Senior academics have voiced concern that bio- medical scientists have come to dominate the top jobs in UK research policy.
Scientists in other disciplines have told Research Fortnight they are growing worried that their needs and concerns may be drowned out at a critical time of change, with the new umbrella body UK Research and Innovation coming into being and new funding streams taking shape.
Concerns were initially raised by the appointment of biomedical researchers to arguably the two most influential jobs in UK research policy: Mark Walport as chief executive of UKRI and Patrick Vallance as the government’s chief scientific adviser. Subsequent appointments have made some scientists even more worried.
Of UKRI’s 12 board members, five have strong ties to biomedical science. And the hiring panel for the chair of UKRI is made up of the top civil servant at the business department and two biomedical researchers.
The dominance of biomedical expertise is “not necessarily healthy for the future of research”, said Athene Donald, an experimental physicist at the University of Cambridge. “It is inevitable that they will know more about emerging health issues than carbon capture or any other topics.”
A number of other senior academics have expressed concern over the dominance of biomedicine, although some did not want to be named given the sensitivity of the issue. “The biomedical research community has a really bad track record of assuming that the rest of the world should be shaped in its own image,” said one.
Geoffrey Crossick, a social historian at the University of London and former chief executive of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s predecessor the AHRB, said it was not surprising in itself that medicine was dominant. But he said he was surprised by the extent of its dominance and that UKRI board members had a limited breadth of experience across different economic sectors.
Much now rests on the permanent UKRI chair, who must be “conscious of the danger that health and medicine become unduly prominent”, said Crossick. “It would be better if [they were] not from health and medicine.” [After this article went to press it was announced that John Kingman, a businessman and former Treasury secretary, would be the permanent chair.]
A business department spokeswoman said: “The board, executive management team, and advisory councils of UK Research and Innovation have a broad breadth of experience” and are “highly practised at collaboration across discipline and sector boundaries”. She added: “UKRI will benefit from a wide body of knowledge, both internally and externally when making future decisions, including through its advisory councils, to ensure that there is suitable strategic challenge.”
This article also appeared in Research Fortnight