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Science, Technology and Engineering

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Haskel for leading this debate with the knowledge and precision that is his hallmark. I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Freeman, about funding start-ups. I begin by declaring an interest: as director of Warwick Manufacturing Group at the University of Warwick, I have long believed that science and technology are central to almost every issue we face as a nation. Over the past decade, science and technology issues have become frontline news, and academic research has increased in prestige. At the same time, the increase in higher education funding has meant expansion, a growth visible in the new buildings we see on every university campus. Of course, issues remain, and are high profile. It is usually difficulties, not successes, which command immediate attention. Despite this, I think most of us will agree that the past decade has been, if not a golden age, then at least an era of significant silver. This increased funding, as well as our growing understanding of the world, means there is hardly any aspect of our national life where scientific research is not making a vital contribution. I noticed that many noble Lords chose to speak in the debate on creative industries earlier today. It occurs to me that without the contribution of science and technology, British creative industry would be very limited indeed. From the printing press to wireless technology, from cinema to videogames, from television to broadband, the framework of scientific and technological progress has shaped the growth of creativity industries. Indeed, the Digital Britain report compares the creation of broadband infrastructure with electrification in the Edwardian age in its power to transform. This manifests itself in many ways. Last week, Scottish scientists announced that they have been able to recreate digitally, then build, a lost musical instrument, the lituus. So new digital technology means a seismic shift in many industries, from internet radio to classical music. In the same way, scientific research is reshaping many of our most pressing social problems. After all, without the pioneering work of Crick, Watson and Sir Alec Jeffreys, the current debate over DNA fingerprinting would not be possible. Science is also the key to climate change. A fortnight ago, the new American energy secretary, Steven Chu, suggested we paint our roofs white to reflect sunlight and reduce demand for air-conditioning. He proposed this because research by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory suggests that changing the colour of 100 square metres of roof could offset 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions a year. Yet some argue that focusing on adaptive technologies will distract people from the need to reduce their carbon footprint. This highlights one of the problems with our attitude to science: a lack of cultural belief in the power of technology to transform lives. As the Times said on Tuesday, this year is the 50th anniversary of CP Snow's famous "Two Cultures" lecture. Today we have a choice between "two attitudes" to science. The first holds that science and technology can somehow be reserved for a caste of qualified researchers, whose ideas emerge as bolts from the blue for the rest of society. This attitude isolates hard science from economics, and scientific research from the real world. It can be a comfortable arrangement. Scientists receive a small tithe of public expenditure, stability, and a certain status. In return, they are expected to produce research their peers regard as useful, while the wider population waits hopefully for scientific solutions. I believe that this attitude creates two castes—those who do science and those who have science done to them. This might explain why, despite outstanding research being done in our universities, only 1 per cent of British businesses say that universities are of high importance to them as a source of innovation. Of course, companies which fully engage in research and development can gain great success. My noble friend the Minister is certainly aware of the enormous value that innovative research can give to a business—after all, he has proven its importance himself. The Government have made great efforts in this direction, establishing the Technology Strategy Board and publishing the innovation White Paper. The research councils, especially the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, now include the economic impact of research when evaluating projects. Despite this progress, the sharing of innovation and success between academia and industry is too often the exception when it needs to be the rule. To change this, we must embrace a new attitude of constant engagement between science and society, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, mentioned. We must encourage scientists to focus on our shared challenges and translate their research into reality. At the same time, we must give independent researchers the freedom to innovate, challenge and experiment. In other words, we choose where the goal posts are placed, but free up the path to goal. If you ask a dozen scientists to reduce carbon emissions, you will get a dozen research proposals. Perhaps half of them will work. The trouble is, as John Wanamaker famously said about advertising, you do not know which half. The same is true of spin-off companies. Not all innovators will succeed; there can be no guarantee of success. Risk is at the very core of innovative research. Innovation always involves venturing into the unknown. We must develop an attitude of embracing risk by supporting innovation anywhere it can be found—in businesses, universities, corporate research laboratories or the work of a young entrepreneur. The innovation White Paper set out some useful steps for achieving this. As it suggests, we should offer an "innovation lottery", so that it is easier for companies to get funding for small-scale research with academic partners. We also need a cultural change, so that knowledge transfer is central to academic life. We must bring manufacturers, researchers and customers together, so that they can share ideas to improve products, from batteries to plastic electronics. Next, we should remove the hurdles, the bureaucracy and the form-filling that can blight new research projects. The noble Lord, Lord May, who is not with us today, addressed this recently in his role as president-elect of the British Science Association. The noble Lord pointed out that the last Research Assessment Exercise would have prevented Crick and Watson getting shared credit for their research. This type of box-ticking, while well intentioned, is anathema to innovation. One of the issues with the RAE is that the evaluation between economic impact and perceived research excellence is tilted towards the latter and not balanced. This is right for "blue sky" research subjects, but in applied sciences, gaining substantial economic benefit is a key to success and we need to be much bolder. These barriers to innovation typify much of the Research Assessment Exercise. That must change. However, we must go further than lotteries or replacing the RAE. We need a transformation of our attitude to science and society. We should double, treble or even quadruple the money available to fund applied science projects such as technology demonstrators, incubators and low-carbon research. The Technology Strategy Board has a budget of £1 billion for the next three years for all applied research. To make a real contribution, we should invest at least £1 billion each year. Naturally, business must play its part in bringing science to the heart of society. Let me be blunt: if British companies do not invest in exciting new technologies and products, companies in other countries will. Sir James Black’s work on Beta blockers made a major contribution to both our physical and economic health because we had both a strong pharmaceutical industry and, in the NHS, a ready market for its products. Yet the equally innovative work of George Gray and Cyril Hilsum, the pioneers of liquid crystal displays, found a market not in Britain but in the companies of the Far East that saw the market value of their work. I can speak from personal experience. When I served as a young apprentice at Lucas Industries, the company was a global leader. Yet a lack of investment in innovation meant Lucas was very quickly overtaken by emerging companies from Germany and Japan. They are now global giants, while Lucas no longer exists. The Government have increased the research budget enormously, yet we have not seen British competitiveness improve as a result. That is why we must not let research breakthroughs from British universities be transferred from the laboratory to the wider world by others. We must help innovative companies and researchers develop scientific and economic goals together and back their efforts to take their successes to the marketplace. The challenge that our society faces, from climate change to healthcare, are too great to be ignored by scientists, while the progress that scientists are making, from low- carbon cars to virtual surgery, is too useful to be ignored by society. To meet our social challenges and help our economy grow, we must bring science and society together.