was a tribute to a in Britain? Let us just look at the facts. The rather remarkable person. He was my chem- trend in this country for A-level entries and 2000 he was chief scientific istry teacher and takes much of the credit between 1991 and 2004 was upwards over- adviser to the UK Government and for enthusing me about science. all. In some science subjects though, it is head of the Office of Science and My own school in Sydney was a state very different. Biology entrants increased Technology. He became a member grammar school. There were no league slightly by 12 per cent but there were of the UK House of Lords in 2001. tables in those days, but it was the state decreases in physics (by 34 per cent), chem- grammar schools that stood out in any lists istry (16 per cent) and mathematics (22 per of exam achievement: since then, as here, it cent). was felt that these schools were elitist and Is this because of the general perception most of them have gone. Today if you look that it is harder to get top A-level grades in at those league tables, they are dominated by maths, physics, chemistry and languages the private schools that used to be the places that in some ‘softer’ subjects? A study by a that you sent your kids to if they could not group in Durham supports the perception make it to the grammar school – parallels that these subjects are harder. They took with Britain perhaps? groups of students who had roughly equal The chemistry teacher who taught at that performance at GCSE level, and looked at school, taught eight current Fellows of the the grades they got in A-levels. From a list of Royal Society; he also coached a track team 60 subjects, the five that were significantly that won the state schools championships most difficult to attain top grades were in 28 out of the 32 years he coached them. chemistry, physics, Latin, French and math- He did not teach to a syllabus. Some people ematics. The five least difficult were design loved him, some people hated him. In our and technology, graphical communication, final year, as 16 or 17 year olds, he taught us communication studies, art and photog- that the important thing was to learn how raphy. What these have in common is that to learn for yourself. The Honours course their assessment is more subjective than was taught by writing essays on topics of objective. your selection and checking them against This presents parent and student with a the older repertoire of past students – which tricky choice: tackle substantial subjects that by my time was quite a few. The burden of are worth mastering, but risk getting low marking exams he managed (because he grades; or go for subjects where high grades

The importance of the teacher. There discussion was general agreement that the crucial factor in successful teaching was the expertise and personality of the teacher, rather than the detailed requirements of the syllabus. Indeed, some argued that the syllabus was almost irrelevant to the teaching process and that per- haps assessment should also be left to the teachers who knew their pupils. However, others pointed out that no Government could accept a situation in which there was no external evaluation of success and a measure of accounta- bility. This did not mean that league tables were the right answer (it was gener- ally felt that they were not) but one could not ignore the desire of parents and employers to know which schools were objectively judged to be successful.

fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 11 education of 14–19 year olds

70 table, but they are closely followed by engi- 2000 2004 60 neering, physics and chemistry. Towards the 50 bottom of the list are English and history. Another way of looking at a graduate’s 40 %A grades achievements is to see how much income 30 % entries (subject) tax they pay during their working life. Law % entries (all subjects) 20 and management are at the top of the table, 10 but the engineers, chemists, physicists, 0 and those who studied in European lan- s ry s es s y ry s e guages are next in line. They are vital to the ths gy t ic h g t ic g lo is s ag at lo is Ma o m y M io m ys ua Bi e gu B e h g economy and the Exchequer is doing pretty P h n h P n Ch la C la rn n well out of them. The Government would er de d o o m m do well to recognise that fact. Yet although ll ll A A the Department for Trade and Industry and the Treasury have launched a 10-year plan Figure 1. Independent schools A-level entries and A grades as a proportion of all school entries. for science that recognises the need to sow (Source: ISC, March 2005). the seed corn, the DfES is not investing suf- ficient funds to provide the qualified people we need in these areas. Least difficult subjects Most difficult subjects If we are to achieve excellence in science we must stop creating perverse incentives Design and technology Chemistry for students and universities to move away from scientific subjects. The obsession with Graphical communication Physics grades, regardless of the usefulness of the subject, is one. And the high cost of labora- Communication Studies Latin tory-based subjects is another: this should be taken into consideration in departmental Art French and institutional budgets. As things stand, a vice-chancellor will Photography Mathematics spot the subjects that cost more to teach and are relatively less well-funded than others, and will be strongly tempted to close the Table 1. Relative difficulty of the five most difficult subjects and five least difficult subjects at A-level. chemistry department, even though there (Source: CEM, Durham). are well-qualified students ready and able to go there. This happened at Exeter and, for undergraduate studies, at Swansea. An are there for the taking. and can be ill-afforded in under-funded accountant’s calculation has cost us dear, Another interesting set of figures is the state schools. As well as all this, there is the depriving us of the next generation of scien- proportion of A-level entries and top A-level perception that careers open to chemists tists and teachers. grades obtained by the independent schools and physicists are not well paid. To sum up, we face the task of creat- (defined as private schools that charge for There are some figures on the issue of ing an educational system that respects the their services). The independent sector pay that prove otherwise. A study by Price differential costs in teaching. My personal represented 23 per cent of all A-level entries Waterhouse Coopers, commissioned by the experience makes me think we should rely in the years 2000 and 2004. But in 2004, Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute less on a tightly drawn syllabus, and more they represented 33 per cent of the entries of Physics, shows the ‘working life additional on the sort of teaching that gave me an in mathematics, 31 per cent in physics, 32 earnings’ by degree subject studied at uni- understanding of science and its methods, per cent in chemistry and 45 per cent in all versity, compared to those who left school and an appreciation of its relevance to a modern languages. If you look at the per- with two A-levels. Not surprisingly, medi- full and rewarding life. That is what Lennie centage of the top grades, they represented cine and law are at the top of the league Bassett taught me. ❐ in maths, physics, chemistry and all modern languages, 46, 46 48 and 60 per cent respec- Academic and vocational courses. tively. This contrasts dramatically with, say, discussion social studies: here they represented just 13 There was a general welcome for the per cent of the A-level entries and 27 per 14 subject specific vocational syllabuses: however, concern was expressed cent of the top grades. One thing these fig- about their slow introduction and there were also doubts about their suitability ures tell us – something I consider socially for those who did not wish – or were not able – to pursue academic courses. unfortunate – is that the declining cadre of people who are going to be the basis of There was a wide difference between technicians able to cope with, develop the knowledge economy are coming, out of and understand IT systems, and a bricklayer for example. Different types of fur- all proportion to the number of students, ther education courses, apprenticeships and training needed to be built into the from the independent schools. All power systems, it was argued. Did FE colleges really understand what the different to the independent schools for having the resources. needs were? There were far too few apprenticeships, and the financial incen- In my view, children are guided away tives to companies to provide them were inadequate – particularly as a trained from maths and science not simply because apprentice was likely to be poached by a rival firm. It was important that FE they are graded tougher, not simply the fact courses should be designed so that those who had not been successful in aca- that it is harder to get good teachers, not simply that the laboratory work is expensive demic work, or had failed to find work they liked, could have a second chance.

