People and Science Magazine September 2013

PEOPLE&

SCIENCE SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.BRITISHSCIENCEASSOCIATION.ORG ÂŁ6

Public values underlying future energy production and use Turn maths and science education on its head The dementia lab

CONTENTS

Cover story Public values underlying future energy production and use l p8 Nick Pidgeon British Science Association news Coralie Young l p4 Government news Department for Business, Innovation and Skills l p5 Shorts Joanna Carpenter l p6 Spat Is the privatisation of science in the public interest? l p10 Beverley Gibbs and Alex Smith Opinion We should debate food security, not GM Jayesh Shah |p12 The Snowden revelations Carl Miller | p13 Two views Citizen science: proper science?

Noel Jackson |p14 Helen Roy | p15 Exchange Digital by default Martyn Thomas, William Heath and Kevin Seller|p16 Review Biohackers l p25 Amanda Rees Correspondence l p26 People & Science: Readers’ opinions Brownie points Discussing science communication l p27 Tracey Brown STEM in Parliament Regenerative medicine in the UK l p28 Phil Willis Sounding off Connect academia to the wider world! l p29 Alice Bell

PEOPLE&SCIENCE September 2013

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FEATURES

PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT AND THE RESEARCH EXCELLENCE FRAMEWORK Peter McOwan and Charlotte Thorley

p18 TURN MATHS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION ON ITS HEAD! Jo Evershed

p20 THE DIFFERENT AGES OF SPACE WEATHER Cathryn Mitchell and Joe Kinrade

p22 OBITUARY: DAVID DICKSON Jon Turney and Sue Hordijenko

p24 EDITOR Wendy Barnaby

Tales from the watercooler l p31 Barrie Cadshaw

SHORTS EDITOR Joanna Carpenter CHAIR OF EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Nancy Lane EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Anjana Ahuja, Sheila Anderson, Martin Bauer, Clive Cookson, David Fisk, Fiona Fox, Fiona MacRae, Ken Okona-Mensah, Aarathi Prasad, Elizabeth Seward, Adele Walker, Amy Strange MULTI-READER SUBSCRIPTIONS United Kingdom: £60 Europe outside UK: £70 Outside Europe: £80 People & Science is one of a number of free publications available to individual members and supporters of the British Science Association. For free subscription, visit www.britishscienceassociation.org or contact the supporter development team by calling 0870 241 0664 or emailing supporters@britishscienceassociation.org.

The magazine is available at its website, www.britishscienceassociation.org/ps

www.britishscienceassociation.org

EDITORIAL ADDRESS People & Science, The British Science Association, Wellcome Wolfson Building, 165 Queens Gate, London SW7 5HD wendy.barnaby@britishscienceassociation.org

People & Science is published four times a year.

Unless otherwise stated, the British Science Association retains the copyright of everything in People & Science.

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial committee or the British Science Association. © 2012 British Science Association The British Science Association is a registered charity No. 212479 and SC039236 ISSN 2040-3968 Designed by: Savage and Gray www.savageandgray.co.uk 5573/13 Printed by: Holbrooks Printed on FSC certified recycled paper

EDITORIAL

ONE MAN’S EXPERIENCE Martin Coath

p19 THE DEMENTIA LAB Laura Phipps

p21 PICARESQUE RECOLLECTIONS

p23

Photo: Horst Friedrichs

Pauline Marstrand

The British Science Festival takes place in Newcastle in September, with its usual mixture of family events, talks and debates, trips, exhibitions and extravaganzas. The Festival has morphed out of the Association’s first meeting in 1831: a history of annual meetings only broken during Word War II. To set against Newcastle, we can enjoy reminiscences of post-war meetings from long-standing member Pauline Marstrand (p23).

The way things used to be provides a yardstick for Noel Jackson (p14), who argues that current citizen science is pretty sterile compared with the experiences of people in biorecording groups BC (Before Computers). In contrast, Helen Roy asserts (p15) that this is simply not the case as far as the UK Ladybird Survey is concerned.

These days, assessing public engagement is a very sophisticated affair.

In November, submissions will be made for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF). About a year later, its results will determine how research funding from government will be distributed to UK tertiary education institutions. For the first time, the REF will consider the impact of research in deciding whether to fund it. Peter McOwan and Charlotte Thorley (p19) weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the way public engagement might fit into this framework.

Meanwhile, a report for the UK Energy Research Centre has clarified the way public values should fit into future energy production and use. Nick Pidgeon (p8) describes the values the public bring to the issue. Fully 88 per cent of respondents in the survey agreed that we in Britain need to change radically the way we produce and use energy by 2050. But they will only be happy with the changes if they accord with their underlying values.

