At least they have Asterix and Obelix

That'll be news to the French...

Heh. I was actually thinking of Goscinny and Uderzo, being the creators of our Gallic heroes.

Response to rpgrauniard, 21 August 2012 9:57am

Heh. In that case, you're still wrong.

Illuminating indeed. As one who is suffering the death by a thousand cuts of the "generous" settlement for science, these figures give the lie to what Willetts and Cable have been spouting. We'll muddle on as we always have. How we still maintain second position behind the US in publication output is beyond me, it can't last much longer.

Response to Arkleseizure, 21 August 2012 11:10am

The company that published Asterix was Belgian. The authors are French.

Response to Gareth100, 21 August 2012 11:11am

(Well that gives the lie to the 'famous Belgians' joke then)

Gareth100, I think that Willetts is quite keen to get more money for science funding. He is in a bit of a battle with his paymasters though. Somehow this myth that we can do more with less needs busting, as does the impression that science can be cut because nobody will mind. What really irks is the small amount of money in the science budget compared with everything else: even huge science funding cuts won't make a bloody bit of difference to the debt, but they will destroy science and any chance of a long-term recovery.

It will all come to a crunch when this current generation of undergraduates balk at the idea of a postdoctoral research career. After 8-9 years at university to start on a year to year contract, with the expectation to move from location to location on a salary that amounts to little more a job seekers allowance. This is nothing new but now it comes with the added bonus a mortgage size student loan, and little chance of ever buying a home on a research salary.
We expect our most talent people to swallow this, while at the same time cutting funding further to basic research.

For Famous Belgian cartoon reference see: Herge's (AKA Georges Remi) adventures of Tintin.

Other countries get more investment in R&D from the private sector because they have larger manufacturing sectors. HMG says it want the manufacturing sector to expand but that requires R&D to generate patents. To get more R&D investment out of the private sector, UK manufacturing must expand. So if the government wants more manufacturing it needs to fund more R&D. Instead the government wants the manufacturing sector to expand whilst cutting R&D funding.
This leaves us with a question: Is the government full of morons or are they just trying to treat the rest of us as morons?

Response to Mattt2, 21 August 2012 1:18pm

Yup.

Had an interesting chat with a finance-type guy at the Winchester Science Festival a few weeks back. Essentially investors--who by definition demand a return--won't back anything that doesn't have infrastructure or confidence. The government has to build infrastructure, demonstrating commitment/confidence. Even if the manufacturing sector were to magically expand, industry won't increase investment in R&D when it sees the government cutting back.

It doesn't look like rocket science to me. Yes, I know the country's in debt and it's probably a good thing to reduce interest payments, but cutting out the heart of the economy isn't going to make things better.

We spend 8.4bn on overseas aid

Indeed; we give the equivalent of ~5% of our current science budget each year specifically to India, who just announced plans for a ~50 million-quid Mars orbiter.

(Incidentally, India currently spends ~0.9% of GDP on R&D, compared with the UK's 1.77%. But more than half of India's R&D comes from government-funded science, which therefore has a considerably higher %GDP than the UK government's measly investment of 0.17%).

Excellent article and I just hope it is read by someone who can do something about the situation.

I think it's incredibly worrying that there are more comments about Asterix and Belgians than there are about the main issue of science funding.

Response to alexd2008, 21 August 2012 1:39pm

Interesting figures--thanks!

Response to Gareth100, 21 August 2012 11:11am

Mainly because we are established in the publishing world and have probably the second highest number of referree's and journal editors.

Also I know it probably doesn't have much of an effect but I am guessing the English language being the most commonly might even come into a bit. Saying that though we do still manage to have high impact regardless of the number of papers.

I've been posting those very same stats on here for the last god-knows-how-long.

Finally, it has occurred to someone on the Guardian team that research funding is an important topic.

I don't know how the R&D from industry is calculated, but little of it I suspect from my own experience makes its way to universities.

Response to emptyCan, 21 August 2012 12:23pm

It will all come to a crunch when this current generation of undergraduates balk at the idea of a postdoctoral research career.

Absolutely. If you look at how the new student loan scheme operates (interest charged on a sliding scale at between annual RPI and RPI plus 3% depending on income over 21k), it's not too good for the postdoc / academic career path.

Under the *new* interest arrangements for student loans, anything that delays the start of repayments has a rather significant impact on the "trajectory" of repayments vs compound interest growth.

