Technology foresight : first report. Volume II, Minutes of evidence and appendices / Science and Technology Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology
Date:
1995
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Technology foresight : first report. Volume II, Minutes of evidence and appendices / Science and Technology Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    24 October 1995] [Continued 4. ACTION ON GENERIC PRIORITIES 4.1 There are three main mechanisms whereby generic SET priorities are being addressed by public sector bodies. 4.2 First, Government Departments and Research Councils are considering the implications of Foresight for their SET portfolios. Within Government Departments, Foresight priorities are being taken into account in formulating future SET spending plans. An account of each Department’s present Forward Look plans and future SET priorities, including the effect Foresight has had on them, will be given in the 1996 Forward Look. In addition to addressing spending plans, DTI is promoting Foresight through a wide range of its existing activities which promote industrial innovation. 4.3 Within the Research Councils an interim report on the response being made to Foresight was published by the Director General of the Research Councils in June.' This report provided many examples of relevant initiatives; just three of them are: — A new bioinformatics research programme jointly funded by the BBSRC and EPSRC with £10 millions funding over four years. — An environmental diagnostics programme, within an emphasis on pollution and waste, funded by NERC. — EPSRC’s intention to set up one or more centres of excellence, perhaps based upon existing interdisciplinary research centres. The Research Councils and Foresight Panel members will discuss the scope for further shifts in research portfolios to reflect Foresight priorities during the autumn. This dialogue should allow the Councils better to understand the range of Panel concerns contributing to generic SET priorities identified by the Steering Group. Councils will also be able to review, and perhaps quantify, the impact which Foresight initiatives are likely to have on their programme spending over the next three years (1996-97 to 1998-99). 4.4 Second, LINK programmes have been devised in an early response to Foresight priorities. By the end of August 1995 a total of five new LINK programmes with Foresight credentials had been announced. These were: (i) Applied biocatalysis. (ii) Waste minimisation through recycling, re-use and recovery in industry. (iii) Integrated approaches to healthy ageing. (iv) Genetic and environmental interactions in health. (v) Earth observation. In addition, extra money has been injected into two existing LINK programmes to support new Foresight-relevant projects. In all of these programmes the Departments and Research Councils are active partners and are therefore standing ready to encourage the academic-industry partnerships which are fundamental to Foresight thinking. Annex B to this memorandum provides further details of these seven LINK programmes. 4.5 Third, the Foresight Challenge, which was first announced by Ministers on 22 May, was launched on 25 September, 1995. The Challenge is intended to pump-prime the response to Foresight and to encourage science-business collaborations. It will offer funding, on a competitive basis, to collaborative projects which take forward either generic or sectoral priorities. A wide range of bodies will be eligible to lead and participate in Challenge consortia. Outline bids are required by mid-November 1995, while detailed bids may be submitted up to January 1996. Successful Challenge consortia are expected to commence operations in 1996-97. OST funds for the Challenge amount to £40 million; with matching funds from the private sector the Challenge should initiate programmes worth in excess of £80 million. The terms and conditions of the Foresight Challenge Fund are at Annex C of this memorandum. 4.6 The infrastructural priorities in the Steering Group’s report are being addressed in three ways. First, the OST has set up a Whitehall Foresight Group with a specific remit to co-ordinate responses to the infrastructural _priorities in the Steering Group’s report. 4.7 Departments are represented on this Group by their Foresight Action Managers. The full terms of reference of the Whitehall Foresight Group are: To review the recommendations relevant to government arising from the Technology Foresight reports; to identify the further actions required and to co-ordinate and report those actions with an interim report to Ministers at the end of 1995 and an annual report in May 1996. Cabinet Office (OPSS, 1955) The Research Council’s Response to the Recommendations of the Technology Foresight Initiative, 29 June 1995.