SCIENCE DONS PROTEST TOO MUCH

Terence Kealey challenges

the idea that Britain should spend far more on research

'BRITAIN'S culture is in crisis,' Professor Denis Noble wrote the other day in the Independent. It was a most alarming piece. We were told that the brain drain of talent from Britain to America had now reached the point where not only one quarter of all newly elected FRS's lived abroad, but that even distinguished practitioners within the humanities such as Bernard Williams and Richard Wollheim were leaving. We were informed that 'half of all British university posts in engineering or technology are proving difficult or impossi- ble to fill', and that the crisis is now so deep that when Noble asks his 'colleagues in almost every discipline . . . the talk is less about how to save the situation, but whether it is possible to do so'. Professor Noble estimates that we have only one year or two in which to save British science from irrevocable destruction. Professor Noble's is not a lone voice Crying in the wilderness. He articulates, through his spokesmanship of the pressure group Save British Science, the academic consensus. The dons and scientists of Britain are angry. They have refused Mrs Thatcher an honorary Oxford degree, the Professional journals rehearse their gnev- auces and their complaints have been widely broadcast. No major newspaper, television channel or radio network has 11. ot, within the last few weeks, run an in-depth exposé of the crisis in British university and science funding. Even the House of Lords (Select Committee Re- Port, 19 February 1987) has argued that a revival in British industry will not occur unless the Government spends more O n the universities and their science.

The 'opinion-formers' of the nation have Clearly been persuaded of the importance of their case. It seems barely possible that the great British liberal consensus might be wrong on this issue. After all, is it not obvious that the more money that is spent on basic science, the better British industry Will be served?

Well is it? Is the Government's philistin- ism and meanness impeding the revival of our industrial base? Let us consider first the charge that British science is on the verge of extinction. Curiously, it can be shown that British science remains startlingly successful. All scientific work is based on previously published papers, and so the value of any particular paper can be simply judged by the number of times that paper is subse- quently referred to in later work. For example, Alexander Fleming's paper on penicillin has been cited as a reference in later work rather more often than James Handleson's paper on the distribution of the yellow-billed tit in Eastern Java. In the 8 December 1986 issue of the science journal Current Contents, Dr Eugene Gar- field listed the 100 most cited papers published in the life sciences in 1984 and identified their national origins. The USA came top with 79 papers, the UK second with 13, Canada third with six, France and Switzerland tied fourth with five papers each, Australia and Japan tied sixth at four papers each, and various other countries including West Germany managed the odd paper (the sum totalled a little more than 100, because some papers came from more than one country).

Second is not a bad position for a culture in crisis. Perhaps, though, we are about to plummet down the international league table as a consequence of Government cuts. So let us ask the question: how much does Britain spend on research?

The 15 January issue of Nature, the international science magazine, carries an article by David Swinbanks in which he compares the total national development and research budgets of the major indus- trialised countries. As percentages of gross national products, the figures are: Soviet Union 3.73, West Germany 2.84, Japan 2.77, USA 2.72, Britain 2.18 and France 2.10. However, the British figures alone in that set do not incorporate expenditure on the humanities and the social sciences, which on a Swinbanksian assumption will boost the amount by approximately 0.2 to 2.38 per cent. This is not a dishonourable position for a small offshore island.

However, the crux of the Save British Science argument is that industrial re- growth is dependent on basic science, i.e., industry needs a healthy university science sector if it is to thrive. Is this true?

Much of the evidence runs all the other way. Indeed, one might go further. Basic science can only thrive if industry is heal- thy, but industry itself does not need basic science. Consider the facts: since the turn of the century, British science has consis- tently been the best in the world as determined by the per capita distribution of Nobel Prizes. Since their inception in 1901, 363 Nobel Prizes have been awarded in science, and their national allocation has been: USA 132, UK 62, Germany 50, France 22, etc. Since 1901, our GNP per capita has collapsed from being the world's highest to its current miserable position.

Furthermore, and most tellingly, our most successful industrial competitors such as Japan and France experienced their most spectacular rates of growth during the very years they spent least on basic uni- versity science. Strangely, we in Britain are finally enjoying a period of substantial industrial regrowth at the particular mo- ment Save British Science is attacking the Government for starving the universities.

Historically, the two enterprises, the pursuit of pure science and industrial growth, have often been quite separate. The first two great technological revolu- tions, the agricultural and industrial re- volutions of the 18th and 19th centuries, occurred at a time when our universities were notoriously moribund. The im- provers, ironmasters and engineers, who made Britain great, performed their own scientific experiments. They were develop- ers. As products of an age of reason they took the fruits of 17th-century thought and exploited them. This characteristic of suc- cessful technological enterprises appears to hold today. Those companies that are determined on industrial growth will de- velop their own science and make it work for them. There is no historically proven case of a free-floating national pure science enterprise producing, as a direct conse- quence, national wealth.

What we need is an organisation entitled Save British Development. It is our in- effectual development of pure science into commercially useful applications that has crippled our industries. Our competitors understood this a long time ago. Tragic- ally, one large area of our national research budget which is directly applied, the de- fence allocation, has become a burden and not a strength. Industrially successful na- tions such as France or the USA can make their arms industries profitable. We can- not.

