Tag Archives: Lord Drayson

Nature opines on lacking Canadian science policy; UK Science Ministry?

4 Replies

Why is the UK so interested in Canada? Well, maybe it’s not but this morning  it sure seems like it. On the heels of The Economist’s editorial last week about Canada’s prorogued Parliament (mentioned by me here), the prestigious UK science journal, Nature has published an editorial about Canadian science policy. Rob Annan at Don’t leave Canada behind has posted eloquently about the editorial here. The editorial itself can be read here. (I’m not sure what the journal’s policy is with regard to free access. Some journals give free access for a day or two after publication while others give access to editorials but not articles and so on …)

The points in the Nature editorial are well made. From the editorial,

More generally, Canada has no group comparable to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the United States for focusing attention on science policy. Lobbying of the government bodies that have power over science is fragmented. And Canada has nothing comparable to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is headed by a science adviser who reports directly to the US president. Canada did have a science adviser to the prime minister during 2004–08, but he was largely sidelined before the position was terminated. (There is currently only a ‘minister of state’ for science and technology, a junior post that lies within the industry ministry.) The council that replaced the science adviser is entirely reactive to government queries, and produces reports that traditionally are not made public.

It’s quite true that we don’t have the institutional structures that they mention (AAAS, Office of Science and Technology Policy, etc.) although, as they point out, we did have the now eradicated science adviser position. Canada’s Ministry of State for Science and Technology is indeed a junior ministry and I agree that it should be a more substantive ministry. In any event, I’m very happy to see some international attention paid to Canadian science and some of its strengths (they mention our academic science) and weaknesses.

Interestingly the UK has a Minister for Science and Innovation (jointly with Ministry of Defence)  but his (Lord Drayson’s) portfolio is part of their Department of Business, Innovation and Skills. In fact there are many ministers in this department as you can see here. There does appear to be a lead minister for the department (Lord Mandelson) but I wish they had an organizational and/or reporting structure diagram to clarify how this enormous department with all its ministers functions. Given that the UK science ministry does not exist and that the minister of science and innovation (intriguingly also associated with the Ministry of Defence) could be described as having a junior portfolio similar to our minister of state for science and technology, I’m wondering if Nature will editorialize about this situation from a global perspective. For example, is there a move to subsume science portfolios in other ministries or departments or are they being gradually promoted?

As for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the US, the current adviser for the Obama administration has a science background (is a scientist in fact) but I don’t believe that’s a requirement of the position. It is a political appointment and a president with majority support in congress (or possibly the senate or both) could appoint whomever (s)he chooses.

Getting back to the editorial, Canada does need a science policy and there are many ways to go about this as they have in other countries. There is no single solution and no magic bullet (remember? that was supposed to cure all cancers). This will take focused and continuous (i.e. forever) effort.

I expect I will continue this commentary tomorrow.

Science’s exquisite corpse and other interesting science communication developments

2 Replies

The ‘exquisite corpse’ is a game that surrealists started playing in the earlyish part of the 20th century, according to the wikipedia essay here. I first came across the game in a poetry context. I was part of an online poetry organization and someone suggested (as I recall) that we start an exquisite corpse project on our website. Nothing much of came of it but I’ve always found the phrase quite intriguing. The idea is that a group of people play with words or images individually then put the pieces together to construct a final work.

Andrew Maynard’s 2020 Science blog has been featuring an art/science exquisite corpse project by Tim Jones. Billed as an experiment in science engagement, Jones and his colleagues (at the Imperial College) have created videos of two  members of the public, a science communicator, and a scientist talking about a drawing they’ve each created that expresses what they each think is important abou science.  What you’ll see are the interviews, the pictures that the people drew, and an exquisite corpse of science, if you go here.

Tim Jones has now invited more people to participate for the biggest art/science project in history (maybe) to create a bigger exquisite corpse of science. If you’re interested go here to Tim Jones’s site or you can read about it here at 2020 Science.