Public values are of course crucial to the public interest. Just how much the market is in the public interest when it comes to science is the subject of the Spat (p10). It asks: Is the privatisation of science in the public interest? Does it reduce questions of social benefit to money and money alone? Alex Smith and Beverley Gibbs wrestle with the issue.

If the Spat raises many questions, two pieces offer answers. Jayesh Shah (p12) suggests that the GM debate could be put in proper perspective if we focused instead on debating food security. And Carl Miller (p13), commenting on Edward Snowden’s revelations of several top-secret US and British government mass surveillance programmes, also offers a way forward. He sees surveillance not as a technological problem but as one of public trust in the oversight of intelligence. His remedy is designed to restore that trust.

This is the last time the magazine will appear as a pdf. In future, its content will become part of the blog on the website, at www.britishscienceassociation.org/blog Finally, it is with great sadness that we print an obituary (p24) for David Dickson. Apart from putting his convictions into practice in bringing information about science and technology to developing countries, he gave many years of thoughtful service to the Association. Greatly respected and held in genuine affection by colleagues and friends alike, he will be sadly missed by all who were privileged to know him.

Wendy Barnaby is Editor of People & Science wendy.barnaby@britishscienceassociation.org

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BRITISH SCIENCE ASSOCIATION NEWS

Points mean prizes Coralie Young tots up the contests Festival fun for Newcastle From hacking to fracking, infection to dissection, and wifi to sci-fi – the British Science Festival has something for everyone! The Festival will be coming to Newcastle-uponTyne from 7-12 September, with a range of talks, debates, workshops, exhibitions, performances and tours, all celebrating the sciences, technology, engineering and maths.

Many events are free, although for most events we recommend that you book in advance, to avoid disappointment, so please visit www.britishsciencefestival.org, or ring 08456 807 207. During the Festival, a ticket office will be open outside the Northern Stage, on Newcastle University Campus.

Awards to celebrate Colin Wilkinson, from Stockton-onTees, has been named by the British Science Association as our Volunteer of the Year. He has received the Sir Walter Bodmer Award for Volunteers in recognition of his hard work and dedication in his role as Chair of the North East Branch and tireless work supporting the Young People’s Programme. Colin is also a longstanding member of the CREST Local Coordinator network, and was instrumental in establishing the British Science Association-led North East Science Alliance (NESA) in 2007.

great value and impact. Colin will attend the British Science Festival in Newcastle upon Tyne, his home patch, this September to collect his award.

The British Science Association is also delighted that Dr Eric Albone, an Honorary Fellow, who has served the Association since 1986, has been recognised with an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. As well as his tireless work for the Association, Eric is co-founder and Director of Clifton Scientific Trust.

He received the Royal Society of Chemistry Award for Chemical Education in 1993.

For more information about volunteering for the British Science Association, visit our volunteering pages.1

National Science + Engineering Competition The National Science + Engineering Competition is now open, and inviting budding scientists and engineers to enter online by 31 October 2013.

Colin’s background in industry provides a rich source of ideas for student CREST projects, and branch activities, and he remains a champion for the North East’s strengths in engineering and technology.

Young people, aged 11-18, can enter a science, technology, engineering or maths project by submitting a four-page written report or by producing a five-minute film. The best projects will be invited to the National Finals at The Big Bang Fair in Birmingham in March 2014, where they will showcase their work to over 65,000 people, and compete for over £50,000 worth of prizes. In addition, the top five online entries will be awarded prizes of £100.

The award is given annually by the British Science Association to a dedicated volunteer or group of volunteers in recognition of their

Young people, parents and teachers can get more information about the competition by visiting www.nsecuk.org.

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Colin Wilkinson, from Stockton-on-Tees, has been named by the British Science Association as our Volunteer of the Year

Battle of the ugly animals The National Science + Engineering Competition is working in conjunction with the Ugly Animals Preservation Society to run a public vote for a new ‘ugly’ mascot, and encourage young people to develop an interest in conservation project work.

Teaming up with celebrity supporters such as Stephen Fry, the project features a range of well-known faces pitching for their favourite aestheticallychallenged creature, as well as a selection of educational videos and resources to encourage young people to start science project work.

You can find out more about the vote, which closes on 11 September, and will culminate in an announcement of the winning mascot at the British Science Festival, at www.nsecuk.org.

