Newsletter November 2010

Message from the Executive Director

Dr Chris Tyler at a recent CSaP eventAs we head towards the end of 2010 - and because this is the last newsletter of the year - I wanted to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to those people who have contributed to the growth and development of CSaP over the past few months. The Associates of the Centre - more than 300 of you - have made this year a remarkable one. With your enthusiastic involvement, we have been able to run five Centre Interest Groups, eight workshops, four Distinguished Lectures, two Associate Seminars and a Professional Development Policy Seminar, as well as host our first eight Policy Fellows. Many thanks to all of you who have made such a great contribution.

The successful launch of the Policy Fellows programme has been a significant highlight of the year. Policy professionals from Whitehall and industry have found their time in the University not just useful but "inspiring", and the many academics who have hosted the Fellows have also been extremely positive about the opportunity to speak to decision makers in their field of interest. We would like to add to this positive feedback our thanks for the extraordinary contribution of both the Policy Fellows and the University hosts. We look forward to taking this programme forward in 2011.

Of the many contributors to the success of the Centre's first full year, we have marked out eight, by inviting them to become Associate Fellows of the Centre. These individuals have made, and we hope will continue to make, a particular contribution to our objectives and development. Our three inaugural Fellows were Professor Ben Martin (former Director of Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Sussex), Professor David MacKay (Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Department of Physics, and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change), and Mr David Howarth (Reader in Law in the Department of Land Economy, who returned to the University after deciding not to stand for re-election as MP for the City of Cambridge).

In the past couple of months, five more Associate Fellows have been elected:

  • Professor Susan Owens, Head of the Department of Geography, who has been the driving force behind our project to identify key questions on the relationship between science and policy.
  • Dr Miles Parker, the Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra, who has been a tireless advocate of our work and whose advice has been key in the development of our various programmes.
  • Dr Graeme Reid, Deputy Director of the Economic Impact Team at BIS, who, like Miles, has been a generous source of advice from the perspective of Whitehall.
  • Professor David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, who has contributed much to a range of our work, not least in his ability to explain complicated scientific and mathematical information in clear and accurate ways to non-specialists.
  • Professor Bill Sutherland, Miriam Rothschild Professor in Conservation Biology, who has contributed a great deal to our work, including the science and policy research questions programme and our workshops on ecosystems services.

Thank you to all of our Associate Fellows.

In this issue:

  • The Professional Development Policy Seminar
  • Distinguished Lecture
  • Science and Policy Studies
  • News in Brief

Chris

Dr Chris Tyler
Executive Director
Centre for Science and Policy

Professional Development Policy Seminar

A number of key posts in Government are held by people who spent most of their careers as academics. These advisers and policy makers are brought into the civil service because of the knowledge that they bring to policy issues, even if they do not have a practical knowledge of policy. Consequently, the transition from university academic to government civil servant can be quite a challenge.

This month we piloted a seminar designed to introduce early career researchers to the possibilities and realities of engaging with policy. We heard from a panel of scientists who have engaged with policy, and a panel of policy professionals who have engaged with science, both of which led to enlightening and enjoyable discussions. Read more here.

Distinguished Lecture

Politicians frequently refer to "evidence based policy" and rely on a range of different kinds of evidence to support their positions in debates. We inevitably hear more about instances where science and statistics are misused in Parliamentary debate, but in the round, what is the status of science in Parliament and how do politicians decide what evidence to use?

To discuss these issues and more, we invited Dr Evan Harris, the former MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, and Dr Julian Huppert, the MP for Cambridge to give our fourth Distinguished Lecture. Both are passionate and effective campaigners for science and the use of evidence in policy, and they gave a thoroughly entertaining and thoughtful, if slightly alarming, presentation. A write up of the lecture is here, along with video.

Science and Policy Studies

In October, we launched a programme to identify the key questions on the relationship between policy and science (including the social sciences and engineering). We have already had a terrific response in terms of expressions of interest, and this is a final reminder that we would like everyone's suggested research questions to be submitted by 10 December. If you haven't provided us with an expression of interest, but would like to take part, don't worry, you still can. Read more here.

CSaP News in Brief

Advisory Consultation meeting
On 18 November, we held an external advisory consultation meeting in London at the Institute for Government. Our distinguished group of advisers heard excellent presentations from Professor Alan Hughes (Director of the Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge) and Professor Bill Sutherland (Miriam Rothschild Professor in Conservation Biology, Dept of Zoology, University of Cambridge) on our Centre Interest Groups, and Ms Alice Raine (Assistant Chief Scientific Adviser, BIS) and Dr Robert Sorrell (Vice President for Public Partnerships, BP) on our Policy Fellows programme. There was great support for this work, in particular the Policy Fellows programme which was deemed to be having the both obvious and rapid impact. We are now exploring mechanisms for funding this programme and to make it sustainable. We will be drawing up plans for that over the coming weeks.

Policy Fellows
This month we have been joined by two Policy Fellows: Dr Adam Heathfield, Pfizer's Director of Science Policy (Europe), and Dr Stephanie Hurst, Deputy Director of Planning Resources, Department for Communities and Local Government. Stephanie is spreading her five day visit either side of Christmas. Adam completed his visit earlier in the month and commented, "There was a real willingness to engage with our policy topics, and it was incredibly helpful to have different perspectives on many of the questions the pharmaceutical sector is grappling with. In addition to the level of expertise and knowledge that you would expect from leading university research teams, there were some surprising connections made. Some of the most valuable interactions were those that helped clarify and sub-divide the more jumbled policy topics into areas where there are distinct academic traditions and bodies of knowledge that can be drawn upon. Overall, lots of fresh thinking and many areas to follow up on. An excellent programme!"

Innovation
On 25 November, we held a workshop for senior researchers from the UK Innovation Research Centre and policy makers on new thinking in innovation. A write up of this fascinating and timely discussion will appear on our website soon.

Science, finance and policy: unlocking climate uncertainty
CSaP supported a Willis Research Network and Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences event on 24 November. An audience of insurers, policy professionals and researchers heard from two panels, one on the scientific uncertainties and their implications, the other on policy in the face of uncertainties. The speakers included Professor Sir John Beddington (Government Chief Scientific Adviser), Lord Turner (Chair of the UK Committee on Climate Change), Professor Ralph Cicerone (President of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA), Professor Alan Thorpe (Chief Executive of the Natural Environment Research Council) and Professor Tim Palmer (from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). For details of the recent lecture, please click here.

A debt of gratitude
CSaP would like to thank the David Harding Foundation and the Isaac Newton Trust for their donations which made the Centre's creation possible.

Contact Us
Jackie Ouchikh, Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, 10 Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1QA

Website: www.csap.org.uk Email: enquiries@csap.cam.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1223 768392

© 2010 Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge

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