As cuts to public expenditure are ramping up, demand for public services and economic growth remains as high as ever. Pressure to deliver more for less is resulting in an increased focus on innovation – in the way that public services and the economy are provided, supported and managed.

The Centre’s latest Policy Workshop – The Values and Valuation of Natural Capital, organised jointly with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) at the Institute for Government on 13 October – brought together policy makers from Defra, DECC, CLG, DfE, BIS and DfT, alongside zoologists, economists, engineers, geographers and conservation scientists.

To mark the launch of the Centre Interest Group on Genomic Medicine, the CSaP hosted a dinner discussion on 12 May at Queens' College, Cambridge. Sir Mark Walport led the discussion.

CSaP is working with the UK Innovation Research Centre (UK~IRC) and others to design a consultation, seminar and workshop programme which will bring together the latest research and those who are best placed to apply it.

Attendees at the CSaP's second Distinguished Lecture were taken briskly through 50 years of science policy research in 50 minutes as Professor Ben Martin, former Director of SPRU, led them on a whistle-stop tour of the twenty key "steps forward" that have been made in the field.