Scientists fight push against ‘pure’ research

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 6

Scientists fight push against ‘pure’ research

By KEVIN RICKETTS NZPA-AAP London Like their cousins in Australia’s C.5.1.R.0., British scientists are going' through a similar handwringing exercise as pressure mounts for “targeted” rather than “pure" research.

The motivation behind the management push is the same: scientific breakthroughs that can be taken straight from the laboratory to the commercial production line. The British Department of Education and Science has published proposals by the Advisory Board for the Research Councils which argue that only 15 of Britain’s 60 universities should be fully equipped and fully funded for research.

The board envlsgages that a higher level of effort should be devoted to “exploitable” areas of basic science, with relatively less weighting given to purely scientific criteria. There should be closer contacts between the scientific Institutions and the business community, including a big effort to market science to the private sector. The chairman of the board, Sir David Phillips, says in his report: “At present British science is not keeping up with that

of our competitors and, as now organised and managed, cannot keep up." The board recommends the creation of a threeclass system for. funding. Only 15 universities would have the highest status, qualifying for susbstantial support across many disciplines.

Those at the bottom would still be able to carry out research projects but they would have to make ends meet on limited support “Reorganisation can allow us to get a better return on the national investment in science, arid the creation of universityassociated research centres would help to prevent any further extension of the brain drain,” Sir David says. Immediate opposition came from Professor Denis Noble, the founder of the Save British Science campaign, who said, “How much further does the Government want to go? We are already being selective — about 60 per cent of the Science and Engineering Research Council’s money goes to only 12 institutions. “But the other institutions — the ones that get the bottom eight per cent of funds — are the seedcorn of future excellence.