12 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) biotechnology

Has the UK been successful in creating a vibrant biotechnology industry – and what of the future? These issues were discussed at the Foundation’s meeting on 8 June 2005. From science base to market place Doug Yarrow he UK possesses a bioscience enable grant-holders to continue their research base of international quality. work, perhaps employing a technician, TIt is important that UK plc benefits with a view to demonstrating its commer- from this research base and BBSRC has cial potential. This year we are putting £1 put in place mechanisms to encourage million into this fund. commercialisation and promote collabo- Enterprise Fellowships, run in conjunc- ration with industry. tion with the Royal Society of Edinburgh, We are making significant investments allow academic scientists to spend a year Doug Yarrow is director, corporate in important emerging areas such as stem exploring the commercial potential of their science group, Biotechnology and cell research, brain science and e-science; work. They have mentors and receive busi- Biological Sciences Research Council the BBSRC is also investing some £50 mil- ness school training. (BBSRC). He is responsible for lion in systems biology over the next three The Business Plan Competition, programmes in knowledge transfer years. In addition, stipends for postgraduate launched in 1999, helps scientists to ascer- and innovation, industrial interac- training have been increased: we currently tain whether they have an exploitable idea tions, international relations, public support 2,000 PhD students and many of that could form the basis of a spin-out affairs, interaction with stakeholders them go on to use their skills in industry. company. Out of over 100 ideas submitted and policy development. Dr Yarrow BBSRC participates in a number to us in that first year, we selected 16 for was formerly with the Science and of partnership schemes with industry, detailed mentoring by accountancy and Engineering Research Council, where including the Link Scheme, the new DTI legal firms plus experienced entrepreneurs he served as director of biotechnology. Collaborative Research and Development who helped them develop robust business Scheme, Industrial Partnership Awards and plans. Our first two competitions, run in CASE awards for postgraduate training. conjunction with the Medical Research We encourage networking between the sci- Council, resulted in 33 teams going through ence base and industry through a number mentoring. A survey conducted just over of mechanisms – Faraday Partnerships, a year ago found that 10 of them still exist Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and a new and have raised significant risk capital. Industry Interchange Programme. The next stage on the ladder is How can ideas with potential commer- to obtain seed money. This issue has cial significance be recognised, protected recently been addressed by the University and exploited? We see this process as a Challenge initiative, with universities ladder up which the concept progresses gaining access to seed funding of up to stage by stage, and where we provide £250,000. In addition, the BBSRC has support and assistance at various stages become a partner in the Rainbow Fund to help reduce barriers to commercialisa- offering seed funding to its institutes. tion. An example of the first stage is the Once seed money has been secured, the Young Entrepreneurs Scheme, begun 10 next step is to find a base. Biotechnology years ago. The aim is to increase the com- incubators provide a nurturing environ- mercial awareness of postgraduate and ment and many universities have them. postdoctoral bioscientists. Working in The BBSRC runs incubators at Babraham, teams of five, they propose a hypothetical John Innes and at Roslin. Babraham is business idea and, during the course of a one of the most successful biotechnology week, with mentors on hand, develop that incubators in the UK, with 20 compa- idea into a business plan. At the end of nies under its wing. Finally, at the top of the week, they have to present that plan, this ladder we have the Small Business in a 20-minute slot, to a team of venture Research Initiative, which to date has capitalists who act as judges. The students awarded 33 contracts totalling £7 million. feel this scheme adds a dimension to their There are many examples of BBSRC- experience that is not part of conventional funded scientists drawing on one or more PhD training. of these schemes to speed the transfer More recently we became concerned of ideas to the marketplace. For exam- about a gap in funding: although research ple, Tim Hart, a graduate of the Young grants were available on the basis of scien- Entrepreneurs Scheme, moved on to form tific quality, there was no funding to help his own environmental biotechnology demonstrate the commercial potential of company, Cybersense Bio Systems. Tim felt scientific work. So, in 2004, we launched that his participation in the scheme was the Follow-on Fund, which provides rela- so important that he has become one of tively modest sums – up to £60,000 – to its sponsors. Kevin Stott, who I believe is fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 13 biotechnology

Link Collaboration CRD Company IPA’S Bioincubators CASE Seed Fund Business Plan SBRI Competition Follow-on Fund Enterprise Fellowships Commercial Idea Licensing University/ Institute Commercialisation Research Proof of concept Networking

Faraday Partnerships Knowledge Transfer Partnerships Industry Fellowships Industry Interchange Awards Training & Awareness (YES, KT Workshops)

Figure 1. From science base to market place. in the audience tonight, was at Cambridge How well does scientific research million and are currently soliciting bids to when he entered the Young Entrepreneurs address the needs of industry? The BBSRC establish three or four research and training scheme with an idea for inhibitors of pro- is developing a technology strategy using a centres. In bioprocessing, we have estab- tein folding. In 2001, he raised risk capital number of criteria to identify relevant areas. lished a club in which 20 companies are and floated his company, Synexis, now The BBSRC BioScience for Industry panel providing £1 million towards a £10 million located in the Babraham bioincubator. The is leading on this and we have established a initiative to support high quality research of next example is Martin Wickham at our range of technology priorities. relevance to industry. We also plan to col- Institute of Food Research who, while par- I will finish by describing progress in laborate with DTI in pursuing other tech- ticipating in YES, explored the commercial implementing two of the technology pri- nology priorities. potential of an in-vitro model of human orities. Integrative mammalian biology is In the UK, we have an excellent bio- digestion. He gained follow-on funding for an area where there is a pressing need for science research base. We are working that idea and we have recently given him enhanced activity in research and train- hard to ensure that we exploit it effectively an enterprise fellowship to pursue it fur- ing. With industry, the Medical Research and that bioscience research addresses the ther. There are other examples too numer- Council (MRC) and the higher education needs of industry – and I think we are ous to cite here. funding councils we have raised over £11 getting there. ❐ A view from the City Martin Wales

hat is biotechnology from a fund in the healthcare sector could be described manager’s perspective? The origi- as biotechnology companies. Indeed, most Wnal US biotechnology industry would say that there are around 20 – or, developed around the idea of biologics, if you include AIM companies, about 32 particularly recombinant proteins, and was – such companies in the UK, with a col- very successful – some of the biggest bio- lective market capitalisation in the order technology companies in the world today, of £2 billion. This sounds impressive, until such as Genentech and Amgen, are based one remembers that the UK healthcare Martin Wales is senior analyst, on that technology. Indeed, if you were sector represents £125 billion in capitalisa- European biotechnology/medical to ask a US general fund manager what tion and that is only 10–15% of the overall technology, Equity Research at UBS. a biotechnology company is, he or she UK market. Its relatively small size allows He is responsible for coverage of bio- would probably tell you that it is a profit- UK generalist fund managers to ignore technology and medical technology able, fully integrated protein drug com- the biotechnology sector; in addition, its stocks in Europe. Dr Wales has been pany. By contrast, if you ask this question companies are hard to understand and at UBS since 2000, having previously of their UK counterparts, the cleverer ones the standard valuation approaches – price worked as a healthcare analyst at might tell you that they are cash-burning earnings multiples – are not always appli- HSBC and Greig Middleton. Prior to development-stage research companies – a cable. entering the City, he worked in the somewhat different answer! The first UK biotechnology companies biotechnology sector at Celltech. There is no defined biotechnology sec- were listed in the early 1990s and the sec- tor in the UK, however. Many companies tor has grown in terms of the number of

14 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) biotechnology companies, their market capitalisation and ties, and licensing and marketing deals. in the UK at clinical drug development size relative to the market, over the course First, there needs to be as much full and commercialisation? Can the differ- of the past 13 years. However, its liquid- disclosure about successful and unsuc- ing time scales of institutions, investors ity, by which I mean the number of shares cessful clinical trials as possible. Although and companies be reconciled? It is hard that are traded, is relatively low. One could we do recognise that commercial pres- to expect venture capitalists to take the be pessimistic and see the UK as a mere sures may inhibit disclosure in some cases, burden, given that their funds are gener- dot in the world biotechnology sector, many feel that more could be done in this ally invested for a long period anyway. Is but I prefer to be optimistic: given the regard. Second, although the content of there anything that can be done in terms strength of the research base here, we have discussions with drug regulatory authori- of some kind of financial incentive, a tax the opportunity to become a much more ties is a sensitive area, again, investors break perhaps, to encourage venture capi- important part of this sector. feel the need to know what is going on. talists or even public funding bodies to We are exceptionally good at discover- Financial regulators need to engage drug become more involved? Can we improve ing and developing technologies; where regulators directly. Third, UK companies information disclosure? I think that we things tend to break down – or where the are currently under no obligation to dis- can and we must. market thinks things tend to break down close details of licensing and marketing I have not touched on the role of ‘big – is in the development process. Fund deals. Although commercial sensitivity is pharmas’ in biotechnology in the UK. This managers recognise that there are pockets often given as the reason, details of such may seem odd, given that we have two of of excellent research in the UK, but the deals in the US are freely available on the the world’s largest pharmaceutical compa- general perception is that the industry has Securities and Exchange Commission nies here in the UK, but investors in this largely failed to develop commercially sig- (SEC) website. sector look globally and it is up to the UK nificant drugs. Within Europe only about These issues all come to bear when we sector to be competitive. The only other one-quarter of the drugs developed by the talk of raising money. Drug development point to make is that, with the exception biotechnology sector in phase III clinical is a costly process. I have already men- of vaccines, the UK ‘big pharmas’ have trials reach the market. The only exception tioned the issue of timescales. Investors not been overly successful at developing to this is the very successful drug Humira, are sensible and understand that this is a biologics. I wonder whether this has had developed in the UK and used to treat high-risk sector. They acknowledge that it an impact on the knowledge base under- rheumatoid arthritis. is a case of ‘buyer beware’, but this should pinning the development of biotechnology Timescales are an important factor in be on the basis of information disclosure companies in the UK. the City and there is an obvious disparity that is as full as possible. They are not Would paying more for drugs to meet between the many years it takes to develop convinced – and nor am I – that we are real clinical needs benefit the UK sector? a drug and the relatively short time limits getting that yet. If investors cannot make In the US, innovative biologics to treat – typically around a year – that we, as money from IPOs (initial public offer- genuine unmet needs are very well priced; sales-side analysts and stockbrokers, must ings), they will not invest and, certainly perhaps that has been a factor in the suc- work to. recently, IPOs have not made money for a cess of the US sector. Disclosure is another problem. The lot of people, in particular their investors. Finally, I should point out that the UK fund management community recognises On a more positive note, the AIM market sector has been very effective at mergers that biotechnology is a relatively high-risk (alternative investment market) has proved and acquisitions. That may be an area in area in which to invest, but there is a feel- to be a vehicle for some fundraising. which we have got it right, both in terms ing that the information available is more I will end by raising a few questions of companies merging and acquiring tech- limited than many would like. This prob- rather than drawing any formal conclu- nologies to re-invent themselves, and also lem affects three main areas: clinical trials, sions. Given the quality of our research, knowing the right time to exit – in some discussions with drug regulatory authori- why have we not been more successful cases to foreign investors. ❏ A glass half full or half empty? David Chiswell