Postdocs will delay starting student loan repayments for at least 4 years (as repayments don't start until salary is more than 21k) while completing their PhDs. Then, if one assumes a 29k standard postdoc starting salary (the current recommended level for RCUK research grants), and salary increase in an academic career at inflation plus 2% each year, then a postdoc-to-academic-scientist career person will pay ~75k for a standard 43.5k undergrad student loan (3 x 9k fees plus 3 x 5.5k maintenance), before hitting the 30-year deadline for those loans (and assuming their repayments are at the standard 9% of gross salary above 21k, with a predicted 1% increase in that repayment threshold each year).

Anyway, over that person's 25 years of work from postdoc onwards, that's around 5% of their gross income spent on repaying their student loan. That's *double* the % of total income that someone starting immediately as a graduate on a 25k salary will pay for the same loan, assuming they have the same rate of salary increase as above.

The devil is in the details in the new student loan interest arrangements, and those details don't look too favourable for science careers, from some initial spreadsheet calculations at least. A freeze or deferment of student loan interest during PhD study could help.

Response to FumerTue, 21 August 2012 2:11pm

Thanks for your comment, FumerTue. I'm glad someone else has noticed these numbers--the more the better!

To be picky though, I wouldn't describe myself as on the Guardian team. I'm a founding member of Science is Vital, which was formed in response to the fears surrounding the Comprehensive Spending Review of 2010. Even though I'm happy to be able to post here as well as my usual haunts, I don't really write much about science funding--Jenny Rohn and Stephen Curry tend to be all over that from the Occam's Typewriter point of view. But you know, it's important so I'm pleased when I find other people talking about it.

If you want to contribute to the last ditch defence of UK science, do feel free to get involved with Science is Vital (scienceisvital.org.uk) and/or CASE, the Campaign for Science and Engineering.

Interesting point about money from industry finding its way to universities. Do you think it's important that it does, rather than industry funding its own R&D?

I share the sentiment behind the article entirely but there are some important things we need to consider when looking at the kind of figures used in this article. In particular, "R&D" is not equivalent to science. And science is not just basic research.

Comparative R&D intensity figures are often used by the science lobby to imply that the UK does not spend "enough" (and should therefore spend more) on basic research. Putting aside how we would ever know how much "enough" was, the relative shortfall in UK spending on R&D (gross R&D figures include public and private investments) comes on the applied/technology side, both public and private. UK govt and UK firms spend proportionately less than some of these other countries' governments and firms do on applied R&D and technological development.

In fact the UK spend on basic research is high by international standards and we do have good reason to believe that the UK research system, like the US one, is particularly effective at turning funding into good science. In fact a quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that per capita investment in basic research by the UK taxpayer is about the same as - perhaps even a little more - than that in the USA. This is not surprising when you look at output indicators, which all confirm the health of UK (basic) science. Any problems the UK has are not in the basic research system. Of course, as the one part of the broader research and innovation "system" that is working well and is world-leading, it would be very foolish to do anything that might damage it. But that's a different point.

There are other issues around why international comparisons of R&D intensity might be misleading - to do with differences in industrial structure, for instance, or to do with differences in the "efficiency" of different national research and innovation systems. Different national systems work in very different ways. Comparisons are hard to make fairly. The German system, for instance, is very different from our own. Perhaps there are lessons we can and should learn from the Germans but they are likely to be as much about how they do things (and why) as about how much they spend. Even the superficially similar US system (at least on the basic research side) is very different in terms of applied research, technological development, corporate R&D, etc.

So, by all means, let's argue for the importance of R&D investments as one part of a broader technology (and dare we say it, industry) policy. But let's be careful about the international comparisons.

Response to kieronflanagan, 21 August 2012 4:39pm

It is of course very difficult to make meaningful inter-country comparisons. The differences could be important lessons, as you point out.

It's important to realize however that I didn't say anything about basic research in the post--except to point to evidence that you can expect a return on it. The R&D figures include basic, translational and applied, across the different sectors. That 4.6 billion includes translational and applied research (at least, that's my understanding). Your figures given on twitter appear to be basic research only (in the US)?

None of this detracts from the comparison of government spending within the UK, no matter which way you slice it. It's not generous compared with other departments; and cutting it will not help the debt.