1 See www.britishscienceassociation.org/localbranches/join-our-team

Coralie Young is the British Science Association’s Communications Manager coralie.young@ britishscienceassociation.org

The Bloodhound Project

GOVERNMENT NEWS

Science engagement is about opportunities Karen Folkes lists recent openings

As a source of inspiration, the Bloodhound Super Sonic Car is a modernday equivalent of the early steam locomotive: iconic, capturing the public interest. When it rolls out on the South African desert plain in two years’ time its stream-lined glamour and 1,000 mph land speed will inspire many to study science and engineering.

In fact, it is already doing that, with over 5,000 schools already engaged in the project and 500 Bloodhound ambassadors. One of those, Jess Herbert, who was ‘bitten’ by the Bloodhound at age 13, is now a Rolls Royce apprentice working on the project. She met David Willetts in July when he opened the new Technical Facility in Bristol, where he also announced a further £1 million funding to enhance this project’s already impressive programme of outreach and inspiration for the engineers of tomorrow.1

Other opportunities Bloodhound is proving an effective morale-booster for UK science but it’s not the only one. We need to take other opportunities too.

There are many harder-to-tackle issues which don’t offer a smooth ride for science and society and which demand extensive and often long-term debate and discussion. This last quarter has seen a number of such discussions which have been partly managed by BIS delivery partner Sciencewise.

GM debate Using his Guest Directorship at the Cheltenham Science Festival in June, David Willetts began what we hoped might be a fresh debate on the GM issue. Organised by BBSRC and Sciencewise, it was clear that the participants valued the fact that the Minister was taking part and listening to what they had to say whilst also being prepared to put forward the government’s views about the opportunities presented

by GM, in the context of the now published Agri-tech strategy.2

The report of the ‘Farming for the Future’ public discussion, including a link to a YouTube video of David Willetts’ introduction, is now on the Sciencewise website.3

Mitochondrial DNA A similar process of reflection was set in train on techniques for managing mitochondrial DNA. Following the HFEA’s initial consultation, and public dialogue, Jeremy Hunt agreed with their recommendation to move forward with drafting regulations for consultation to allow mitochondria replacement techniques to be used in clinical treatment, subject to strict safeguards. The debate is still ongoing.4

Bovine TB Another current opportunity which is just kicking off as part of the Sciencewise public dialogue programme is to look at the spread of bovine TB and the issues it raises for badger culling and wildlife in general the changing biodiversity that goes with the nature of farming. The dialogue is about the future direction of bovine TB policy and the outputs will be used alongside Defra’s consultation that is taking place at the moment to inform the development of the bTB eradication strategy.5

PE triangle Regular readers of People & Science may remember the ‘Triangle of Public Engagement’ developed by the Science for All group a few years ago.6 This showed a broad span of purposes in the whole PE landscape, from transmitting information, receiving views (for example, from the public), collaborating to cocreate policies and opportunities,

and everything in between.

This is reflected in the opportunities here, from detailed dialogue work on sometimes vexed scientific issues to charismatic, feel-good projects like Bloodhound. But the thinking of the emerging Science and Society Review is that taking advantage of opportunities in all corners of the triangle and in between is the best approach to meet our vision and aims.7 Using those opportunities to ensure we’re going beyond the usual suspects, and making the most of our partners’ expertise and linkages, will be the mainstay of our future approach.

1 See www.bloodhoundssc.com/news/scienceminister-opens-new-hq-1000-mph-bloodhound 2 See www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukagricultural-technologies-strategy 3 See www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk/cms/ cheltenham-agri-tech-discussion-write-up/ 4 See Shorts, this issue, p 7 5 See at https://consult.defra.gov.uk/farming/tb/ 6 See http://scienceandsociety.bis.gov.uk/ all/files/2010/10/PE-conversational-tool -Final-251010.pdf 7 See http://scienceandsociety.bis.gov.uk

Karen Folkes is Deputy Head of the Science and Society team of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) scienceandsociety@bis.gsi.gov.uk

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SHORTS

Consulting on education The content of the revised National Curriculum for maths and science in England for ages 5-14 (Key Stages 13) has been published by the government.1 The revision aims to raise expectations for knowledge and skills in maths and science, with the inclusion of additional content.

Working scientifically An increased emphasis on “working scientifically” in the primary curriculum has been welcomed by Annette Smith, Chief Executive of the Association for Science Education (ASE). ‘We’re pleased with the development of “How Science Works” into “Working scientifically” which includes investigations and discussions about science,’ she told People & Science.

As part of SCORE (the Science Community representing Education), ASE has been working with the Department for Education to revise the government’s first, heavily criticized draft programmes of study.

Wrong focus?

NEWS INBRIEF

Richard Needham, former Chair of ASE and ASE’s representative on the SCORE committee, told People & Science, ‘We’ve always suffered in science education in having two different purposes. One purpose is to create a scientifically-aware

society that can think rationally and weigh up evidence. The other is to supply future scientists to feed the economy and to drive technology.