ne of the major political landmarks the speciality pharmaceutical world, where affecting biotechnology in the past companies look for niche markets, Shire few years was the report of the has been an international success. In the O 1 Bioscience, Innovation and Growth Team , vital innovation-led field of drug develop- which examined the current state of the ment, however, we have been less successful. biotechnology industry in the UK and the That is the sector I want to focus on. barriers preventing it from growing. The One important difference between these David Chiswell is chair of the report included a ‘strapline’ to the effect sub-sectors lies in their financing require- BioIndustry Association. He worked as that the UK possesses a good base for a ments. A company can grow as a service a research scientist in the UK and the biotechnology industry but that its future supplier or a speciality pharmaceutical pro- US and at Amersham before co-found- growth will depend on the actions we take ducer without immense amounts of capital. ing Cambridge Antibody Technology now. However, the only way to grow as an inno- in 1990, and was its chief executive There are many different areas and sub- vative drug developer is to have access to officer from 1996 to 2002. Dr Chiswell divisions within the healthcare sector, and large amounts of capital – and that is where also holds positions as chairman of the UK has been very successful in some of we are failing. Arrow Therapeutics Ltd and non- these. Among service suppliers, Amersham, Market capitalisation of the top 10 executive director at Arakis Ltd. my old company, has been extremely suc- profitable biotechnology companies range cessful. In Europe, Lonza has done well. In between $10 and $85 billion (exemplified fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 15 biotechnology by Genentech and Medimmune). These old US company spends almost as much benefit to patients of more rapid approval are very substantial companies which on as a European company that is six to 10 in drug regulation. It was forced to adopt average raised $700m before they became years old. this view, at least partly, by the AIDs activ- profitable. Nearly all of them were founded In terms of fundraising, the amount of ists in the 1980s, who in effect said of AZT, in the 1980s. Clearly, this is an industry that money raised by European companies in “We are the patients. This drug works. We needs a long time scale and a large amount public equity markets is insignificant com- want this drug. Give it to us.” We have never of capital. pared to US firms. Investment stock prices had that in Europe. We should be angered Although the push in this sector is yielded a compound annual growth rate by the fact that we are expected to accept provided by research, the pull is in the of 10% between 1990 and 2003 in the US; second-class citizen status when it comes to health markets. Who will pay for the in Europe, there was a compound annual access to drugs. We should move rapidly to products, assuming they are developed loss of 10%. One of the reasons people do a single European approval – not 26 or 27 effectively? The US spends more money not invest money now in European com- market approvals; just one. And we need a per head on healthcare than we do and panies is that these investors have not made fast-track system for drugs that are going to I think that will always be the case. They enough money in the past. make a profound difference; not for those have the world’s biggest market and only The US, then, has the biggest health that will make minor differences, but the one regulatory authority. In Europe, market, a critical mass of established profit- ones that can change the way people are we have 26 markets and two regulatory able companies, a deep talent pool (particu- treated. authorities. It is the US health market larly in management), generous research In the area of corporate development, that drives investment in European funding and the most developed public we need a single market for European companies that are developing drugs; if capital markets in the world. So what can stocks; there are not enough specialist fund the American people stopped paying for we do here in the UK? The US will always managers in the UK or any single European innovative drugs, the European industry outstrip us in public research funding, but country. We could also take action to would suffer. Although the European we must continue to exert pressure in this remove other impediments to fundraising. pharmaceutical market is large and there area and ensure that funding is focused Inflexible shareholder pre-emption rights is genuine political desire to invest in on the good centres. European frame- is an issue that the BioIndustry Association research and development in some coun- work funding, which is quite a significant have been focusing on for the past cou- tries, we labour under regulations that amount of money, is absolutely useless for ple of years, and we are now seeing some hinder growth. There is no European companies – it is spread so thinly with so progress in this area. Competing with US patent,patient access to drugs is delayed many restrictions. At Cambridge Antibody companies for licensing products or getting and almost every regulation that comes Technology, we stopped applying for it in the best deals is made much easier when out of Europe is an obstacle rather than 1993 because it was not worth our time. there is a large amount of cash showing on an aid to competitiveness. At least par- We need to raise the status of science as the balance sheet and European investors tially as a result, for example, Herceptin, a a career and improve pay for researchers. should acknowledge this. monoclonal antibody used to treat breast We must also accept the fact that improve- UK biotechnology can be viewed as cancer, was approved in the US two years ments in health care have to be paid for, a glass that is half full or one that is half before it became available in Europe. whether it is by the Government, the tax- empty. I take the first view: the glass is half Another factor is investment in R&D payers or the patients themselves. Indeed, full, but it will not fill up by itself. We need by companies. At every level, US biotech patient involvement may be a key to to create the right environment first. ❐ companies spend more on R&D than improving the whole system. The US Food 1. Report available at: www.dti.gov.uk/ their European counterparts. A two-year- and Drug Administration acknowledges the bio-igt/bigt-report.html Barriers to early growth Andy Richards

am what is called a ‘business angel’, I not identified. However, I do not want start up and invest my own money in to give you the impression that I am pes- Iearly stage ventures and from that van- simistic about the future of this sector – I tage point I am able to see at first hand am not. the barriers faced by the biotechnology There is one barrier in particular that industry. As the final speaker I will try to I would like to discuss: and that relates to cover barriers that the first speakers have the regulatory environment. The entire Andy Richards describes himself as a serial biotechnology entrepreneur and business angel. He is a director of Vectura plc, Arakis, Biowisdom, Animal rights activists. Animal rights discussion Daniolabs, Theradeas, Cancer Research extremism was identified as an obstacle Technology Ltd and Babraham both to investment and to recruitment in the biological sciences. One partici- Bioscience Technologies Ltd. Dr pant thought it was a major disincentive to companies considering biotechnol- Richards is also a founder member ogy, even as suppliers or customers, because of the personal risk to individu- of the Cambridge Angels, a founder investor in Library House, a member als. Another explained he had been able to reverse the views of pupils at a of the Council of the University of East community school on the issue of animal experimentation in medical research: Anglia and an adviser to several major engaging young people in the debate was important. The debate over GM venture capital funds. crops was described as an object lesson in how not to engage the public.

