The Centre for Science and Policy continued its series of in-person seminars on social infrastructure topics in collaboration with the British Academy on 26 May 2022, with a discussion on universities as anchor institutions.

The Centre for Science and Policy (CSaP) hosted a seminar for academics and policy professionals, led by Dame Professor Theresa Marteau and Dr Matthew Gill, exploring how to improve the use of evidence and evaluation in policy making.

George Freeman MP, Minister for Science, Research, and Innovation delivered a CSaP Lecture at St John’s College, Cambridge where he discussed the UK’s position within global research and innovation. The talk on 28 April 2022 explored the mission of making Britain a “Science Superpower”.

The Centre for Science and Policy resumed its series of in-person seminars in collaboration with the British Academy with a discussion of The Woolf Institute’s report: “How We Get Along: The Diversity Study of England and Wales 2020”. The Institute’s Director of Research Dr Julian Hargreaves presented the findings as well as Professor Tariq Modood, Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, University of Bristol.

“The leadership of the civil service can change if it wants to,” says the former Permanent Secretary for the Department of Education, Jonathan Slater. The most senior civil servant at the DfE from 2016-2020 across UK government, led an online seminar for CSaP’s Policy Fellows and network for Easter Term 2022.

How have scientists contributed to UK government decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic? In CSaP's Science and Policy Podcast, Dr Rob Doubleday was joined by Julia Gog, Professor of Mathematical Biology at the University of Cambridge, and Sir John Aston, Harding Professor of Statistics in Public Life.

For CSaP's Science and Policy Podcast, the Centre's Executive Director Dr Rob Doubleday was joined by Sir Oliver Letwin, a former Cabinet Minister, Professor Melissa Leach, Director of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, and Professor Dame Sally Davies, former Chief Medical Officer for England, to discuss how science advice was used by decision-makers during the Ebola Outbreak in 2014.

London-based professor, Dr Veronika Kapsali, delivered CSaP’s final Future Leaders Fellows seminar to discuss how biology can help design materials for resource efficiency, longevity, and recovery (RELR). Dr Kapsali presented her work on an AHRC-funded initiative she leads - Bio-Inspired Textiles (BIT) - that aims to identify the potential for nature-inspired design in textile development.

The University of Cambridge's 2022 Dr Seng Tee Lee Lecture was delivered by Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard Kennedy School in the U.S. Her talk at St John's College, Cambridge, concerned how the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the nature of our current model of trust, the political nature of expert institutions, and state-level differences in public reasoning.

UKRI Future Leaders Fellow Dr. Sadie Watson led a CSaP seminar on the relationship between development-led archaeology and public benefit. Her research at the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) aims to establish project design strategies that will maximise the social value of future development-led archaeology projects.