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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    the beginning and end of the programme. Nor does this process lend itself to formal committees or boards. Hard work and frequent interaction, in the laboratory and the office, on the telephone and face-to-face, will pay off, much more than the adoption of positions on more formal occasions. 2.29 The Government believes that technology foresight will be most valuable if it succeeds in generating informal interaction. Vice-Chancellors already meet, and will continue to meet, Chairmen and Chief Executives. But opportunities should be generated, on a much larger scale, for interaction between scientists and businessmen involved in the day-to-day business of selling in competitive markets. 2.30 The Government will now set in place the framework for such a Technology Foresight Programme, with a view to producing a first report by the end of 1994. This timetable will enable industry and the research community to be closely involved. Their participation will be crucial to the programme’s success as a means of generating the sort of informal exchanges which the Government secks. 2.31 A Steering Group to launch the Foresight Programme will be set up under the chairmanship of the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser. Its members will be drawn from the industrial, scientific and engineering communities, research charities, and from Government Departments, though most of its members will be from outside Government. 2.32 It will be for individual firms and organisations to decide for themselves what use, if any, to make of the results of this programme. Within Government, the results will be an important contribution to the deliberations of the Council for Science and Technology (see paragraph 2.39 below) as it considers its advice to Government on the strategies and corporate research plans of the Research Councils, Funding Councils and individual Government Departments. 2.33 The Government believes that engagement in the process of technology foresight will deliver considerable benefits, as it has in other countries. Scientists, engineers, economists, financiers, businessmen, industrialists, and civil servants will develop a shared appreciation of technological opportunities and industrial possibilities. The networking generated by the exercise will greatly increase interchange between the private, academic and public sectors. The contacts established will be an effective way of putting into practice the Faraday principles.
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