‘The last curriculum included aspects of social awareness of science. That became criticized in the press as “having a chat in the pub”,’ he continued. ‘That’s unfair… but this curriculum is swinging back the other way… to promote a better grasp of factual knowledge.

‘The implication [is] that once students have acquired substantive knowledge they are then in a position to make more reasoned judgements and the scientific reasoning will flow out of that - [but] I haven’t seen any evidence to support this idea.’

No aim for the future?

Smith is disappointed by this focus on knowledge and an apparent lack of thought about what education is for: ‘Yes, children should have [the core knowledge], but what do we want them to turn out like in the end?’ She describes the aims of the draft programmes of study for science as ‘not particularly well thought through’.

The implication [is] that once students have acquired substantive knowledge they are then in a position to make more reasoned judgements and the scientific reasoning will flow out of that - [but] I haven’t seen any evidence to support this idea

within the proposed programme of study… to do with the future.’

A further consultation on maths and science for 14-16-year-olds will take place this autumn once the content of GCSEs has been decided and another consultation on assessment and accountability closes on 11 October.

1 http://tinyurl.com/k6y7h7m

Needham agrees: ‘The third aim… is that children should be made aware of “the uses and implications of science, today and for the future”, [but] I cannot find anything

Passport to the Big Bang

Wellcome for new Head of Engaging Science

Oceans, sparks and tourists

A scientific tourist trail of 10 exhibition platforms at key points above the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Geneva, Switzerland, has been launched by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. The LHC is the world’s largest particle accelerator and is used to explore questions about the origins of the universe.

Lisa Jamieson has been appointed as Head of Engaging Science at the Wellcome Trust to enhance the impact of one of the UK’s largest public engagement funding programmes. ‘I’m really looking forward to working with the team on a wide variety of innovative projects,’ she said.

The Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books judges will announce the shortlist in September. The longlist includes books on birds, cells, civilizations, Earth, air, leaves and life. The winner will be announced on 25 November.

https://tinyurl.com/oy5m992

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https://tinyurl.com/lkmbmxx

Engineering in public?

The Royal Academy of Engineering is inviting applications for Ingenious public engagement grants by 30 September. Funding of up to £30,000 is available for imaginative ideas to inspire public engagement, stimulate engineers to share their stories, expertise and passion, and raise awareness of the diversity, nature and impact of engineering. www.raeng.org.uk/ingenious

SHORTS

Mitochondrial replacement In an article in Nature,1 an American bioethicist has criticized the UK’s decision to trial mitochondrial replacement techniques as ‘premature and illconceived’. In June, the Department of Health announced2 it would draft regulations for public consultation later this year.

Marcy Darnovsky, executive director of the Center for Genetics and Society in Berkeley, California, argues that the UK’s decision overturns an international consensus against human germline modification.

As an example, she cites Article 13 of the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine3 (which the UK has not signed), which states: An intervention seeking to modify the human genome may only be undertaken for preventive, diagnostic or therapeutic purposes and only if its aim is not to introduce any modification in the genome of any descendants.

‘There has been no international discussion of this among those who have signed the treaty, or between them and the UK,’ Darnovsky says.

‘This really would be a unilateral move on the part of the UK.’

Human genome?

Mitochondria are self-contained

parts of human cells that produce energy for the cell. They have their own DNA (mtDNA) that is distinct from nuclear DNA (nDNA).

Genetic information for characteristics such as hair colour is in nDNA, inherited from both parents. However, only the mother’s mtDNA is passed on to a child, via the egg. Mitochondrial replacement involves transferring nDNA from a mother’s egg or embryo to a donor egg or embryo that has had its nDNA removed.

Supporters of the move argue that mitochondrial DNA should not be considered part of the human genome. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics published an ethical review of techniques to prevent mtDNA disorders in June 2012,4 in which it noted that the Council of Europe Convention defines being genetically identical to another human being as sharing the same nuclear DNA, regardless of differences in mtDNA.

Safety ‘It’s just semantics as far as I’m concerned,’ Joanna Poulton, Professor and Hon Consultant in Mitochondrial Genetics at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, told People & Science. ‘The issue is: is it going to be safe, and is it going to be effective in doing what it set out to do?’ she

Open Data

Ethical sex selection?

First findings of a Wellcome Trust survey of attitudes to science and medicine include that those scoring highly on a science quiz have greater trust in recommended vaccinations. The data set is freely available for researchers to analyse. ‘We would be genuinely delighted,’ Hilary Leevers, Head of Education and Learning at Wellcome, told People & Science.

