April E-Bulletin 2012
In This E-Bulletin
Budget 2012
Diversity in STEM
'Politics for Scientists'
Science Agenda for Parliament
SQT on Nuclear
Ongoing Work
Consultations

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Diary


29/03/12 Dave Hawksett met with Ricardo Industries

29/03/12 Beck Smith met with Research Fortnight

 

28/03/12 Imran Khan attended a meeting of the Institute of Physics' Science Board

 

28/03/12 Beck Smith and Imran Khan met with the TUC

 

27/03/12 Beck Smith attended a Digital Science event on innovation, hosted by the Royal Institution

 

26/03/12 Imran Khan attended a two-day Royal Society conference on diversity

 

22/03/12 Imran Khan attended a Reform roundtable event on the ICT curriculum

 

20/03/12 Imran Khan met with the Shadow Science and Innovation Minister

 

20/03/12 Imran Khan met with the Head of Research Funding at BIS

 

19/03/12 Imran Khan met with EEF

 

16/03/12 CaSE co-hosted a Science Question Time event on nuclear policy 

 

15/03/12 Imran Khan met with URS

 

14/03/12 Imran Khan and Beck Smith met with policy advisers from the Royal Society

 

14/03/12 Imran Khan met with the Chief Executive of the Foundation for Science and Technology

 

13/03/12 CaSE co-hosted a TalkScience event at the British Library

 

09/03/12 Dave Hawksett met with Qualcomm

 

08/03/12 Imran Khan attended a Reform-Pearson roundtable seminar on school examinations

 

07/03/12 Beck Smith met with the Head of Policy at JANET

 

06/03/12 Beck Smith gave a PolicyLunchbox talk  

 

06/03/12 Imran Khan met with the Director of the Science Museum

 

05/03/12 Imran Khan met with BAE Systems

 

05/03/12 Imran Khan met with E3E

 

01/03/12 Imran Khan attended a Reform conference on "The next ten years" in politics 

 
Please forward this on to any colleagues or friends you think would be interested in supporting science and engineering.

  
CaSE responds to the Budget 
The Government has announced £100m of new investment into science and engineering research in UK universities, along with other measures to improve research commercialisation.

Although we welcome this announcement, CaSE has warned that the Government must be more ambitious to achieve its goal of rebalancing the economy. Our comments were discussed during the House of Commons Budget debate.

CaSE has also repeated its calls for the Chancellor to re-invest the windfall from the auction of 4G mobile spectrum, due later this year, into science. CaSE's argument on the 4G spectrum was also put to the Science Minister in the Welsh Assembly.

After the 2010 Spending Review, we showed that the research base will be £1.7 billion worse off in cash terms. Recent announcements have chipped away at this but there is still a long way to go.

 

Socioeconomic Diversity in STEM Education 

CaSE has published a new briefing examining the socioeconomic diversity of UK students taking STEM degrees.

  

The report reveals there has been a promising rise in the social diversity of young students entering Higher Education as a whole, as well as in STEM, between 2004 and 2010.   

 

A major contributor to this improvement has been the increasing social diversity of those studying both Biological sciences and Computer sciences. However, the diversity of young students studying Physical and Mathematical sciences was consistently lower than average, and moreover did not appear to be rising.

 

You can read the full report here.  The report also received coverage in the Times Higher Education. 

'Politics for Scientists' Event 

Last month saw us team up with the British Library to host the latest in their TalkScience events, exploring the relationship between science and politics.

 

Joined by three experts, (Dr Alice Jones, Mark Henderson, and Dr Chris Tyler), CaSE Director Imran Khan and the audience discussed how to help take the people, ideas and ways of thinking of science "from the lab bench to the front bench".

 

You can read a summary and recording of the event here, as well as a round-up of the best comments and suggestions from the audience. 

A Science Agenda for Parliament 

Meanwhile CaSE Director Imran Khan has written a guest article in Research Fortnight, calling on the scientific community to provide better scientific advice to Parliament.    


Science Question Time on Nuclear Policy
CaSE held its latest Science Question Time in March, co-organised with the Biochemical Society and Dr Alice Bell, focusing on the issue of nuclear power and policy in the UK.

Forming part of the National Science and Engineering Week events programme, the event was hosted by the Institute of Physics. The panel featured Professor Roger Cashmore (UK Atomic Energy Authority), Antony Froggatt (Chatham House), Dr Doug Parr (Greenpeace UK), Baroness (Bryony) Worthington and was chaired by Geoff Brumfiel (Nature).

You can listen to a podcast of the event here. A write-up of the event will shortly be available on the CaSE website

Ongoing work
  • HEFCE Funding
    CaSE has responded to HEFCE's funding allocation of £5.3 billion to universities and colleges in England for 2012-13.
  • Commercialisation of Research
    Beck Smith gave a PolicyLunchbox talk on how the Government can incentivise private sector investment in R&D.  
  • Innovation in Wales
    CaSE has welcomed the launch of the Welsh Government's new Science and Innovation strategy. The publication of the strategy is joined by the announcement of £100 million life sciences investment fund for Wales.  

Upcoming consultations  


Student Number Controls and Teaching Funding
HEFCE Consultation
Deadline: 25th May 2012

'Above the line' credit for Research and Development
HM Treasury Consultation
Deadline: 26th June 2012
For more information on our activities go to our website www.sciencecampaign.org.uk
 
To contact us please telephone 0207 679 4994 or email nickh@sciencecampaign.org.uk