There’s a lot of concern about impending cuts for funding science in the UK as signaled by Vince Cable’s (UK Secretary of State – Department for Business Innovation & Skills Sept, 8, 2010 speech), excerpted from Cable’s speech Science, Research and Innovation on the Dept. for Business Innovation & Skills webpage,

Over the next few weeks and months, major decisions will be made on Government spending priorities as part of a wider move to stabilise the country’s finances and rebalance the economy. They will help to define what we value as a nation and the direction in which we want to head. Investing in science and research is a critical part of that. I cannot prejudge the outcome but I know that my colleagues, including at the Treasury, value the contribution of UK science.

I have been arguing for years my concern over the way the British economy was distorted. Money borrowed for property speculation rather than productive investment and innovation. Too many top performing graduates heading straight for high finance rather than science and engineering.

It was clear to me and my colleagues that the British economy was becoming increasingly unbalanced in the short term, as the mountain of household debt built up. We were also unprepared for a long-term future where we need to earn our living in the world through high-tech, high-skills and innovation.

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There is a school of thought which says that Government commitment to science and technology is measured by how much money we spend. Money is important both for the quality and quantity. But it is an input, not an output, measure. The question I have to address is can we achieve more with less?

In deciding priorities, there is a limit to how much I can dictate the course of events. Nor do I wish to. Research priorities and technical priorities are set at arms length from Government, and through peer review. That is right. Yet the Government spends £6bn a year supporting science and research and it is right that I should speak about strategic priorities.

I feel I should start by registering a personal interest when it comes to science. I’m one of few MPs to have at least started a science degree – well, it began as natural science and ended up as economics.

My constituency, Twickenham, is one of the major centres of scientific enquiry. It contains the National Physical Laboratory, a world-leading centre; the Laboratory of the Government Chemist; and a wide variety of companies involved in science, research and innovation.

I recently discovered one accidentally as a result of a parking dispute with local residents: FT Technologies which is one of two major companies in the world making wind monitoring and airflow measurement applications, much of its production being exported to China.

And one of my constituents is inventor Trevor Bayliss, best known for inventing the wind-up radio. He constantly reminds me of the parlous status and minimal support given to inventors whose ideas so often fail to find commercial application in the UK but are used overseas.

I would add that my youngest son, Hugo, is a very theoretical quantum physicist – based in Singapore.

You could say that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. But I am familiar with the language of science and the sorts of difficulties faced by scientists, researchers and inventors.

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My preference is to ration research funding by excellence and back research teams of international quality – and screen out mediocrity – regardless of where they are and what they do.

Its is worth noting in the last RAE 54 per cent of submitted work was defined as world class and that is the area where funding should be concentrated.

Even a rationing of this kind presents problems. How do we allow room for new, unknown but bright people? How do we reduce, not increase, the time spent on applying for funding in a more competitive market?

There is a separate but critically important question of how we maximise the contribution of Government supported research to wealth creation.

I support, of course, top class “blue skies” research, but there is no justification for taxpayers money being used to support research which is neither commercially useful nor theoretically outstanding. [emphasis mine]

As I said earlier, it would be wrong to measure this in monetary terms alone. [emphasis mine] There are wider questions, regarding the UK’s openness as a society and its attractiveness as a destination for the brightest scientists, researchers and engineers from all over the world.

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The Hauser review suggested a sensible approach – establishing a network of Technology and Innovation Centres, based on international models such as the Fraunhofer Institutes in Germany. Both science minister David Willetts and I agree that it is a good way forward, and I am looking closely at the recommendations in the review and the value of investing in these in the context of the Spending Review.

But we should not simply be copying overseas models. The key point is that what works are business driven high technology clusters with academic links. [emphasis mine] We already have several: such as the Research Council campus at Harwell, and others such as Cambridge and potentially St Pancras – and we are working at how to develop this model further.

Despite Cable’s protests  to the contrary and his attempts to ally himself with the scientific community, the focus here is on the bottom line and how science should be made to contribute.  The reference to ‘blue skies research’ is notable as a way of diminishing it while simultaneously claiming its importance. Plus, it’s not just any ‘blue skies’ research, it must be ‘top class’. Unfortunately history, including science history, is littered with stories about theoretical work that was so far ahead of its time that it was dismissed by contemporaries.

I do understand that the UK’s economy is seriously troubled at this time, hard decisions will have to be made, and that scientists will not be happy with any cuts so I can appreciate why Cable has tried to present himself as ‘almost’ a scientist and mention his ‘support’ of blue skies research. He had to know that no matter how he phrased things there’d be some sort of response from the UK’s scientific community, From Jennifer Rohn’s guest post for The Lay Scientist (Guardian Blog),

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When you deal with science on a daily basis, it is difficult to take its fruits for granted. Science gives most people the luxury to forget, at least for a while, that the world can be a brutal and dangerous place. On a planet fraught with dwindling resources, burgeoning population, emerging disease and uncertain climate, we abandon science at our peril.

It is with this backdrop that a new chapter in my life began: Science Is Vital, a grassroots campaign to support UK research. I’d like to tell you that I thought long and hard about it, but the truth is that it was an almost instantaneous reaction: I read Vince Cable’s now infamous speech signalling crippling cuts to science funding, dashed off an angry blog post, and proposed marching in the streets on Twitter all in the space of about 15 minutes.

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Science is vital. And it’s not just scientists who think so: our petition, which has more than ten thousand contributors and rising, has been signed by a wonderfully diverse array of people, from artists, social workers and builders to ministers, legal secretaries, and fire fighters, even a self-professed “house hubby”. Our campaign, in partnership with the Campaign for Science and Engineering, has been endorsed by groups such as the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK and many scientific societies.

If you agree, please sign our petition, write to your MP , consider joining us on our Parliamentary Lobby on Tuesday 12 October, and above all, come to our rally this Saturday 9 October in central London – we’re expecting thousands.

Think of it: scientists and their supporters, massing in the streets! We’d like as many people as possible visibly displaying their pride in science, whether it is by wearing their white coat, T-shirts with their favorite scientific image or wielding scientific objects and placards.

As a Canadian, I’m fascinated that the scientific community in the UK is organizing a public rally. When Canada’s Conservative government effectively cut scientific funding in a budget a few years ago, the Canadian science community responded  months later with a letter carrying 2000 signatures. A blog evolved from that letter, Don’t leave Canada behind which is now run by Rob Annan. I believe that was the sum total of the public grassroots organizing in the face of a perceived crisis.

I realize that Canadian geography and population density do not lend themselves to centrally located or even regionally located public rallies. Distance and population numbers are always a problem.Although, I have to admit that I sometimes think that we use these problems as excuses for doing very little at all.

I hope that the folks in the UK are able to find a means of meaningful dialogue in the face of some very difficult circumstances. As for the Canadian scientific community, I imagine they are watching and waiting as they ponder future moves by the Canadian government (after all, there is a 2011 budget to look forward to).