Keele University bioethicists have concluded in a report that the legal ban on sex selection for social reasons during IVF is ‘unjustifiable’.

Professor Stephen Wilkinson, now at Lancaster University, and Dr Eve Garrard, now at the University of Manchester, argue the practice would be unlikely to lead to a population sex imbalance in the UK.

http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/ https://tinyurl.com/pfk47q7

The issue is: is it going to be safe, and is it going to be effective in doing what it set out to do? continued. ‘We still don’t really know very much about how mitochondria function in early embryos, in stem cells indeed, and there are some strange results out there… That’s a major safety issue, with lots of unknowns.’

Despite this, Poulton is pleased that human trials may take place in the UK. ‘I think that it has to get licensed in the UK reasonably soon, because if it’s not done in the UK, someone will go and do it in Korea or Russia where there’s no regulation and we’ll never know what the results were. [That’s] the last thing we want to happen.’

1 www.nature.com/news/a-slippery-slope -to-human-germline-modification-1.13358 2 www.gov.uk/government/news/ innovative-genetic-treatment-toprevent-mitochondrial-disease 3 http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/ en/Treaties/Html/164.htm 4 www.nuffieldbioethics.org/ mitochondrial-dna-disorders

Dr Joanna Carpenter is the Shorts Editor of People & Science joanna.carpenter @cantab.net

Public vote on heavenly names

Women in STEM: parliamentary enquiry

Over 450,000 votes were cast by the public to help select names for the fourth and fifth moons of Pluto. Kerberos and Styx have been officially recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Vulcan was the public’s first choice but had already been used for a hypothetical planet between Mercury and the Sun.

The House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology has launched an enquiry into the leaky pipeline of the loss of women at each stage of academic STEM careers.

Written submissions are invited online by noon on 3 September. https://tinyurl.com/pm2lp8y

https://tinyurl.com/kch8xpu

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COVER STORY

Public values underlying future energy production and use Nick Pidgeon has surveyed the British public Energy policy has become one of the most fraught political debates in Britain today – whether we consider proposals for new nuclear power, local controversies over wind farms or fracking for unconventional gas, or the introduction of ‘smart meters’ to monitor energy use in our homes.

Much of our energy infrastructure is also ageing and this, coupled with the need to meet climate change targets, ensure the future security of supply, and to address fuel poverty, means that major changes to the systems for producing and using energy are inevitable.

New study of attitudes In a major 30-month study for the UK Energy Research Centre, we explored the issue of public views of energy system change.

Researching public views is important because it helps us understand points of particular resistance to change and the reasons for this. It also throws light on where new opportunities to change might lie, and how future public dialogue about energy systems might be taken forward.

The project involved deliberative workshops in six locations across Britain followed by a major representative online survey1 (n=2,441) conducted by us for IpsosMori.

A particularly innovative part of the research was use of the online MY2050 tool2 developed by the Department for Energy and Climate Change as an aid to prompt participants to think about some of the challenges and tradeoffs of changing the energy system as a whole.

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Renewables paramount The findings show that fully 88 per cent of respondents agree that we in Britain need to change radically the way we produce and use energy by 2050. The British public views a move away from fossil fuel reliance and a shift to renewable forms of energy production as paramount for long-term energy policy.

Simultaneously the public clearly indicate a desire to develop technology and infrastructures to support changes in lifestyles, with an overall goal of improving energy efficiency and achieving reductions in energy demand.

The research also reveals what underlies this public vision for future energy pathways: the values and principles which publics draw on to form their views and preferences when engaging with energy system change. The value system we identified provides a basis for understanding why publics like or don’t like certain energy system aspects and processes, and why uncertainty might emerge. Furthermore, it provides a basis for creating policies that are responsive to the core concerns that publics have with regards to future energy pathways.

Underlying values Public values for energy system change include efficiency and avoiding waste; protection of nature and the environment; ensuring security through reliability, affordability, availability and safety of energy services; being mindful of individual autonomy and freedoms; social justice, fairness and transparency; as well as thinking in terms of long-term trajectories, ensuring changes represent improvement and considering implications for quality of life.

An important conclusion to draw is that acceptability of any particular aspect of energy system transformations will, in part, be dependent upon how well it fits into the value system. Critical to this argument is the notion that public perspectives are not about technology alone, they are about what the technology symbolises and represents.