16 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) biotechnology biotechnology industry is built on the twin pillars of the regulation of pat- A new model for biotech? There was discussion ents and the regulation of approvals for criticism of the received model of a bio- medical products – these are obstacles technology company that has to survive on its own, relying on venture capital that make the business vastly expensive. However, once a company has cleared followed by an initial public offering. It was argued that it would be more useful these two critical obstacles, it has an to pursue links between new and established companies. Innovations happen attractive exclusive period in which to in both large and small companies, and the latter need to start doing deals maintain its position. with the former. One speaker took the view that there is an outdated model in The barrier in the UK is not the regulations themselves, but the relatively the UK in which biotechnology companies produce tools for the pharmaceuti- unsophisticated approach to these taken cal industry. In the US, biotechnology companies have built businesses by sell- by start-up companies. When I speak ing their own products. with professors or entrepreneurs with ideas for bold start-ups, I find that their science is great, they have been to all the symposia about finance, they have an idea when we achieve success, we should then from moving forward. of business plans, and they have consulted invest further, rather than ducking out What is the cure? I am not saying their accountants. What they do not have by having to license early. The amounts that preferred share structures need to – and it is their biggest weakness – is an of capital required are very large, so the be banned in any way. I do not think we understanding of the regulatory require- financing continuum is absolutely critical should regulate this; it is important that ments for their product, and this contrasts to the growth of the industry. Two dis- there is flexibility in financing structures, with equivalent activities in the US. This continuities in finance that I would like to but I do think it is an issue that needs to is a further example of an often-stated mention are large-scale IPOs (initial pub- be recognised and debated, and that inves- generalisation that when we start up com- lic offerings) and early-stage seed funds. tors need to think about negative impacts panies in the UK we tend to back ‘science These two are linked – if companies are before imposing such schemes. projects’ whereas in the US they back not being successful with IPOs, then there In the area of IPOs, there is a peculiar ‘businesses’. is obviously higher risk and likely lower anomaly that in the US only large compa- Drug regulation is not necessarily a return for early-stage seed money since nies can issue an IPO, whereas in the UK barrier to success; it can be a source of for investors – at some point – there will only small companies can do so. However, opportunity as well. We often see a surge be a need to make an exit. I am less sympathetic in regard to this in company fortunes when a relevant Early-stage funding is in particular cri- problem. Companies need to set them- regulatory window opens up. This is espe- sis at the moment – both for companies selves up with options other than IPOs. cially so in the US, where there is a keen that are trying to raise traditional venture People need to think much more com- awareness of regulatory trends and chang- money and for venture capital companies mercially and become involved in other es are exploited rather than bemoaned. looking to invest. The ‘seed funding tap’ ways of running their companies, whether As an investor there are many areas may have been turned off for a number organising big joint ventures or setting that I would not enter because of the of reasons and one of these is the advent up trade sales and mergers earlier. We regulatory position. Stem cell research of complex preferential share structures. in the UK have not been good at doing is one example. I would not back a stem That may sound like something dread- that, although recent events suggest this is cell company: this is not because of the fully technical, but its impact is profound. changing. The crux of the matter is that science nor regulations governing the sci- It arose during the dot.com boom when we have to encourage our companies to ence, nor the size of the opportunity, but prices were inflated; people said, “We’ll change, and that is the final point I wish because of the uncertain regulatory envi- invest in projects on the up-side but we’re to make. If you look at successful com- ronment for developing and registering a going to protect the down-side.” They panies, you will see that all of them have commercial product. Give me uncertain brought in complex anti-dilution ratch- changed. When Amgen initially floated, its science any day, over an uncertain regula- ets and liquidation preferences. These important products were chicken growth tory environment. meant that, although they were invest- hormone and indigo for dyeing denim At the moment, the regulatory window ing a pound, they expected to get their jeans. That company has changed since has opened for personalised medicine. pound out before anyone else received a then! Millennium is another spectacular The breast cancer drug Herceptin, for share – and not just their pound but often example of change. It was a genomics which patients can be selected, has com- two, three, or even four pounds before company that morphed rapidly into a pletely changed the game. Suddenly the the shares in a company were divided up. drug discovery company, then into a can- regulatory authorities are allowing selec- The result has been that no one knows cer development company and finally into tion of patient groups. This is a sizeable how much anyone owns and everyone a cancer sales company. At each stage, it opportunity that the US biotechnology spends their time arguing, not about the dropped almost everything it had been companies are piling into. Do we have size of the overall cake but about what doing before. anyone here specialising in that area? No. their portion of the cake is. Early-stage We tend to take a cynical view of We need to improve our understanding venture capital companies and business change in the UK. We need to adopt a and use of regulation as driver and oppor- angels are now saying that they will only positive attitude in order to convince the tunity. We have underplayed it and we are invest in companies that are not going to investment industry that change in busi- not educating our entrepreneurs of its use traditional venture capital financing nesses – whether it is adding new prod- importance. routes. This is a major problem and one ucts or altering a company’s science base, The next barriers to discusss are those of the reasons everything is going to AIM or moving from a licensing model to an resulting from discontinuities in the (alternative investment market), where all ‘own sales model’ – is good, not bad. If we financial continuum. The biotechnology the shares are equivalent. Some venture- do that, we will help companies to evolve industry needs to be able to raise substan- backed companies have investor bases and grow and will have a vibrantly suc- tial amounts of capital, based on success; so poorly aligned that they are paralysed cessful UK biotechnology sector. ❐ fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 17 flu pandemic

The threat of a flu pandemic killing millions of people worldwide – and many thousands in the UK – is at the top of the political agenda. The preparedness of this country in the face of this challenge was discussed at the Foundation’s meeting on 22 June 2005. The frontline is in community care Ilora Finlay

ne of the first things to note is that The result would be sent out through the there are lessons to be learned from Public Health Instant Response Teams by Othe past: we have had pandemic flu fax or circular email: this notifies every- before. Of course, the virus changes over body in the team and also goes out to pri- time but these epidemics always occur rap- mary care. This cascade mechanism actu- idly when ‘herd immunity’ goes down (that ally works pretty well but the information is when people are susceptible) and vacci- has to be very clear. nation comes later. However, the diagnosis In 1986, a surveillance scheme was Professor the Baroness Finlay of and treatment – if there is any treatment started in Wales with a volunteer sample Llandaff was a member of the House – takes place out in the community. of 30 practices, covering 6 per cent of the of Lords Science and Technology In the last century, there was the 1918- population. This involved weekly, paper- Select Committee inquiry into fight- 19 H1N1 Spanish flu (long before influ- based reporting and weekly feedback via ing infections. She is vice-dean of enza A virus was discovered). Then there a newssheet. It has not changed since the School of Medicine at Cardiff was the Asian flu pandemic and the Hong then because it works. It is very simple, University. A professor of palliative Kong flu, the re-emergence of H1N1, and paper-based reporting, with a secretary medicine, she has worked with Marie the last epidemic in 1989. There were phoning the practice manager; it is still Curie Cancer Care since 1987. She ‘excess deaths’ – almost 30,000 even in not computerised. The reason it works is established the courses in palliative 1989. Where were the sufferers cared for? because there is a personal relationship care at the University of Wales College Well, they were mostly looked after in the between the participants. In the House of Medicine from which 800 senior community with a, relatively, very small of Lords report on fighting infection1 we clinicians worldwide have graduated. number of hospital admissions. So pre- spoke about electronic data but if you paredness in the hospital sector might be lose the human touch, you lose the ability slightly misguided unless primary care is to motivate people to keep on reporting, really geared up. however boring it is. Due to the week-on- What are we going to do with this wake week reporting, although 25 per cent of up call? What happens when people get the population was probably infected in flu? Well, whatever the type, you have a 1989, the effect was spread out, it did not temperature, your muscles ache, you have hit everyone at the same time. upper respiratory tract symptoms and Neuraminidase inhibitors may be you feel completely wiped out. That only an effective treatment but they have to lasts a few days and happens quite rapidly. be administered in the first 48 hours Then people go on to get the chest symp- of contracting flu. A decision has to be toms and ongoing post-flu symptoms. taken about who will get them, because Just what do people do when they go we have not got enough for everybody in down with this cluster of symptoms? They the country. Then there are issues about go to their GP (perhaps in this day and whether people should be isolated and age, they phone NHS Direct). If they are how you maintain civil order. We all go really worried, they may go to the hos- to mega-supermarkets where we stand pital casualty department. These are the next to each other, so gone are the days of front line places where people will present communities being relatively isolated. One themselves. also has to think about key personnel such People are in the community. If you as teachers and health care staff, police are going to give treatment in the com- and ambulance drivers: how are they sup- munity, it should be by people who are plied with neuraminidase inhibitors? used to working in this environment. The With regard to community care, we key resource here is the NHS and particu- need really clear instructions, through larly primary care. NHS Direct, the GPs and A&E, about who How do we actually know what is gets the drugs and who does not, where going on? First of all, you have to confirm people are to go and what is to be done. that there really is a problem; again, we Then, when people die, how do we handle are back to primary care and surveil- the deaths? This, remember, is going to lance. You have to identify the new virus, kill people who were not expected to die. usually using PCR (polymerase chain Then there is the next issue, of body reaction). Now, to get samples from, storage and cremation. The pandemic say, Aberystwyth analysed, they come to will probably happen in the winter, so Cardiff and you need at least 24 hours. the weather will be cold. This will make it

