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09/03/10 Building Our Future with Science and Engineering
CaSE has published its short election document, Building our Future with Science & Engineering, developed with our members and collaborators. This summarises the key issues emerging from the CaSE working papers. It urges the parties to develop clear and long-term policies that will enable science and engineering to address societal challenges and build a more robust economy.
Read the press release

The Science Vote
In honour of the upcoming general election, we have renamed our blog, formerly known as CaSE Notes, The Science Vote to emphasise the very real existence of a force among voters who care about science and engineering policies. The Science Vote has published its first posts from prospective parliamentary candidates from each of the main parties. We are working our way through a list of candidates with a background in science, technology, engineering or mathematics, inviting them to write for us.

09/03/10 Hilary Leevers attended the launch of the Royal Society's new report The Scientific Century, looking at the need for sustained long-term investment in growth.

08/03/10 Letter to the Leaders
CaSE published its Letter to the Leaders today, which asks them to set out their science and engineering policies covering education & skills; research funding; innovation and science and engineering in government. CaSE has sent similar letters to the main political parties in advance of previous UK, devolved and European elections. We will publish the responses from the party in advance of the General Election. The Letter was also published in The Times.

05/03/10 CaSE's election blog has published a series of new posts:
- Nick Bowes from the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (AMCE) outlines the success of their recent Annual Conference on maths education
- Diana Garnham, Chair of the Science for Careers Expert Group, talks about the group's new report examining how we can get more young people interested in a career in science
- The Royal Statistical Society's Andrew Garrett on what the three main political parties have to say about official statistics in government
- Simon Denegri, Chief Executive of the Association of Medical Research Charities, on the positive role charity organisations play among the science community

01/03/10 Council for Science Technology presents A Vision for UK Research
Nick Dusic attended the press launch of the latest Council for Science Technology report that presents the Prime Minister with A Vision for UK Research. The report argues for a long term plan of sustained investment in a broad, creative and excellent research base complemented by more strategic support downstream.
Read the report
Read Nick Dusic's New Scientist blog

24/02/10 CaSE attended the Times Higher Education debate between David Lammy MP, Minister for Higher Education, David Willetts MP and Stephen Williams MP.
Watch the debate

24/02/10 Secretaries of State need to meet with their Chief Scientific Advisers
A series of parliamentary questions asked by the Shadow Conservative Minister for Science, Adam Afriyie MP, has revealed a worrying lack of face-to-face meetings taking place between Secretaries of State and their Chief Scientific Advisers. CaSE has responded by calling on the next government to ensure that Secretaries of States have regular meetings with their Chief Scientific Adviser.Without adequate interactions, ministers will not fully consider the contribution and role of science and engineering in policymaking.
Read the blog on science and engineering advice in government
Read the Press Release

23/02/10 Meeting with Adam Afriyie MP
CaSE Director, Nick Dusic, participated in a roundtable meeting with Adam Afriyie MP, Shadow Minister for Science, to discuss Conservative Science Policy.
Read the briefing

22/02/10 CaSE met with the Royal Society

22/02/10 CaSE Working Papers
CaSE has been working with its members and other collaborators to develop a series of working papers to provide the rationale for policy work in the run up to the General Election.
Education and skills working paper
Research funding working paper
Science in government

16/02/10 Institute of Physics Election Manifesto
On the CaSE blog, Beth Taylor of the IOP talks about their election manifesto Science: An Investment in the Future, which makes the case for investment in science and technology as the basis for economic recovery. The manifesto sets out three overall priorities asking candidates to support access to high quality physics teaching for every child, funding for science that will keep the UK at the forefront of research and a fiscal and regulatory environment that fosters science-based innovation.
Read the blog

11/02/10 Response to government's principles
CaSE and Sense About Science produced a joint response to the government's consultion on its principles of scientific advice.
S Word Blog post

10/02/10 Meeting with Nick Gibb MP
CaSE met with Nick Gibb, Conservative Shadow Minister for Schools, for a productive discussion on a range of issues, including provision of triple science GCSEs and the availability of science and mathematics teachers with a degree or specialist training in their subjects.

03/02/10 Meeting with Evan Harris MP
CaSE met with Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat Science Spokesman, and one of his advisers to discuss the use of impact to allocate research funding and also the development of Liberal Democrat science policy.

03/02/10 Nick Dusic gave Evidence to the Science and Technology Committee
Nick Dusic, Director of Campaign for Science and Engineering, gave oral evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee on the impact of spending cuts on science and scientific research. He emphasised the need for stability of science funding by seeing through the 10 year framework, and the need to look at the portfolio of ways in which science is funded. Earlier in the week Gordon Brown said that the reason why the US had to put science at the heart of its economic stimulus package was that the US had not made the historically high investments made in the UK over the past decade. Dusic pointed out that increases in government science investment in the UK and US were comparable prior to 2007. Dusic also argued that the evidence base for science policy formulation needs to be improved.
Watch the session
Listen again to coverage in Today in Parliament (from 24 min until 10/02/10)

02/02/10 CSA for the Welsh Assembly
The Welsh Assembly Government today announced the appointment, by the First Minister, of Professor John Harries, as Wales' first Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA). Having a CSA in Wales is something that CaSE has long campaigned for along with a number of other organisations, most notably the Royal Society of Chemistry.

02/02/10 Roundtable at the Lords
Nick Dusic participated in a discussion meeting at the House of Lords to discuss the Principles on Scientific Advice.

28/01/10 Meeting with Lord Drayson
Nick Dusic met with Lord Drayson and others to discuss the government's Guidelines on Scientific Analysis for Policymaking consultation, including the proposed Principles on Scientific Advice.

28/01/10 Keeping Engineering on the Agenda
In a blog on the New Scientist S Word website, Professor Hugh Griffiths, chair of the CaSE executive committee, argues that while science and engineering have many issues in common, it is important that politicians do more than just pay lip-service to the latter. He commented that “Science and engineering are tightly intertwined and depend on many of the same structures and principles - as do mathematics and other related subjects - typically dealt with under ‘science policy’. But it is important to recognise that there are specific issues for each area.”
Read the blog

28/01/10 Setting a positive tone for Science and Engineering
This week’s Nature editorial urges scientists to repeatedly deliver a coherent pro-science message rather than fighting their corners against planned or anticipated cuts. It singles out CaSE for its collaborative work in the run-up to the election. As well as working behind the scenes for supportive policies for science and engineering, CaSE has organised a Cross-Party Science and Engineering Policy debate and will be writing to the party leaders asking them to set-out a positive science and engineering policy agenda. CaSE is also be building the resources available on this blog to track the relevant commitments of the different parties as well as allowing discussion of election issues that affect science and engineering.
Read the Nature editorial.
Find out what you can do

20/01/10 General Election Meeting
CaSE members and collaborators attended a meeting at the CaSE offices to share and develop their pre-election activities.

18/01/10 Nick Clegg on science
Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, today gave his first speech on science at the Royal Society, which CaSE attended. On the blog, Hilary Leevers analyses what the speech actually tells us about Liberal Democrat commitments to science and engineering in the run up to the election.
Read the CaSE blog
View a wordle of Nick Clegg's speech

13/01/10 Science and Engineering Debate
350 people attended the CaSE Science and Engineering Policy Debate between Lord Drayson (Lab), Adam Afriyie MP (Con) and Dr Evan Harris MP (Lib Dem) at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, chaired by Roger Highfield of New Scientist. They were joined by 150 people watching the debate online and a host of tweeters eager to join the discussion. Responding to questions from audience, the three speakers agreed and differed a on range of issues including research funding, education, innovation and scientific advice in government.
Read the blog
Watch the debate




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