Realising our potential : a strategy for science, engineering and technology / presented to Parliament by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Command of Her Majesty, May 1993.

  • Great Britain. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
Date:
1993
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Realising our potential : a strategy for science, engineering and technology / presented to Parliament by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster by Command of Her Majesty, May 1993. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    priorities. The information generated by the Council will normally be made openly available. (4) The Government’s schemes for technology transfer will be developed to re-emphasise the importance of the interchange of ideas, skills, know-how and knowledge between the science and engineering base and industry. (5) There will be easier access, especially for small and medium-sized firms, to the innovation support programmes run by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices. (6) The Science and Engineering Research Council will be converted into an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and a Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. The Agricultural and Food Research Council will be modified into a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. All the Research Councils’ missions will be reformulated to make explicit their commitment to wealth creation and the quality of life. Their management structures will be modified to give each one a part-time Chairman and a full-time Chief Executive. (7) The functions of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils will be absorbed within the Office of Science and Technology. A new post of Director-General of Research Councils will be established within that Office. (8) The dual-funding mechanism will be maintained in recognition of the distinctive part which research plays within the overall mission of our universities. Clearer mechanisms will be developed for co-ordination between the Office of Science and Technology and the Education Departments to ensure that the two streams of university research funding are complementary. (9) The Rothschild customer-contractor principle will be maintained and strengthened, in relation to Departmental applied research and development. Departments will continue to develop their role as intelligent customers for science and technology. The Government believes that many of the services currently provided by Government research establishments could be carried out in the private sector, and that privatisation is a realistic prospect for a number of establishments. There will be a further scrutiny of the best organisational and management structures for those laboratories which are likely to remain in the public sector.
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