18 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) flu pandemic easier for body storage but we do need to clear beds, allow for staff sickness, readjust tributed. Disruption will occur but, his- think about the disposal of bodies as well. their ratios of staff to patients, and so on. torically, we have not seen wholesale dis- So, basically, we need to get the infor- There is also the question of the media, location in such situations. No amount of mation out to those in the front line who in this day and age pick things up preventive activity will stop this event hap- who know what is happening, we need before we even know about it. Keeping a pening and I am afraid that the constant to ensure that primary care knows that dialogue going with this group is abso- questions to ministers, and from ministers, targets are suspended in the middle of an lutely crucial. are probably futile. They may in fact result epidemic (GPs will stop earning money A pandemic will occur everywhere, it in us taking our eye off the ball. ❐ unless they are told ‘abandon your targets, will have to be managed and there will 1 House of Lords (2003) Fighting we are now in a flu epidemic’) – but I am not be a vaccine in the early stages. Key Infection. Available at: www.publications. not sure that that all this is written down resources need to be mobilised effectively parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ anywhere. Hospitals, too, may want to and available treatments need to be dis- ldsctech/138/138.pdf An incredibly virulent disease Jeremy Farrar

here are a lot of numbers and letters normally we think of flu as affecting the talked about in relation to influenza very young or the very old, but pandemic Tbut there are really three crucial ele- strains seem, for reasons that are unclear, to ments – the first is that this is a RNA virus affect young, fit, healthy people. like HIV and the problem with RNA viruses I am going to change tack now and look is that they are not very good at going from at Vietnam which represents rural Asia. one generation to the next. Every time they Asia is home to about 40% of the world’s divide they make mistakes, they have a very population; Vietnam has a population of Jeremy Farrar OBE is director of high mutation frequency and that is very about 80 million, China is 1.2 billion, India the Oxford University Centre for important as they change over time. is about 1.1 billion. Ho Chi Minh City Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi The other two most important elements currently has a population of about eight Minh City, Vietnam, a centre funded are on the surface of the virus – haemo- million, but by 2020 it will be 20 million by the Wellcome Trust. Dr Farrar glutinen and neuro-amides, and these are and for Ho Chi Minh City you can read is a Wellcome Trust senior clinical numbered H1 to H15 and N1 to N9 respec- Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi and research fellow and avian flu is one of tively. That is how we get H5N1. These all of the other major urban conurbations. his particular research interests. He strains vary from year to year and that is the The population of humans compared to was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s problem: an H1N1 vaccine will not protect poultry in these environments is about 1 to Honours List for services to infectious you against an H5N1 virus which is why we 10, so there are about 80 million chickens in diseases and tropical medicines. have to keep producing new ones each year. Ho Chi Minh City and some 800 million The most frightening previous epidemic chickens in Vietnam – China is about the was, I think, the 1918 or so-called Spanish same ratio. We live much closer in Vietnam flu, although it probably originated in the to our chickens than you might do here US. As the virus underwent tiny changes, and this mass urbanisation in Asia, allied to it re-assorted with other viruses. In 1918, these very close living conditions, makes it some very minor changes in an avian flu no coincidence that, in the recent past, we strain changed and became a very virulent have seen epidemics caused by Nipah and human flu: the figure of 20-50 million peo- we have seen SARS and now we have seen ple dying is probably an under-estimate. H5N1 developing. I think that, as we look In terms of responding, you also have to forward over the next 20 years, this is going appreciate how phenomenally quickly this to happen with increasing frequency. will happen if it does occur. There is a tre- To talk of this as the flu that might cause mendously rapid rise in excess mortality and you to miss a day of work is a misnomer. then, equally a very rapid fall off: in 1918 This is incredibly virulent; patients would the whole outbreak started, went through its go from being able to sit up and eat break- peak and stopped within about 3-4 months. fast at 8 am to being dead by 8pm. I have That outbreak, which was different to nor- never actually experienced anything quite mal flu, killed young, fit, healthy individuals; so virulent in respiratory infections in my

Stopping the spread of disease. It discussion was suggested that, in the event of an outbreak, ministers would be under pressure to ‘close the UK’. Although some countries had escaped Asian flu in 1957, academic research suggested that anything short of a total ban on international travel would have made little dif- ference. It still seemed likely that just restricting international or even domestic travel in a future outbreak might merely spread the mortality over a longer period without significantly reducing the total number of deaths.

fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 19 flu pandemic career. I would also say that H5N1 is com- will die out naturally. Yet that seems not We desperately need new diagnostics, we pletely resistant to amantidine, both in petri to be true for H5N1 which as the above desperately need clinical studies to under- dishes and also in vivo, in patients. tragic case shows can be both resistant stand this disease from an epidemiology One of the most frightening examples and nasty.. perspective and learn how to treat it, we was a young child, admitted to our hospital, Is this media hype or a real threat? desperately need new drugs and we need to with essentially a very mild form of H5N1. Well, in order to get a pandemic, we need understand how to use the current drugs He was stable over the first three days and, three things; the emergence of an anti- better. We need to know what might hap- crucially, was requiring no oxygen. At this genically new virus against which we have pen if you gave these drugs to everybody to point in time, he had what we call a ‘wild no protection– we clearly have that. We prevent disease (this may well happen as a type’ virus, in other words it was sensitive need to have transmission of that virus to panic measure) and we need to understand to oseltamivir. By Day 4 of oseltamivir, a humans– clearly we have that as the deaths what may happen to the virus when we resistant mutation had occurred – a single in Asia have shown. Thirdly, we have to undertake a mass vaccination programme base mutation, that means just the change have efficient spread of the strain between in poultry. Then, we need to put in place of a single amino-acid in the protein. The humans; this is the bit that we are missing long-term research strategies so that, 20 child now had a resistant virus, and associ- at the moment. There have been no cases of years from now, we actually have an influ- ated with this was a rapid progression of efficient transmission of the virus between enza vaccine that covers all strains and the disease: the child tragically died three humans and clearly the virus would need removes this as a global threat. days later. A small number of children with to acquire or develop that ability for a Are we better prepared in 2005 com- ‘normal human flu’ and taking oseltamivir pandemic to occur. I would like to men- pared to 1918? I suspect not: we rely on a develop resistant mutations and when you tion pigs, though; pigs carry the receptor drug to which a single mutation can con- expand that to a population, it is at least for both avian flu and human flu and are a fer complete resistance; we do not have a possible that H5N1 could be resistant to perfect factory for making a recombinant vaccine that can be produced in anything oseltamivir by the time it hit London. virus. Of course in many parts of the world like enough doses quickly enough; and we The strategy of stockpiling oseltamivir pigs and poultry live very closely together. still rely on a remarkably inefficient proc- is, I think, absolutely the right thing to Some 150,000 people get on an aero- ess for making a vaccine which requires do. However, if we base our whole public plane every day in Asia and fly to Europe development of the vaccine in eggs – this health strategy on a drug where the virus or North America. Unlike SARS, in the is something out of the Dark Ages. We also can become totally resistant with a single early stages of flu when you are at your have the much greater movement of people mutation, then we are putting too many most infectious and your viral load is high- around the world, and the development of eggs in one basket. Many virologists est, you are asymptomatic; this means that huge urban conurbations particularly in will say that the resistant mutation actu- screening at airports for high temperatures Asia which serve as the perfect environment ally confers a biological disadvantage; in will not turn away your most infectious for the virus to adapt and develop the abil- other words, that virus is not very fit and individuals. ity to pass between human beings. ❐ The vital importance of communication David Harper

