Ed Hayes
Policy Officer, The Physiological Society

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.98.9

On 17 December 2014, the Government launched its long awaited, and somewhat delayed, science and innovation strategy. The strategy, entitled ‘Our plan for growth: science and innovation’, sets out the Governments overarching plans to make the UK the best place in the world for science. This, as defined in the strategy, includes ‘the natural, physical and social sciences, engineering, technology, the arts and humanities’. The inclusion of the arts and humanities within the definition of science came as a considerable surprise to the members of the House of Commons Science and Technology select committee, who recently held an evidentiary hearing on the strategy.

Reassuring but lacking specific commitments

The strategy was summed up perfectly by the Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, Dr Sarah Main – ‘At best, I was hoping for a visionary ten year strategy with the authority and support of all of government. This strategy is reassuring, but falls short on a number of specific commitments, such as a commitment to ring-fence the science budget or to set long-term goals for science investment.’

The document pulls together a number of separate policy initiatives, many of which had been previously announced, to provide an overarching strategy to support science in the UK. However, it is worth noting that there were two potentially important announcements made within the strategy.

Research councils to be reviewed

The most significant new announcement made in the Strategy was that Sir Paul Nurse, the outgoing President of the Royal Society, would be leading on a review on the Research Councils, which is due to report in summer 2015. The Government has asked Sir Paul to consider a number of questions, which include whether the balance of funding between the Research Councils is ‘optimal’ and whether appropriate measures are in place for research that crosses disciplinary borders.

Review of STEM degree accreditation

Another announcement that might be of significant interest was that the government will be funding independent reviews of STEM degree accreditation arrangements to ‘improve quality and graduate employability’. The review will begin with Computer Science accreditation, with no details provided on whether or when the Society of Biology degree accreditation programme would be reviewed.

Other announcements

The Government also declared that it will provide support for a dedicated platform to help STEM trained women return to industry after a career break.

Major financial commitments announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement early in December were reiterated in the strategy, including £5.9 billion of funding for science capital over a 5 year period from 2016 to 2021 (first announced in the 2013 spending review); the introduction of postgraduate loans of up to £10,000 (for under 30s); and £67 million of funding to increase the number of specialist maths and physics teachers.

However, no decision on the annual £4.6 billion science resource budget was announced, which will be reviewed in the post-election spending review in 2015.