A cross-party science policy debate is due to take place in London in less than a month. After an earlier science policy meeting failed to entice much public attention in November, the lack of policy ideas and a mind-numbing political consensus mean that few are likely to pay attention to the coming one.
Despite the promise by the UK science minister Lord Dryson that the debate would have been "really about trying to make science an election issue," the event soon turned it into a cosy chat (video here). In the word of a New Scientist's blogger, "the long-awaited clash turned out to be a good-natured affair that lacked the cut and thrust of a prime minister's question time in parliament."
Disinterest in British science policy is largely explained by the fact that public discussions on the subject stay clear of politics and are often devoid of policies, too. At its high point, the three politicians aspiring to become the next British science agreed on the need to exempt science from government cuts, celebrated the role of CSI in inspiring the next generation of scientists (!), and congratulated themselves on the existing "consensus across the parties that [science] is really important to the future of Britain".
Despite the promise by the UK science minister Lord Dryson that the debate would have been "really about trying to make science an election issue," the event soon turned it into a cosy chat (video here). In the word of a New Scientist's blogger, "the long-awaited clash turned out to be a good-natured affair that lacked the cut and thrust of a prime minister's question time in parliament."
Disinterest in British science policy is largely explained by the fact that public discussions on the subject stay clear of politics and are often devoid of policies, too. At its high point, the three politicians aspiring to become the next British science agreed on the need to exempt science from government cuts, celebrated the role of CSI in inspiring the next generation of scientists (!), and congratulated themselves on the existing "consensus across the parties that [science] is really important to the future of Britain".
Crucial issues in science policy are often hinted at but never addressed, such as the necessity to for universities to build up their endowment and become financially autonomous; the role of private and philanthropic bodies such as the Wellcome Trust in the funding of science; the limited success of state-led strategic investments, foresight exercises, and long-term targets which increasingly resemble 1960s' industrial policy.
All too often science policy seems to be only about science funding - a polite expression for "getting as much money as possible out of the public purse." Making pretty speeches in order to win bigger budgets and boost their own importance in Cabinet also play well with science ministers, who face little incentives to try new ideas on an area of policy marked by many uncertainties and with no clear ideological demarcations.
While unfortunate, this state of things is unlikely to be challenged any time soon. As science and innovation are increasingly described as the engine of growth, the lack of a public debate on science and innovation policy means it is increasingly left pray of rent-seeking politics, Yes, Minister-style:
All governments departments are lobbies for the pressure groups they deal with. The Department of Education lobbies the government on behalf of teachers, the Department of Health lobbies for the doctors and hospital unions, the Department of Energy lobbies for oil companies and so on. Each department of State is actually controlled by the people it is supposed to be controlling.
The Bed of Nails. Yes Minister, 9 December 1982. London: BBC.