e need to be very clear about what and at the same time provides a source a pandemic of influenza may mean. document of current information. A pan- WPeople say to me “well, seasonal flu, demic will of course, by definition, have we deal with it all of the time” and pandem- global impact. ic influenza is sometimes, incorrectly, com- The UN organisation with respon- pared. Pandemic influenza is likely to be a sibility in this area is the World Health very different type of disease: past pandem- Organisation and we are working closely David Harper CBE is director of ics tell us that we should expect more severe with them and with the EU. We are also disease, with greater mortality, including working internationally in a group called health protection, international health in population groups that we would not the Global Health Security Action Group; and scientific development at the normally expect to be hard hit by seasonal this was set up by the Health Secretaries of Department of Health. Dr Harper flu. We might expect a future pandemic to the G7 countries, plus Mexico, very shortly is also the Department’s chief scien- follow the same pattern and we need to keep after 11 September 2001 to look primarily tist. While head of the Department’s these differences in mind. at threats from terrorism, particularly using environmental hazard’s branch, he The current avian influenza situation in biological, chemical and radioactive weap- was responsible for issues such as South East Asia is focussing attention on the ons. This works well and is quite unique, in radiation, toxicology and air pollution possibility of a potentially pandemic virus my experience, as it is directly responsible to as well as, since the 9/11 attack, emer- emerging from this source, and the UK is ministers, it has a mandate from ministers, gency preparedness. continuing to set up its preparedness plan- and it delivers. The group became involved ning. On 1 March this year, the UK Health with SARS in 2003, and, is now looking at Department launched an extensively revised pandemic influenza. The UK is co-chair- pandemic influenza contingency plan. Part ing the influenza initiative with the United of our preparedness involves communicat- States (supported by Canada and the other ing what we are doing. countries). The WHO are involved in the Our first pandemic plan was published Group and so is the European Commission. in the late ’90s. The revision updates what The UK Influenza Pandemic we know about pandemic influenza and Contingency Plan sets out responses for measures for its control, sets out our plans internationally agreed escalating states of

20 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) flu pandemic

spread from person-to-person. Pandemic influenza. Five alert levels We might expect, although we cannot be absolutely sure, that a virus with greater 0 No cases anywhere in the world affinity for humans would carry a lower mortality. 1 Cases only outside the UK In the meantime, antiviral drugs are an important part of our defence. The UK is 2 New virus isolated in the UK one of the countries which has decided to stockpile significant quantities of the neu- 3 Outbreak(s) in the UK raminidase inhibitor, oseltamivir, against the contingency of an influenza pandemic. 4 Widespread activity across the UK We have a small amount at the moment: something of the order of 100,000 treat- Levels of Alert in the UK Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan ment courses. The good news is that ministers agreed, pandemic alert. At the moment, we are at is starting to increase. At Week 9, numbers are some while ago, to commit a substantial the earliest pre-pandemic alert level, with much higher, particularly around the popula- amount of money to buying enough osel- cases of a new influenza virus (H5N1) only tion centres. And then, by Week 12, the pan- tamivir to treat 25% of the UK popula- outside the UK, and with no sustained per- demic is subsiding. tion; 14.6 million treatment courses will be son-to-person spread. Modelling is also being used to assess delivered over the next two years, starting Crucially, the UK Plan identifies who does the likely impact of reducing population from August. We hope to take receipt of the what: clarity of roles is key to management movements globally and within the UK. whole order within 18 months. of any crisis. The Plan, together with separate Experts estimate that restricting movement There are still uncertainties we have to operational guidance specifically for health from South East Asia to the UK and other address: these drugs have not previously service planners, is designed to help organisa- countries would have little impact: it might been available in the pandemic situation tions develop their own operational plans. buy us a short amount of time, but the total and we do not know for sure how effective Our plan needs to be a dynamic, living number of cases will essentially be the same they will be – but the best advice we have at document to be of greatest use and we fully and whilst we are delaying it, we are also the moment is that they are likely to help, intend to update it regularly to take account prolonging the pandemic. particularly in the time before we have a of scientific and other developments, and Other speakers have stressed the need for pandemic vaccine. the feedback we get. strong surveillance and alert mechanisms The challenges are, I think, fairly self-evi- Given the many unknowns, for planning – it is absolutely vital we do what we can dent. We need to deal with potentially very purposes, we have made a number of basic to build capacity within South East Asia in large numbers of ill people, and probably assumptions, for example on attack and the context of avian flu. As regards coun- large numbers of dead, and all the conse- transmission rates. We have the benefit of a termeasures for pandemic influenza, our quences of this. great deal of independent expertise in this ideal would be to have a vaccine against the Some of the messages will be complex area in the UK, particularly in the field of pandemic virus in time to protect the UK and difficult. Good communications at all mathematical modelling. population. However, we do not yet have stages – with health professionals, with the Experts indicate that at Week 3 following a pandemic virus. The virus in SE Asia is public and with the media – will be key to a pandemic taking hold in the UK, we would still a bird virus: it is infecting humans, it is our ultimate success. ❐ expect a very low number of deaths (0-50, highly virulent and has a very high mortal- across the whole of the UK). By Week 6, this ity but, at the moment, it has not changed to Addressing all contingencies Bruce Mann am going to cover what we are doing again and make sure there are sufficient in Whitehall and beyond – but not the staff who are trained to know what they Ihealth sector which has already been are going to be doing. addressed – to build preparedness for a flu In terms of the science that underpins pandemic were it to occur. First, though, what we do, we track about 100 risks in a word about the Civil Contingencies total on a rolling basis, potential events Secretariat. This body is concerned with that would have a large scale, national Bruce Mann is head of the Civil protecting people, their health, their safe- level, disruptive effect were they to hap- ty, their economic well-being. If we are pen. A flu pandemic is clearly one but we Contingencies Secretariat at the going to do that, much of the work will cover everything from natural disasters Cabinet Office. He has previously have to be delivered at regional and local through terrorism all the way to industrial been Director of Defence Policy at level. I bring out those two points because action. the Ministry of Defence and was also they drive everything that we do. We identify a risk and then attempt Director of Defence Resources and We try to identify threats before they to model the response to that risk should Plans at the MoD. He was seconded emerge and assess the risk (risk for us is it occur. We ask what the police service to NATO headquarters during the defined as the combination of probability would need, what the health sector would Kosovo crisis and he was Secretary to and impact). We pursue response plans need, and what other agencies and bod- the Butler Committee which investi- for those risks that seem imminent and ies involved would need in effectively gated the intelligence advice given to make sure that we have got the capability responding to the situation. On the basis the Government before the Iraq war. to deal with them. We test, test and test of this assessment, we define relatively fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 21 flu pandemic simple capability requirements, whether this involves training people, buying Central and local. Concern was discussion equipment and so on. expressed over a perceived ‘gulf’ between The questions we ask ourselves each the central planning and modelling process on the one hand and the clinicians time we are confronting a risk are how are we going to manage this at central gov- in primary care and other local people who would carry the main burden in any ernment level, in the regions, at the local outbreak. The leaflets that were supposed to have gone to GPs did not seem level, and what do we need to do to keep to have arrived. In response it was said that the Government had already car- the essential services running. And then ried out four regional exercises and that this was the first time it had published we have to consider what functional capa- bilities are needed in terms of the effects so much information in advance of an emergency. It was also said that the UK of disease, mass casualties, mass fatalities, had done lot behind the scenes but not all of this had been made public ‘for informing the public and so on. fear of raising the temperature in the media’. In the context of a potential flu pan- demic, we are being as open and honest as we can be on what it is that we think engaged in. The key points on each are: keeping the country running – power, the UK is facing. The influenza pandemic water, food and so on. plan on the Department of Health web- site has a great deal of information; this Gathering information is probably the first time, certainly in my This is the process of gathering data, get- Mass fatalities memory, that the Government has said, in ting it verified for quality, and then sent to As I said earlier, we are working to a cen- advance, “This is what might emerge, this the HPA and Department of Health. The tral assumption of around 50,000 dead, is what the response would look like and, scientists and the modellers work on that on a scaleable basis. indeed, this is where we couldn’t respond. data and say ‘on the basis of these find- Overseas – while we are tonight focus- For example, vaccines wouldn’t be avail- ings, we think this is what is going to hap- ing principally on the UK, there may be able, we would have to deal with the dis- pen’. From this work, recommendations British citizens overseas who become ill ease in some other way.” can be made in terms of social interven- or die; there are specific groups to be There are certain central planning tions. These recommendations then go to considered as well like the armed forces, assumptions we have made: a 25 per cent Ministers, who make the final decisions. diplomats, and so on. clinical attack rate, and a 0.37 per cent case fatality rate which leads to the head- line statistic of around 50,000 dead which Social interventions Communications the media has picked up on. However, Early guidance has been sent to the region- This is fundamental in two senses. First because we do not know what is going to al tier and to local authorities on what of all, we need to ensure the British pub- hit us, the number of deaths could be any- they should plan for. That does not mean lic are given advice on how they might where between 20,000 and 700,000. We to say that ministers will definitely cancel protect themselves. Secondly, we have have a central assumption against which football matches or shut schools, but we to explain what is happening and the we are building our plans but we are also have got to be ready, as a country, to take Government’s response. adding the ability to scale up, and given those actions if they become necessary. We the best case, to scale down. are about to set up, with the people doing Every year we assess the top risks that the detailed planning, a ‘feedback group’, Crisis management we think this country faces, and flu is now which asks “have you hit any difficulties, This would be run from COBR, the the top risk out of those we track, taking are there things that you need better and Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms. As this account of both probability and impact. clearer guidance from us on, are there would be a country wide pandemic, we We are not saying that it is going to policy issues that you want us to sort out would operate through regional organisa- emerge but we are treating it as if it will. to help you to do your local planning?” tions to reach local services. It is, in fact, a That is a prudent precaution. devolved matter, and the devolved admin- We have a number of non-medical istrations would manage within their own work streams – these, in simple terms, Business continuity competences but overall management are what other Government departments, We are dealing with two issues here: one is would be from Whitehall. the regional tier, devolved administra- continuity for the general business com- tions and local authorities are increasingly munity; the second is concerned with Exercises, testing and assurance We are carrying out exercises, both in Informing the public. Different views discussion terms of data flow and in terms of the were offered on the merits of public com- response, at regional and national level and, increasingly, at international level, munication. One speaker recalled that when SARS had hit the headlines, the including across the European Union. relevant websites had been swamped and she had seen people fighting in a What I have described is a rational, supermarket as they stocked up on food. In contrast, the recent interruption Whitehall, process, but if there is one of diamorphine supplies had not been publicly broadcast; clinicians had been thing that concerns me, it is to what degree we are going to see irrationality briefed on what to do while the public did not realise how low stocks were. It in media reporting, in public reactions was suggested that the key issue was to get information to the people who and so on. However rational we try to be needed it and communications should not be allowed to interfere with other inside Whitehall, we will have to take a control activities. Against this it was argued that most people would get infor- degree of irrationality into account in our ❐ mation from the internet where information was not limited in any way. planning.

