30/11/05 Enthusing schoolchildren
CaSE today urged more scientists and engineers to do more to enthuse children about science. Speaking about What would te world be like without science? at a conference for GCSE students in South East Essex College in Southend, the Director of CaSE pointed out that not only would students be without modern technology if there was no science, there would also be no jobs and no outlet for their natural curiosity about the world. "Most of the GCSE students know they are not going to be scientists," said Peter Cotgreave, "but they also know that to live their lives the way they want, they cannot ignore science and technology."

29/11/05 Rosemary Davies attended the Battle of Ideas

26/11/05 Rosemary Davies attended the Education and Skills Select Committee's evidence session with Professor Drummond Bone, President of Universities UK, and Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe, Chief Executive of Universities UK

24/11/05 Peter Cotgreave attended a meeting of the Parliamentary Affairs Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry

21/11/05 Chief Scientific Adviser
The Government's Chief Scientific Adviser today gave CaSE's Annual Distinguished Lecture. Demonstrating the huge variety of scientific areas with which politicians now how to deal, Sir David King covered everything from the state of science teaching to the case for nuclear power. Interviewed for BBC 1's News at 10 about his lecture, Sir David reiterated his view that we need 'every scientific tool in the bag' to address policy issues. A founder member of CaSE, Sir David said that, by working in government, he had become a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, but that he was glad he had managed to maintain a "good poacher-gamekeeper relationship" with CaSE.

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21/11/05 Physics teachers
CaSE today called on the Government to take urgent action to reverse the decline in physics teachers. Speaking on BBC Radio 5Live, the Director of CaSE said "one of the things we need to do quite frankly is just pay more for physics and maths teachers. We've got to pay more to get the right people in. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have said several times they want Britain to be the best place in the world for science. If they really mean that, they'll start to do some these things.

21/11/05 Executive Committee meeting at Tavistock Square.

16/11/05 Peter Cotgreave attended the launch of the Biosciences Federation's Science Policy Priorities document in the House of Commons

15/11/05 Peter Cotgreave and Caroline Holland met with Tony Bourne, Chief Executive of the British Medical Association

15/11/05 Rosemary Davies attended the Gabbitas-Skinner seminar, "University- what's it worth?"

14/11/05 Peter Cotgreave attended the launch on the BBC's new programme, Life in the Undergrowth

11/11/05 R&D tax credits
CaSE today called on the Bank of England to commission a study to settle the ongoing debate about levels of R&D in the UK. In a letter to the Financial Times, CaSE says the independent bank must try to estimate the right level of R&D for a successful British economy, cutting through the constant rhetoric that more is always better. CaSE also points out that since industrial research has fallen following new tax credits designed to stimulate more R&D, we need a much clearer understanding of why many companies see the UK as a relatively poor option for their scientific activities.

The substative text of the letter is given below:
While Jonathan Guthrie is right that small and medium-sized companies are harmed by arbitrariness and bureaucratic delay in the administration of tax credits for research and development (FT, November 9), there is a more general point about their effectiveness.
Despite the introduction of the credits, which have so far cost the taxpayer about £1.3bn in lost revenue, levels of industrial R&D in the UK have fallen over the past two years, while they have been rising steeply overseas. This is true not just in emerging economies like China, but also in mature ones like the USA, where R&D grew by 7 per cent last year, compared to a fall of 0.5 per cent in the UK (FT, October 24).
Ministers, experts and commentators have largely agreed for at least a decade that Britain needs more R&D. But the economy is failing to deliver that increase, at least in some industrial sectors. So a more sophisticated policy is clearly needed.
First, the Bank of England should commission a rigorous study to quantify within broad limits the most appropriate level of R&D for a successful British economy. It is by no means obvious that more R&D is necessarily always better; despite our failure to invest in R&D at the level of Japan, Germany and other nations, the UK remains a successful nation.
Second, we need a much better understanding of why firms in the UK are not ramping up their levels of R&D. The fiscal regime is important, but it cannot be the whole answer, or tax credits would have been followed by increases not decreases. Other candidate factors include the supply of people with the right skills, the influence of short-termism in the powerful City of London, and the potentially high costs of undertaking collaborative research with universities.

10/11/05 Science Minister and Treasury
CaSE was today delighted to co-host a discussion with the Science Minister on investing in innovation. At a major conference, CaSE set out three opportunities for British science and three challenges. The opportunities were: the growing technological markets opened up in China, India and elsewhere; the publics growing interest in, and appreciation of the importance of, science; and rapidly increasing public investment in research. The challenges were: encouraging more young people into science; stimulating more research and development in private industry; and adequately funding the nation's expectations for science in universities. As well as Science Minister Lord Sainsbury of Turville, the discussions included Caroline Barr, Head of Science ad Innovation at the Treasury, Phil Willis MP, Chair of the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee, and Dr Ian Gibson MP, an outspoken champion for science in Parliament and a member of CaSE's Advisory Council.

09/11/05 Higher Education Minister
CaSE today took part in a discussion with the Higher Education Minister, Bill Rammell MP, on the subject "What are universities for?" "Universities generate new knowledge and disseminate it," said Peter Cotgreave, Director of CaSE, after the meeting, "but increasingly they are expected to do different kinds of research and to disseminate it to a wider range of students and other groups, such as local businesses. What is not yet clear is who is going to pay for all of this. The state has other priorities, such as secondary schools, and student fees are capped, so there's no room for movement there. As we point out in an article today, industry is being priced out of some university activities, so it's by no means clear that extra money is going to come from there. We need a serious discussion about who is going to pay for all these new roles that universities are being given".

09/11/05 Industrial costs of university collaboration
CaSE today called on the Government to examine the ways in which new funding mechanisms impact on the costs to industry of performing collaborative research with universities. In an article in Research Fortnight, CaSE points out that while the new system of Full Economic Costs is excellent for putting publicly-funded research on an sustainable footing, it is driving up the costs for industry. "The UKhad better work out a way to prevent UK universities being priced out of the industrial research market," says the article.

07/11/05 Caroline Holland and Ivan Yates met with Lord Broers, President of the Royal Academy of Engineering

02/11/05 Science in Scotland
CaSE was today delighted to be one of the organisations that joined in the Science & the Parliament event in Edinburgh. "We have worked hard to ensure that the Scottish Parliament takes science seriously," said Dr Peter Cotgreave, Director of CaSE, "and it was good to interact with Nicol Stephen, the Science Minister, and other parliamentarians, to stress that case for science." CaSE was one of eight scientific organisations that worked in association with the Royal Society of Chemistry on the event

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2-3/11/05 Rosemary Davies attended NESTA Futurelab's Science and Society Conference

1/11/05 Rosemary Davies attended a meeting with Sally Smith and Veronica Maddison from the Department for Education & Skills about their Science Technology Engineering and Medicine Cross-Cutting Programme.