Yeah, my figure for the US is the total listed actual federal (note, only federal) govt spend on "basic research" in 2011 posted by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. If there are state governments spending lots of money on basic research then this figure would exclude that. But I don't think this is a major issue. My UK figure is the total 2011 budget for the Research Councils (but not the Technology Strategy Board) plus HEFCE (English) QR (block university funding for research). The RCs do fund some applied research but the vast majority of RC spending is on basic research. On the other hand, I have not counted Scottish, Welsh or N Ireland QR so the total I used will understate the overall spend a little. I am also not counting anything spent by other government departments in the UK which could be classed as basic research. So, a rough and ready calculation. But the overall picture is a fair one - the UK spends at internationally competitive/leading levels on basic research. But not on the rest.

Response to Spikediswhack, 21 August 2012 1:53pm

I think it's incredibly worrying that there are more comments about Asterix and Belgians than there are about the main issue of science funding.

Displacement.

Response to kieronflanagan, 21 August 2012 4:39pm

I am sure the devil is in the detail. Speaking from the 'front line' of research all I can comment on is the amount of money I see available for basic research in my particular area and compare it to my competitors. The teams in the US, Canada, Germany have pots more money than the STFC care to spend on my area of science. My UK colleagues are all in the same boat and have to rely on their collaborators in Europe to cough up the money. I am afraid that eventually UK scientist will become pariahs in such collaborations and will find themselves shut out. While Money times brains is a fairly universal constant, there is still a base line of funding below which cutting edge research in competitive fields becomes all but impossible.

I respect that other areas of UK research and science spend might be healthier, but I have yet to find one in basic science.

Response to rpgrauniard, 21 August 2012 12:11pm

Entirely agree.

Not only the amount of funding is important, but also the direction of funding. I do not have access to the detailed figures on this, but al lot of money was spent unwisely on patenting in the 80s and 90s (because that was a measure of "impact"). Now a lot of money is spent on engaging the public with science ("knowledge exchange"). Whilst both have their merits and are necessary, my impression is that at the moment a disproportionate amount of money goes into the public engagement pot. I am not sure whether there are any tangible returns in the same order of magnitude.

Totally agree. There always seems to be the will to throw money into the bottomless pit of the welfare state (so reinforcing failure), but never enough to adequately support successful and beneficial behaviours such as R&D. This occurs under governments of all colours, it's not a party-political issue.

Response to Spikediswhack, 21 August 2012 1:53pm

It's because we acknowledge the reality that only maniacs with magic potions have the slightest chance of fixing the decline in science. The fact that said maniacs and said potion are wholly fictional shows the magnitude of the problem.

I would disagree with the original author - the same amount of money spent different ways will produce different results. That is obvious. There's an overhead attached to any scientific work and at some point the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

For any given project, what you end up with is the S-Curve (also known as the logistics function). To get a good balance between return on investment and greatest momentum going forward, you ideally want to be somewhere around the three-quarters level. Anything much above that and you're getting into the territory where you have to spend a lot to make any appreciable difference at all. Let's call this the Maximum Useful Project Spending (MUPS) since this is about politics and politics needs acronyms the way sharks need fish.

For the overall budget, the maximum worthwhile amount to spend is the sum of these MUPS across all projects. But how many projects are there? Well, you can't go by how many projects are currently being run as that is limited by the budget. You have to go by what the universities and research institutes have the capacity to support.

Projects will vary in size, but saying it'll average 4 subject matter experts with some arbitrary number of assistants and contractors seems fair. So take the total number of senior lecturers, readers and professors, divide this total by four and round up. So this is our estimate of Maximum Projects (MP).

This gives us the formula: Sum from (Project=1 to MP) of MUPS(Project).

Ok, great, but what are the individual values and what do they add up to?

I don't know for certain. What I *DO* know for certain is that I've done back-of-the-envelope calculations of this sort for education and health. In both cases, we're spending 1% of what we actually need to be, to produce the best service before the curve flattens entirely. That's beyond best balance and into the territory of best outcome. Best balance would probably involve raising the budget to 65x current levels rather than 100x. (No, these aren't percentages, they really are increases by those factors.)

I'm going to assume that the same holds true of science. This would mean that Britain should be investing 299 billion into science and R&D, where the returns on that spending will cover the cost.

Is that sustainable? If indeed it is on the steep part of the S-Curve then the value of the work produced will exceed the cost of producing it by enough to pay for most of the next cycle. Industry would need to pick up the rest. If it did not, then the budget would probably be sustainable off the work done at around the 200 billion level. A slide, but still rather better than at present.

Response to imipak, 22 August 2012 7:28pm

So what you're saying is that we should focus R&D efforts on inventing a magic potion?

I can live with that.