For example, the research shows that people are ambivalent about proposals for fitting carbon dioxide capture technologies to fossil-fuelled power generation and then storing the carbon in depleted oil fields (a technique known as carbon capture and storage, or CCS). Although they accept that a novel technology such as this would be one way of helping to clean up electricity generation and thereby combat one of the causes of climate change, they also view it as a ‘non-transition’: that is, they feel that CCS only prolongs an already unsustainable reliance on a fossil fuel-based system and thereby fails to address the long-term need for a change to a cleaner, fairer energy system.

The research also highlighted the fact that people do not view the current energy markets as effective mechanisms for delivery of transitions in ways commensurate with their values, and nor do people trust either energy companies or the government with respect to future system changes. Overcoming both of these barriers may ultimately prove the most important issues

to address if we are to achieve a radical change to the UK’s energy system.

When solar is preferred To illustrate, our findings show that there is a strong public preference for solar energy in the supply-side of our energy system (85 per cent were found to be favourable towards solar energy). The research also finds that solar energy is particularly associated with being ‘renewable’ ‘fair’, ‘just’, ‘clean’, safe and secure, as well as delivering perceived benefits in terms of affordability. Accordingly, we assert that if solar power were deployed and developed in ways no longer congruent with these values, it would not then fit with the public preference for solar energy.

For example, we might imagine a solar energy development supplying the UK but residing in North Africa being revealed as causing local environmental contamination and land-use territorial disputes. This incarnation of solar would not fit the public preference for this form of energy provision, not because it is no longer renewable but because in this instance it would no longer be seen as ‘fair’, ‘just’ or ‘clean’.

As such, the public attach importance to the inclusion of renewable, clean, fair and just elements in future energy systems, not solar energy technology per se.

On the other hand, the public perceives that government is sending mixed signals in terms of its commitment to a trajectory which would be in line with the values above. The public also questions whether it is even taking its own policies seriously (for example, climate change targets).

The recent story about tax breaks for shale gas will further confound the perceived incongruence in government’s messaging. It will increase public suspicion about its commitment to bring about positive change for a more sustainable future in line with public values for energy system change – an energy future that most believe should not be predicated on fossil fuel use.

1 The discussed research is part of the UK Energy Research Centre project ‘Transforming the UK Energy System: Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability’. The full report can be downloaded from this website: http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/ Transforming+the+UK+Energy+System 2 See http://my2050.decc.gov.uk/

Favourability towards energy sources for electricity generation

Shared responsibility Our findings further show that the British public do not locate responsibility for the enactment and delivery of energy system change with any one group. Indeed they perceive responsibilities for individuals, industry (for example, energy companies) and government, although it is the latter that was seen as ultimately responsible.

The public perceive the government’s role to be developing an overall vision to work towards.

This includes creating the policies and structures needed to encourage change and being clear about the available options.

Nick Pidgeon is Professor of Psychology at the University of Cardiff pidgeonn@cardiff.ac.uk

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SPAT

Is the privatisation of science in the public interest?

Beverley Gibbs and Alex Smith disagree

Dear Alex,

Dear Beverley,

I suspect the first benefit people would think of that privatised science offers is the increased amount of money that’s made available to do science with.

Your opening salvo is to suggest that the public interest is best served by a ‘privatised science’ capable of promoting increased business investment in R&D. The results of such research then ‘become public’ when they are commercialised and taken to market. You rely on a seductive logic that presents as self-evident the ‘benign’ promise of the market to provide financial incentives (the profit motive) that encourage private businesses and corporations to invest in scientific research. But how comfortable should we, as a wider public, be with this idea?

In 2010 the Office for National Statistics revealed that of all the UK’s scientific R&D expenditure, almost two-thirds came from private industry – a big addition to the investment available from an increasingly empty public purse.

That most of the results of this R&D are kept private until they can be made public through commercial products is the financial incentive that releases upwards of £16bn investment. So, on the basis that more scientific research takes place and much of it eventually becomes public through the market, privatisation can be in the public interest.

However, I’m drawing something of a straw man here. The publicprivate boundary is actually very porous. For example, a couple of years ago GlaxoSmithKline opened up its Tres Cantos research campus in Spain to a range of organisations to collaborate on big challenges such as malaria and drug-resistant TB. Money has been released through the foundation, previouslyprivate data has been shared widely and new joint projects started with an aim to produce drugs for a neglected disease.

Isn’t that in the public interest?

Yours, Beverley

All debates must begin with a definition of terms. I would want to challenge any argument that equates – no matter how implicitly – publics with markets. It is difficult to excite the public imagination about science with an argument that foregrounds questions of funding and profit to the exclusion of other considerations, including those that define the social benefits of science in less utilitarian terms.

Market values reinforce and reward our worst habits and instincts, as individuals and as consumers. They are also hostile to the public values of science, which embody practices of collaboration and conversation.

