By Tom Addison, Policy Manager, The Physiological Society, @TEJAddison
Over the summer months, the UK Government launched its UK Government Research & Innovation Roadmap (R&D Roadmap), designed to ‘revitalis[e] our whole system of science, research and innovation to release its potential – to unlock and embrace talent, diversity, resilience and adaptability, and to tackle our biggest challenges’ in the words of the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Alok Sharma MP.
This is the first time the Government has sought to refresh the commitments made in the 2017 Industrial Strategy since the General Election at the end of last year. In our communications with Government, The Society made clear its belief that the current administration should retain its predecessor’s commitment to the ‘Ageing Society’ Grand Challenge from the Industrial Strategy.
We also made it clear that this refresh presents a good opportunity for the Government to focus more towards research that helps to better understand the mechanisms that drive ageing, and the inequality of outcomes between the richest and poorest in the UK and across the world.
It could be said that the Government’s current ageing agenda is wrapped up with post-Brexit, “Global Britain” planning. After all, some of the biggest, and oldest, populations in the world are in countries the UK Government has repeatedly expressed an interest in replacing EU single market trade with – most notably India and China.
A key question within the public consultation for the R&D Roadmap therefore, is how the UK Government can maximise the economic, environmental and societal impact of research through the effective application of new knowledge.
As such, The Physiological Society’s work into the economic value of both Sport and Exercise Science specifically, and physiology at large, are both timely. While the data is yet to be finalised in our current project related to knowledge exchange, we can say that anatomy and physiology attracted at least £12.9m of overseas investment in the Academic Year 2018/191.
Similarly, Sport and Exercise Science makes a valuable contribution to the UK economy, not only in terms of the savings it makes for the health and social care system but also in its role as a significant driver of employment and economic growth.
The Physiological Society demonstrated these economic and social impacts in its 2019 report Sport and Exercise Science Education: Impact on the UK Economy. The report’s economic data found that Sport and Exercise Science higher education provision provides an impact of £3.9 billion in added income to the UK economy each year. This is equivalent to 147,300 jobs.
It is also reassuring to see that the Government remains committed to ‘close and friendly’ collaboration with European partners following the end of the transition period at the end of this year and has committed to matching EU funding that would have been available to UK R&D through the Horizon Europe programme in the event that the UK is no longer able to participate in this programme.
When we surveyed our members following the 2017 Brexit referendum, access to EU funding was the most important factor members felt the Government needed to achieve for science during negotiations.
Following the Commons’ Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry into ‘A new UK research funding agency,’ the R&D roadmap sketches out some more detail about how the UK Government intends to use research and innovation to fulfil its levelling up domestic economic agenda and its commitment to a ‘Global Britain’. As such, it combines economic imperatives with foreign policy ambitions as the UK begins negotiating outside of the European Union.
In that respect, there are some welcome hints about the UK Government’s approach, particularly as it relates to encouraging overseas talent into the UK. As ever, however, well-intentioned strategy needs to be supported financially and politically, particularly in the face of the impact from COVID-19. The Physiological Society is committed to remaining part of this dialogue and ensuring that both fundamental and applied bioscience is at the heart of the UK’s planning to meet its stated ambitions.
Please note that all views expressed on The Physiological Society’s blog reflect those of the author(s) and not of The Society.