22 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) obituary

Sir Hermann Bondi, cosmologist, relativist and public servant, died at Cambridge on 10 September at the age of 85. He was born in Vienna in 1919 and educated (as a mathematician) at Cambridge. In recent years he struggled cheerfully with the parkinsonism that afflicted him. Sir Hermann Bondi 1919 – 2005

ondi’s experience of life in Britain nite in space and time, but expanding Space Research Organisation, based in Paris. began with a spell in a prison camp, while at constant density. Hoyle indepen- This was followed by his appointment as Bin which he was interned as an dently worked out the conditions that chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of enemy alien at the outbreak of the Second should be met by a physical mechanism Defence in 1971. At this time he used his World War. There he met fellow-Viennese for creating matter continuously (so as to growing influence to push forward several Thomas Gold, both of whom were even- keep the density constant). Famously, the good causes – science education in British tually returned to Britain from a camp in theories engendered great controversy in schools in particular. Canada in the belief that their skills could 1957, when Cambridge radioastronomers On the face of things, Bondi cannot contribute to the war effort. In the event, (led by Sir Martin Ryle) claimed experi- have seemed a natural scientific recruit to they were assigned to a radar research mental disproof. Hoyle never acknowl- the corridors of power – he was notori- unit whose director was none other than edged defeat, but Bondi seems to have ously independent and sharp-tongued Fred (later ‘Sir Fred’) Hoyle, another been persuaded by the discovery of the as well. Yet he seemed to thrive on these Cambridge mathematician. microwave background radiation within activities on the grounds that he was able Hoyle has related in his autobiog- the decade. to ‘get things done’. raphy (Home is where the wind blows, Bondi had other fish to fry. He became Even so, after two decades in the pub- 1996) how the result of this haphazard one of the small band of people equipped lic service, Bondi returned to academic encounter was a kind of perpetual semi- by their knowledge of general relativity life, first as chief executive of the Natural nar, conducted most evenings and dealing and their skill at mathematics to make Environment Research Council (1980) not only with the problems of radar but meaningful speculations about extreme and then as Master of Churchill College, also peacetime topics, astrophysics for gravitational circumstances – black holes, Cambridge (1983-90). example. To its credit, the small group for example. By then (in 1957), Bondi had Public service never made him into an did develop a practical way of telling the been appointed to the chair of mathemat- orthodox creature. In that spirit, he was altitude as well as the range of unknown ics at King’s College, London. an active member of the Pugwash organi- aircraft from a single radar echo. His public service dates from the 1960s sation. He was also irreligious and served When all three returned to Cambridge when, after acting as chairman of a series as president of the British Humanist – Gold had to be shoe-horned in – they of public enquiries including the proposal Society for more than a decade in the embarked on radical innovation. Bondi to build a barrage across the Severn estu- 1980s. and Gold worked up their idea of the ary (which the Bondi enquiry favoured), he steady-state theory of the universe – infi- became director-general of the European John Maddox

events

Recent lectures and dinner/discussions organised by the Foundation are listed below. Sponsors, for whose support we are very grateful, are shown in italics below the event. Summaries of these and other events are available on the Foundation website at www.foundation.org.uk

25 October 2005 12 July 2005 Protection, Department of Health Carbon Abatement Technology for Power Strengthening International R&D Bruce Mann, Head, Civil Contingencies Generation Partnerships – is there a case for increased Secretariat, Cabinet Office The Wellcome Trust and the Health Protection Agency Malcolm Wicks MP, Minister of State for Energy, US/UK collaboration? Department of Trade and Industry Sir Gareth Roberts FRS FREng, President, 8 June 2005 Nick Otter OBE, Director, Technology and Wolfson College, Oxford External Affairs, ALSTOM Power Professor Charles Vest, Former President, MIT The future prospects for the biotechnology Dr Kjell Bendiksen, President, Institute for Sir Robin Saxby, Chairman, ARM industry in the UK Energy Technology (IFE) Group, Norway BAE Systems, CCLRC, PPARC, EPSRC, CMI and Dr Doug Yarrow, Director, Corporate Science E.ON UK (Power Technology), European Carbon Exchange QinetiQ Group, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences and Nuclear Industry Association Research Council Dr Martin Wales, Senior Analyst, European 22 June 2005 Biotechnology/Medical Technology, Equity Is the UK well-prepared for an influenza Research, UBS 19 October 2005 epidemic? Dr David Chiswell, Chair, BioIndustry The Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award Professor the Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Association (BIA) Lecture Dr Jeremy Farrar OBE, The Wellcome Trust Dr Andy Richards, Serial Biotechnology Dr Helen Lee, Reader in Medical Biotechnology Clinical Research Unit, Centre for Tropical Entrepreneur and Business Angel and Director of Diagnostics Unit, Department of Diseases, Vietnam Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries (ABPI) and Haematology, University of Cambridge Dr David Harper CBE, Director of Health South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) fst journal >> November 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) 23 events