These are poorly served by the privatisation of science, which is most certainly not in the public interest.

Yours, Alex

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Dear Alex, Your conflation of funding and profit is interesting. I previously mentioned the leverage that is commonly sought between investment and profit in the private sector. However, these are not concepts that live solely in commerce.

Scientific research in universities – perhaps the classic archetype of public science – is not quite as open as I feel you imply.

Research is frequently stored behind expensive paywalls and intellectual property rights regimes are common in academia. Both of these act to make supposedly public science more private. So, where is our boundary?

Clearly, some markets work better than others in realising the public interest and we have to consider public value-for-money as an important element, albeit difficult to measure in the research context.

However, ‘the public interest’ is in itself a very seductive term, suggestive of a pre-existing set of priorities that we all agree upon, making it straightforward to decide whether this is realised most effectively through public or private means.

The troublesome path many technologies take towards society indicates different, competing, evolving public interests. In low carbon energy for example – when and how does a wider sense of the public good trump the local needs and preferences of host communities?

Yours, Beverley

Dear Beverley, Defining, and disposing of, the public interest should not be anything other than a messy, debatable business, demanding hard intelligence from an educated citizenry capable of conceiving of interests other than maximising profit. That is why, over the centuries, a variety of institutions – including Parliament and the media – have evolved so that divergent publics can engage with one another and debate larger questions of what constitutes their common, shared interests.

This is the promise of a public science, which places emphasis on the wider obligations of science to publics conceived as having larger, non-economic (that is, nonconsumer) interests at stake, on questions of inequality, justice and the environment. It is right that advocates of a privatised science also contribute to debates over what constitutes the public good.

But Parliament and other institutions should never abdicate to the market their responsibility to take these important questions seriously. After all, your final question – about if and when larger ideas of the public good should trump local needs and preferences – is exactly the kind that cannot be answered in the marketplace alone. It can only ever be answered messily, through debate and dialogue between those committed to the making of a public science.

Yours, Alex

Dear Alex,

Dear Beverley,

Conducting some scientific research within market mechanisms does not have to stand in opposition to an effective public sphere. Indeed, I would suggest that the effectiveness of public debate among all institutions is limited until we have an idea of what a scientific or technological development looks like in its fullness – who owns it, how it will be implemented, who profits, who will benefit and who will lose out.

I welcome your belated recognition of a role for public funding in science. Indeed, you appear to go further and suggest that the market should only fund ‘some’ scientific research.

The much drawn-upon debates about genetically modified food in the UK are rich in these kinds of arguments, as are many of the concerns around lowcarbon energy technologies. To try to publicly debate the nature of science and technology without recognising its commercial features is having only half the conversation.

In recognising the value of these debates I am of course acknowledging the trade-off I started with – that something public is lost when private funding is leveraged.

However, instead of dismissing this as entirely undesirable, my position is that the value offered to society is too great to turn away from.

Instead, let’s discuss where the publicprivate boundary should be, how innovation can be governed to maximise social benefit and how to ensure and protect the value achieved from the limited public funding available.

Yours, Beverley

But you conclude with the contradictory point that just limited public funding is available, against which private funding must presumably be ‘leveraged’. This confusion is a consequence of your wider argument in favour of the privatisation of science, the logic of which seeks to side-line debate over the social benefits of science while sanctioning cuts in public funding in favour of the commercial exploitation of scientific and technological advances.

Your argument clearly demonstrates that the privatisation of science is not in the public interest for a very simple reason: it reduces all such questions to one of money and money alone. But science is bigger than this, a system of knowledge that promises much more than just the development of new technologies.

Science offers a radical way of ‘seeing’ the world, of imagining and apprehending it. This is an intellectual inheritance that belongs to all of us. It should be used to benefit the widest possible publics we can conceive. Instead of more privatisation and the erosion of the public sphere, what we need today is a bold and unequivocal reaffirmation of public science – science pursued, with public money, in the broadest possible public interest.

Yours, Alex Dr Alex Smith is Senior Leverhulme Research Fellow in Sociology at Warwick University as well as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Sociology in Kansas University Alexander.Smith@warwick.ac.uk Beverley Gibbs is a doctoral researcher at the University of Nottingham, working closely with the multidisciplinary ‘Making Science Public’ Leverhulme programme Beverley.Gibbs@nottingham.ac.uk

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We should debate food security, not GM Jayesh Shah argues for a broader view

I have a request. Could everyone please stop writing news stories that are solely for or against genetically modified (GM) crops?

Instead, could you all write a bit more about global food security and the many technologies – including GM – that could potentially ward off a global food crisis? Thanks in advance.

