---

Science Budget

It is a real pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Norwich, North (Dr. Gibson). As always, he has made a vigorous and superbly informed contribution. He has redefined the term ““wide-ranging”” tonight, speaking on everything from honey bees to stem cell research. I shall try to top that by slipping in something about nuclear fusion, which he missed out. However, he has forgotten more about science than most of us ever knew, apart from one or two honourable exceptions in the Chamber tonight. It is easiest, and most usual, to sanction certain sanitised and unexciting research and science projects, particularly in translational research, where outcomes are predictable. Of course that is important, but it must not be done at the expense of basic science and true discovery processes. Only by taking real risks will we push forward the frontiers of knowledge for the ultimate benefit of mankind, to help us eventually to save the planet. However, the universities and funding councils have become risk averse from years of battering by the sensationalist media and from interfering politicians, although there are none of those in the Chamber tonight. They have also come under pressure from commercial organisations, which are skewing their decisions on research projects. That is why I want to speak briefly tonight in favour of basic science and research, which, by definition, involves great risk, uncertainty and unexpected outcomes. The system of peer review, which has already been mentioned, has been examined by the Select Committee on a number of occasions. It has serious weaknesses, in that it fails to reject mediocre and poor research projects, and favours predictable journeyman-type work that is unlikely to deliver spectacular results or push forward the boundaries of our understanding for the benefit of mankind. Peer review acts as a gatekeeper at the start and the end of the research process. At the start, it determines which projects will get funding to go ahead in the first place. At the end, it determines which ones will get published in which academic peer review journals, which is important to the whole process and to spreading that knowledge. Peer review is instrumental in the whole project selection process, and it is therefore of great importance. However, it tends to back the safer bets and to reject the more imaginative, ambitious and, some might say, off-the-wall projects—the kind that the hon. Member for Norwich, North and I enjoy. But at the very worst, those projects will excite, encourage and inspire future generations of scientists, and who knows what might flow from them in the future? Such projects also enable us to encourage doctoral researchers to this country and to keep them here. They add so much to the UK's research base, and we need to continue to do that.