25 May 2005 23 November 2004 The Education of 14-19 Year Olds Strategic Subjects in Higher Education Pauline Cox, Head, Tiffin Girls’ School, Kingston Sir Howard Newby CBE, Chief Executive, Higher Education Funding Council Lord May of Oxford, President, The Royal Society for England Julie Bramman, Head of Curriculum, Specialism and Collaboration, Pam Alexander, Chief Executive, South East England Development Agency Department for Education and Skills Tom Swan OBE, Chairman, Thomas Swan & Co Ltd Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and The Comino Foundation Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and South East England Development Agency (SEEDA)

11 May 2005 Science Policy and Management Sir Keith O’Nions FRS, DGRC, OST Sir David Wallace CBE FRS, Vice-Chancellor, Loughborough University 10 November 2004 Dr Mark Walport, Director, The Wellcome Trust Science Communication - are we making progress? BAE SYSTEMS, The Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils and Professor Colin Blakemore FRS FMedSci, Chief Executive, Medical Research The Natural Environment Research Council Council Professor Kathy Sykes, Collier Chair: Public Engagement in Science and Engineering, University of Bristol 27 April 2005 Fiona Fox, Head, Science Media Centre, Royal Institution of Great Britain Can the UK get on, and stay on, a path to a sustainable economy? Defra, Pfizer and The Wellcome Trust Jonathon Porritt, Chairman, Sustainable Development Commission Anna Coote, King’s Fund Dr Bernie Bulkin, former Chief Scientist, BP Professor Howard Dalton FRS, Chief Scientist, Defra 28 October 2004 Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Energy Policy — Security of Supply The Natural Environment Research Council The Lord Sutherland of Houndwood KT PRSE FBA, President, Royal Society of Edinburgh 23 March 2005 Peter Mather, Director UK and Europe, BP Kieron McFadyen, Technical Director (Europe), Shell Exploration and The UK Productivity Gap Production Professor Vicky Pryce, Chief Economic Adviser and Director General, Scottish Enterprise, The IEE and the Institute of Physics Economics, DTI Professor Jonathan Haskel, Queen Mary, University of London Professor John Van Reenen, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics The Gatsby Foundation and The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 26 October 2004 The Lord Lloyd of Kilgerran Award Lecture Dr Richard Durbin FRS, Head of Informatics Department and Deputy 9 March 2005 Director, The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Transport Policy - How should road congestion be managed? Graham Pendlebury, Director Road and Vehicle Safety and Standards Directorate, Department for Transport Dr Archie Robertson CBE, Chief Executive, Highways Agency 20 October 2004 Professor David Rhind CBE FRS FBA, Vice-Chancellor, City University Public Health — imposing choice? Professor Anthony May OBE, Chairman, Inquiry into Transport and Derek Wanless, Inquiry Chairman, Securing Good Health for the Whole Emeritus Professor, Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, Population Royal Academy of Engineering Melanie Johnson MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health Department for Transport and Lloyd’s Register Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Company Secretary, Tesco Professor Siân Griffiths, Senior Clinical Lecturer, Department Public Health and Primary Care, Oxford University 23 February 2005 Gatsby Charitable Foundation and the Kohn Foundation Identity Management Des Browne MP (represented by Katherine Courtney), Minister of State for Citizenship and Immigration, Home Office Ian Watmore, UK Government CIO and Head, e-Government Unit, Cabinet 12 October 2004 Office Ed Mayo, Chief Executive, National Consumer Council Risk Perception and Public Policy Sharp Laboratories of Europe and QinetiQ Sir John Krebs FRS, Chairman, Food Standards Agency Professor Ian Diamond, Chief Executive, Economic and Social Research Council 1 February 2005 Professor Nick Pidgeon, University of East Anglia Visit to Ford Dagenham Diesel Centre Defra, Fishmongers’ Company and Pitchell Consulting Mr Roger Putnam, Director, Ford Jacqui Smith MP, Minister of State for Industry and the Regions , DTI

20 July 2004 1 December 2004 Science & innovation investment framework 2004–2014 Science and the City John Kingman, Director, Enterprise and Growth Unit, HM Treasury Paul Myners, Chairman, M&S Sir Keith O’Nions FRS, Director General Research Councils, Office of Stephen Timms MP, Financial Secretary, HM Treasury Science and Technology, DTI Dr Peter Goodfellow FRS FMedSci, Senior Vice President , Discovery Andrew Barker, Head of European Equity Strategy & Managing Director, Research, GlaxoSmithKline UBS ARM, Comino Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and HEFCE Research Councils UK

Summaries of these and other events are available on the website of The Foundation for Science and Technology at: www.foundation.org.uk

24 fst journal >> november 2005 >> vol. 18 (10) Companies, departments, research institutes and charitable organisations providing general support to the Foundation.

3i plc Fugro GEOS Science Media Centre Aberdeen University Gatsby Foundation Science and Technology Policy Research Advantage West Midlands GCI Healthcare Scottish Funding Council for Further and Aerial Group Limited GlaxoSmithKline Higher Education ALSTOM Power Harley Street Holdings Ltd SEMTA Altran Technologies Heads of University Biological Sciences Severn Trent plc ARM Health & Safety Executive Sharp Laboratories of Europe Arts and Humanities Research Board Higher Education Funding Council for England South Bank University Association for Science Education House of Lords Select Committee on Textile Institute Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry Science and Technology Thames Water BAE SYSTEMS IBM (UK) Ltd The British Academy Baker Tilly Imperial College of Science, Technology and The City Centre for Charity Effectiveness Bank of England Medicine The Generics Group BBC Japan Society for the Promotion of Science The Hydrographic Society Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Johnson Matthey plc The Institution of Electrical Engineers Research Council King’s College London The Institute of Physics Blackwell Publishing KMC Search and Selection The Leverhulme Trust BP Kobe Steel Europe Ltd The Meteorological Office BRIT Insurance Holdings plc Kohn Foundation The Open University British Antarctic Survey Lloyd’s Register The Royal Academy of Engineering British Computer Society London Development Agency The Royal Commission on Environmental British Council - Science Section London School of Hygiene and Tropical Pollution British Geological Survey Medicine The Royal Commission for the Exhibition British Library Loughborough University of 1851 British Maritime Technology Medical Research Council The Royal Society British Trade International Mewburn Ellis LLP The Royal Society of Edinburgh Brunel University Michael John Trust The Smallpeice Trust BTG plc Microsoft Research Limited The Wellcome Trust CABI Bioscience Middlesex University UK Council for Graduate Education Calderwood Han Limited Ministry of Defence UK eUniversities Worldwide Cambridge MIT Institute Monsanto plc UK Marine Information Council Cancer Research UK National Grid Transco University College London Council for the Central Laboratory of the Natural Environment Research Council University of Birmingham Research Councils Natural History Museum University of Bristol Chantrey Vellacott NESTA University of Buckingham CIRIA NIMTECH University of Cambridge City & Guilds North East Science & Industry Council University of Dundee Comino Foundation Nottingham Trent University University of Durham Conoco (UK) Limited Office of Science and Technology, DTI University of East Anglia Council for Industry & Higher Education Office of the Deputy Prime Minister University of Edinburgh Council of Heads of Medical Schools Ordnance Survey University of Glasgow Cranfield University Oxford Innovations Limited University of Hertfordshire David Leon Partnership Parliamentary Office of Science and University of Hull Department for Education and Skills Technology University of Kent Department for Environment, Food and Particle Physics and Astronomy Research University of Leeds Rural Affairs Council University of Leicester Department for International Development Peter Brett Associates University of Manchester Department of Health Pfizer Univeristy of Nottingham Department of Transport PowerGen University of Newcastle upon Tyne Department of Trade and Industry PricewaterhouseCoopers University of Reading DSTL Premmit Associates Limited University of Southampton East Midlands Development Agency QinetiQ University of Surrey Economic & Social Research Council Queen Mary, University of London University of Sussex Elsevier Rail Safety and Standards Board University of Teesside Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Red Gate Software Limited University of Ulster Council Roehampton University of Surrey University of Warwick Engineering and Technology Board Rolls-Royce plc University of Westminster Environment Agency Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew University of Wolverhampton ERA Technology Royal Holloway, University of London Winsafe Limited Foreign & Commonwealth Office Rutherford Appleton Laboratory The Foundation for Science and Technology 10 Carlton House Terrace London SW1Y 5AH Telephone: 020 7321 2220 Fax: 020 7321 2221 e-mail: [email protected] www.foundation.org.uk

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