Posted for Ananyo Bhattacharya

Hopes for a £1 billion science stimulus in the next UK budget are dimming, the country’s chief scientific adviser says. John Beddington was speaking at a panel discussion yesterday at the UK’s Royal Society, along with Harold Varmus, co-chair of the US President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology – there in part to plug his new book, ‘The Art and Politics of Science’.

Beddington says the government cannot ignore warnings by Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, that the UK cannot afford (Guardian, Times) an expensive package of measures to boost the economy in its budget announcement on 22 April. “I’m not confident that it will definitely happen,” he said – adding that if there was going to be a stimulus, science should be prioritized. Beddington also criticized the quality of government scientific advice in Europe, pointing out that only Ireland and the United Kingdom have chief scientific advisers and that both the European Council Presidency and the European Commission’s various directorates lacked a similar post.

Varmus too warned against expecting big boosts to the base budgets of US scientific institutions such as the National Institutes of Health in future. “We do have an economic catastrophe on our hands,” he said. “Base budgets may not see the sort of increases we’d like to see.” He also urged scientists to think big to capitalize on the current stimulus funds. The NIH has recently asked for applications for “Grand Opportunities” – grants for projects costing no less than $500,000 per year, funded with the stimulus money. Varmus said he would suggest one of these grants to go towards building up a complete database of monoclonal antibodies for mice and humans. Mark Walport, director of the UK medical charity the Wellcome Trust – who was also sharing the panel with Varmus and Beddington – said that he would like to see stimulus cash used to sequence the genomes of all known cancers.

During his speech – centered on Obama’s pledge “ to restrore science to its rightful place” – Varmus revealed that early on in the campaign that, Obama had told him, “I expect science to be the centerpiece of my administration”.

Asked about the teaching of evolution in schools Varmus said that Obama would be addressing the issue is considering addressing science more generally in a future speech. He also said that the Office of Technology Assessment, which provided Congress with non-partisan science advice between 1972 and 1995, would likely be brought back.