I came across a way for scientists to publish workflows and experiment plans  at myExperiment.

BBC4 has been conducting an experiment of their own, visualising radio. In this case, it’s a science show that’s cast over the internet. They’ve blogged about the project here.

All of this makes me think back to the interview that Kay O’Halloran (July 3, 6, and 7, 2009 postings) gave me on multimodal discourse analysis and Andrew Maynard’s bubble charts (June 24 and 29, 2009). It’s exciting to explore these new and rediscovered techniques and to think about how we perceive the information being conveyed to us.

One last bit, there’s been an announcement from Lord Drayson, UK’s Science and Innovation Minister and Chair of Ministerial Group on Nanotechnologies that the government is seeking advice for a national nanotechnology strategy. From the announcement on Nanowerks News,

Industry, academia and consumer groups were invited to use a new website to help develop the strategy, building on and consolidating the existing research and consultations that have already taken place. The website will gather views on core issues including research, regulation, innovation and commercialisation, measurement and standards and information as well as on the anticipated impact of nanotechnologies on a wide range of sectors. The aim of the strategy is to describe the actions necessary to ensure that the UK obtains maximum economic, environmental and societal benefit from nanotechnologies while keeping the risks properly managed.

The rest of the announcement is  here and the project website is here.  (NOTE: Consumer groups will have their own website although members of the public are welcome the new website is really intended for academia, industry, and NGOs.)

Happy weekend!

UK government minister twitters about science; science festival in Canada, and open source synthetic biology

1 Reply

Last week, June 10, 2009. Nature’s Richard van Noorden posted a news piece about changes for the UK government’s science portfolio. (The article itself is behind a paywall but if you can access it, it’s here.)

Business department expands its remit as government department is scrapped.

It’s a little confusing as I’ve found some comments on Andrew Maynard’s 2020 Science blog which indicate that Lord Drayson, the UK Minister of Defence Procurement will now also have responsibility for science. I’m not sure how this all fits together but what it makes quite interesting to me is that Lord Drayson recently discussed issues about the merger with concerned individuals on Twitter. If you want to see some comments about and a transcript of the Twitter convo, go here to the I’m A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here blog. (Thanks Andrew, for leading me to ‘I’m A Scientist’.)

I found it quite unexpected that the minister would engage directly with citizens and quite refreshing in comparison to our situation here in Canada where our Prime Minister and his ministers seem to insulate themselves from direct and unmediated (no communication flacks managing a ‘spontaneous’ event) contact with the people they are elected to represent.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (actually it’s a spinoff called, Synthetic Biology Project)  sent a notice about their Synthetic Biology event coming up on Wednesday, June 17, 2009, which I announced here a few weeks ago. From the invitation,


When
Wednesday, June 17, 2009, 12:30-1:30 PM (light lunch available at 12 noon) (NOTE: 9:30 – 10:30 am PT)

Who
Arti K. Rai, Elvin R. Latty Professor of Law, Duke Law School
Mark Bünger, Director of Research, Lux Research
Pat Mooney, Executive Director, ETC Group
David Rejeski, Moderator, Director, Synthetic Biology Project

Where

5th Floor Conference Room, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

If you’re planning to attend you can RSVP here or you can watch the webcast live or later at your leisure. I find it interesting that a representative from the ETC group will be there as they are fierce critics of many emerging technologies. I’m glad to see that as the organization provides valuable information inside their research papers although some of their communication can by hyperbolic.

I’m pretty sure the folks at the Perimeter Institute are not stealing ideas from this blog but following on last Friday’s (June 12, 2009) post where I mentioned a science festival in New York, they’ve announced a science festival, Quantum to Cosmos: Ideas for the Future. It will be held in October 15 – 25, 2009 for 10 days in an around Waterloo, Ontario and will commemorate the institute’s 10 anniversary.  You can get more details here on the festival website or you can see the media release here.