So, the evidence is that industrial growth is not basic-science-led, but industrially-led. That being so, can invest- ment in pure science be justified, or should we do as the Japanese and others, and pirate other peoples'? There is a pragmatic case for pure science. A thriving university sector will, pan i passu, train industrially- orientated scientists; the borderline be- tween pure and applied science is forever shifting; there are areas of our national life which have proved shrewd consumers of basic science — medical practice, the pharmaceutical industry, ICI. The ultimate argument, however, is spiritual. For better or for worse, we can no longer perceive of ourselves as civilised unless we engage in research. Science has proved to be one of the most beautiful expressions of human- ity, and it is treasured. Newton and Darwin changed the way we look at the world.

That being so, are the institutions to which we have entrusted our science, the universities, worthy? The brain drain might indicate that they are in need of reform. Over the last decade, several hundred, if not thousand, scientists have emigrated to America. Only this week, Professor Blakemore of Oxford, an expert on the physiology of mammalian vision, has threatened to leave for California, and to invite his team of 20 assistants to join him there. Whether or not this influx of pure scientists benefits America is not immediately obvious. Perhaps America is making the same mistake as we have made in investing in basic science rather than in productive industry. A Spectator article by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (21 February 1987) reveals that, since 1980, American productive industry has been collapsing in the face of foreign imports. This collapse has included precisely those hi-tech indus- tries that the scientists were meant to be invigorating. Foreign sales in machine tools have risen from 27 per cent to 45 per cent and in computers (computers!) from seven per cent to 25 per cent.

Nonetheless, Save British Science has condemned our Government's parsimony _for the drain. But, as we have already seen, the British science budget is internationally comparable. Could the responsibility lie elsewhere? Perhaps with the universities?

The clue to this lies in the first sentence of an article Owen Hickey wrote on the brain drain in the Times on 9 January. 'There is an international market in academic talent, and a good thing too for humane scholarship and scientific re- search.' This might appear to be an unex- ceptionable, even obvious statement, but it is not, and, unfortunately, Hickey does not develop it. The point is that this market is, in practice, largely an American one, and so the statement could be amended to read: 'There is an American market in academic talent, and a good thing too for American humane scholarship and scien- tific research.' A comparable statement in Britain would read: 'There is no British market in academic talent, and it shows.'

Consider the facts. Because there is a free market in American academic talent, successful scientists can be attracted to the institutions which offer them the highest salaries. In Britain, all scientists are paid the same salary, which is determined solely by age and length of service. (British professors can negotiate their salaries with their universities, but only within such narrow bands as to render such negotia- tions virtually meaningless).

In America, academics who fail to satisfy their employer are dismissed. This liber- ates resources for young successful scien- tists. In Britain academics have tenure. Once appointed to their job, generally in their late 20s or early 30s, they remain in the post for life. However lazy, incompe- tent or hopeless they may turn out to be,and many are awful, they will stay on until they collect their index-linked pen- sions. So it is that our successful scientists are deprived of the means of doing their job properly because of the upkeep of the hundreds, if not thousands, of mediocre and indolent academics to whom the Brit- ish university system is committed.

In America, academics do get tenure, although at a later and more proven stage than their British counterparts, but their tenure is always made dependent on con- tinued productivity. A Briton would not recognise this as tenure at all.

The American free market extends to 'Bail granted.' entire disciplines. It is thus possible to swing resources decisively between depart- ments so as to provide exceptional indi- viduals with exceptional facilities. In Brit- ain this freedom simply does not obtain.. All these restrictions on a free market in Britain are the creations of academics themselves. They run their own universi- ties, which are autonomous institutions, for their own comfort, and they treasure tenure amongst their most precious com- forts. In this the academics are not unique — Arthur Scargill was aiming for nothing less for the British coal industry.

But, while our universities are auton- omous, they are no longer independent. The extent to which they have betrayed their traditions is not generally realised. For centuries, in contradistinction to the European dirigiste model, our universities maintained their independence from the state, and this was widely recognised as a glory of British culture. The Americans have remained true to this inheritance, and the majority of their universities, including the best ones, are private institutions. Over the last 50 years, however, the British have been selling out, and our universities are now pensioners of the state. Tens of thousands of our dons have been happily promised tenure by universities whose only resource is the University Grants Commit- tee. As a consequence, our academics are civil servants. An American professor is an independent professional gentleman.

The Government has, over the last few years, been trying to use its financial power over the universities to impose reform. Tenure can no longer be proffered quite so cavalierly, industry is now courted more assiduously. But entrenched privilege will not be easily gainsaid. So, for example, the Oxford University Mobility Incentive Scheme, which seeks to promote voluntary retirement, ends up paying generous gol- den handshakes to those scientists who are sufficiently distinguished to find jobs in America. Meanwhile, the dons that stay behind ache for Mrs Thatcher to lose the next general election, so that they can relax in the oodles of money the other three parties have promised to pour into tertiary education.

Is there any reason why a university senior common room should receive better treatment than a County Durham pit vil- lage? The one resembles the other. The inhabitants have the same faith in the perfection of their institutions, the same inbred vision, enjoy the same querulous dependence on the state, and make the same demands for blanket funding. There is the same bewildered sense of beleaguer- ment and the same camouflage of self- interest with the public good — and there is the same invocation of deprivation where an outsider might see only privilege.

Terence Kealey is a Wellcome Senior Re- search Fellow in Clinical Science at the University of Oxford