Volume 1

International policies and activities of the Research Councils / House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology.
Date:
2007
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: International policies and activities of the Research Councils / House of Commons, Science and Technology Committee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    countries and international organisations; Fund world-class scientists to work in and with the UK community. It will fund UK scientists to collaborate with the best groups, wherever located; Encourage UK scientists to establish international collaborations at early stages in their careers. It will work to overcome the barriers to overseas research students wishing to study in the UK; STFC International Strategy STFC came into being on 1 April 2007. It is still in the process of formulating its policies and strategies. Source: Ev 90 19. Witnesses have highlighted that the strategies vary in usefulness and quality. Professor Palmer from the University of Warwick told us that whilst some of the international strategies, for example ESRC’s strategy, were good, others such as AHRC’s strategy were “motherhood and apple pie”.** Dr Bernie Jones from the Royal Society reiterated this point: “some are longer than others, some are older than others, and some are more focused than others. Some of them, we believe, are reasonably good, some are almost very good”.*! He highlighted the BBSRC’s policy as an example of a good strategy. 20. Several submissions have criticised the Research Councils’ international strategies more generally, observing: a lack of cohesion between the policies; a lack of connection to strategies in other countries; a lack of clarity regarding country by country priorities; and a poor correlation with the overall strategies. The Royal Society was perhaps the fiercest critic of the strategies but its analysis was echoed by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the FCO Science and Innovation Network (SIN), and the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.” We are particularly concerned that a lack of detail in the strategies could mean first, that the Research Councils miss out on opportunities to develop relationships because partners such as the FCO are unaware of their priorities, and secondly, that there could be unwitting duplication of activities by other organisations such as the academies. 21. Professor Sir Keith O’Nions, Director General of Science and Innovation told us that: an international dimension and strategy should really be embedded in all of the delivery agents that we have [...] and we should have a very clear strategy from those organisations. This probably needs to be clearer than it has been in the past all round, and we are asking the Research Councils to produce much clearer strategies for each of them and an overarching one for RCUK.* He also said that he hoped that the new RCUK strategy would help to align the policies of the Councils and would address criticisms of the existing strategies, particularly from the Royal Society.* 30 Q161 31 Q216 32 Ev 41, 68, 86, 53 33 Q238