The ‘foremost scientific gathering in the parliamentary calendar’ provides strong hints from government that scientists should get thinking about environmental applications for their research.
Paul Wicks
This year’s Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Parliamentary Links day, on 26 June, was entitled ‘Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Science and the Global Challenge’. The message came loud and clear that climate change will be a major research funding focus for the new government. As several speakers noted, the event fell in interesting times, so soon after the resignation of Tony Blair. A message in every delegate’s packs from Gordon Brown had an unambiguous message: ‘I want the UK to be the most attractive place in which to do science’.
Held at Portcullis House in Westminster, speakers included Brian Iddon MP, Jim Feast (RSC President), Lord Rees of Ludlow (Royal Society), Alan Duncan MP, Sir David King (Government Chief Scientific Advisor), and Phil Willis MP (Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology). RSC members were joined by representatives from the Institute of Biology, Institute of Physics and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
A call to action for all branches of science
The speakers unanimously viewed climate change as a real and man-made threat. They presented a bevy of technologies to help limit and adapt to the effects. Novel examples included nuclear fusion (how to power the UK for 30 years with lithium from one laptop battery and half a bath of water); genetic engineering (enhancing photosynthesis by transfecting plants with more efficient metabolic pathways from bacteria); and insulation (nanofoam, a high-tech material containing 100 nm bubbles).
Climate change is now firmly on the agenda of all the major parties, and was described by Allan Duncan (Shadow Secretary of State for Trade & Industry) as one of the issues, along with national security and inflation, that was genuinely shifting voter attitudes.
What does this mean for science?
If you’re in the area of biotech, engineering, agricultural science or the physical sciences, it’s time to start writing green grant applications. Politicians are realising that a combination of economic measures, policy changes and restrictive legislation are meaningless without innovation and technology in areas like carbon capture and storage.
Allan Duncan also called for more of the UK’s innovation to be exploited in practical application, and suggested that in future the research funding might be weighted in favour of institutions that create real-world products as well as doing blue-sky research. Whether it’s economists looking at carbon markets or psychologists looking at incentives for social action, there is a large niche here to be exploited by those who can turn theory into results quickly.
In his keynote speech, David Miliband spoke of how we should proceed now climate change is established as a serious threat. He believes we must use our fear to drive us ‘from fatalism to action’, and to fight the perceived public problem of individual responsibility in the face of such a vast problem.
A Ministry of Science?
It was recognised that, to get all this research and innovation done, the government must give greater support to science in schools and at university. Speakers acknowledged that science is not a well-paid occupation and that graduates often go to other sectors such as finance or consulting.
To address such problems, Phil Willis, Chair of the Select Committee on Science and Technology, advocated a dedicated Ministry of Science with a Science Minister at cabinet level. Rather than the ‘usual suspects’ testifying to the select committee, he wanted to hear from early career researchers, and the organisations that represent them, to provide his committee with evidence on how the UK’s workforce was fairing and what could be done to improve things.