So, farewell Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). We hardly knew ye. The department that was set up to manage UK science just three years ago by then prime minister Rishi Sunak has been disbanded by incoming prime minister Andy Burnham. It seems the science portfolio’s peripatetic wanderings in Whitehall must continue.
This latest shake-up of science policy oversight in the UK has not been entirely welcome news for scientists and research leaders. The closure of DSIT and subsequent shuffling of science into the business department will have a number of knock-on effects. Chief among those for proponents of science is the loss of a seat at the top table. When UK science existed within its own department, it had its own secretary of state who could make the case for science within the cabinet, justifying calls for increased funding. Science will now find itself vying for attention against many other competing claims in a department whose portfolio includes business, energy and industrial strategy. Some of these other sectors can make a much more direct link to the economy; they bring in more money for the Treasury and, consequently, have powerful lobbies. Science could find its voice gets drowned out in this new department.
UK science has also lost Patrick Vallance as science minister, who has left government for ‘personal reasons’. While Vallance only served in this role for two years, in a short time he made many friends in the scientific establishment and was seen as a competent and hardworking advocate for research. As a former head of R&D at UK pharma giant GSK he got science, understood how the country’s research system worked and had the confidence of scientific leaders. Equally, Vallance’s prominent role as chief scientific adviser during the Covid-19 pandemic meant he was broadcast nightly to millions and seen standing alongside the prime minister. This gave him a certain amount of gravitas that was respected by politicians too, and makes his loss all the more likely to be felt keenly by UK science.
Science has posed something of a conundrum for UK government in the recent past, with successive administrations changing their minds over where it should live, and with whom. In 2007, a long period of stability for science ended when the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was closed – the science brief had been held there for over 30 years. After the DTI was shuttered science was moved to the newly created Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills – a pairing that seemed to make sense. However, this only lasted for two years before science once more found itself teaming up with business in the new Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (DBIS). When DBIS was disbanded in 2016, science remained with business in the new Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, before eventually being awarded the status of its own department in Sunak’s DSIT. Science is now back with business in the Department of Business, Innovation, Science and Trade. In just the past decade, science has seen seven ministers and three secretaries of state come and go.
At a time when cuts are being made to some of the country’s biggest scientific infrastructure projects and universities find themselves struggling to keep chemistry departments open concerns over where science sits in government may seem trivial. However, it matters a great deal because, like many other sectors, science needs stability to succeed – being batted from pillar to post simply adds to the uncertainty facing the sector. As a recent report from the RSC shows, chemistry alone makes a £60.5 billion contribution to the UK economy across a range industries and sectors. Sustained support and infrastructure are needed to build the skills pipeline that will enable this economic contribution to grow. Forming a cross-party consensus on where science belongs – with business, a department of its own or somewhere else – would be a way to end this game of musical chairs. And this is feasible. One of the most successful examples of cross-party agreement in science is the Haldane principle – governments fund science, but scientists decide how the money is spent. Securing an agreement on science’s place would give it the backing it needs to realise its potential.