Clouding public understanding This summer I wrote a blog post about the upcoming Public Attitudes to Science (PAS) 2014 study that Ipsos MORI is conducting, and how it contributes to the GM debate.1 GM crops are the hardy perennials of science stories. They emerge each year without fail, either saying that GM crops are the only option and should be embraced, or that they are dangerous and should be banned. This year, coverage of a speech by the UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson restarted the same debate.

These GM stories are important, but they can serve to cloud the public’s understanding of the bigger issue.

As the world’s population hits 9 billion by 2050, food prices will rise unless something is done. The 2008 spike in food prices caused riots in 36 countries. The UK can’t hide from this – we import 40 per cent of our food and this proportion is set to increase. Mr Paterson’s speech dealt with these issues, but as he was talking about GM, the media focused on this and largely ignored the global food security problem.

This is equivalent to all media stories on climate change talking exclusively about the pros and cons of geosequestration, without mentioning ‘climate change’.

Public neutral The media tends to inflate the salience of GM. When Ipsos MORI asks people unprompted every

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month what the most important issues facing the country are, GM never comes up. Media articles often suggest there is widespread fear about GM crops among the public, but this is questionable. Surveys like PAS 2011 have tended to show that people are largely neutral or undecided on the topic, while a recent British Science Association survey showed that concern had declined over the last decade.2 Moreover, media coverage of GM crops has not created an informed public debate. Many people still have little idea of what ‘genetically modified’ actually means. The recent Wellcome Trust Monitor survey found that only a third of adults think they have a good understanding of the term. Eight per cent of adults have never heard of it.3 We recently tested out some questions for the PAS 2014 survey, and some of the people we asked were confusing ‘genetically modified’ with ‘organic’, of all things.

To sum up, while there is public concern over GM crops, this is often a very normal fear of the unknown, and concerns only tend to emerge after prompting people on a topic they know little about.

Food security If we are to move the public away from a simplified debate about the pros and cons of GM crops, and towards an informed debate on global food security, we will need to establish the public’s views on the latter. While there has been some survey research on this before,4 PAS

The media tends to inflate the salience of GM. When Ipsos MORI asks people unprompted every month what the most important issues facing the country are, GM never comes up

2014 hopes to build a more detailed picture. Do people hold contradictory views on GM and food security? Do they even see food security as a science issue, or a purely economic one? Our new survey questions will explore these issues.

Of course, the PAS survey results just give us the foundations for a public debate on global food security. We need further qualitative research and dialogue on global food security before we can fully understand the public’s informed views on this topic.

Before then, I’ll be applauding the stories that show the shades of grey, and the important wider context, surrounding the GM debate.

1 http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/ blog/gm-are-people-informed-or-dothey-just-feel-informed 2 A recent YouGov poll did find a relatively high level of opposition, but asked a very specific question, which prompted respondents on the potential benefits and harmful effects of GM crops.

3 http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/ publications/1567/Wellcome-Trust-MonitorWave-2.aspx 4 http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/assets/pdfs/ gfs-survey-public-attitudes.pdf?

Jayesh Shah is a Research Manager at Ipsos MORI Jayesh.Shah@ipsos.com

The Snowden revelations Surveillance juries would restore public trust, argues Carl Miller

The way we oversee intelligence suffers from a wider problem that we are experiencing as a society: a crisis of institutional legitimacy

In the UK, we use a network of different bodies to oversee intelligence.

Commissioners, Parliamentarians, ministers and the agencies themselves are all involved at different times, to ensure that the steps that are taken to protect society are proportionate and necessary.

These vital principles – proportionality and necessity – are intended to guarantee public confidence. It is widely recognised, including in Britain’s National Security Strategy, that serious damage to security occurs when the state’s efforts are not accepted or trusted.1 Our system of oversight needs not only to ensure surveillance is legitimate, but also credibly assure the public that it is actually and effectively ensuring surveillance is legitimate.

Edward Snowden, an American former technical contractor for the United States National Security Agency and former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, leaked details of several top-secret US and British government mass surveillance programmes to the press. These – PRISM in the US and TEMPORA in the UK – have exposed a very serious problem at the heart of this system.

The simple fact is that many of the steps taken to protect society that he has revealed have been completely legal, yet do not enjoy this crucial public confidence. This problem is systemic: not one of a few bad apples or over-zealous operatives. So where has the system gone wrong?

Little public confidence The problem is not one of technical functionality – how well the system works – but about public trust and confidence. The way we oversee intelligence suffers from a wider problem that we are experiencing as

a society: a crisis of institutional legitimacy. Public trust is something that public bodies in general, including those involved in intelligence oversight, increasingly lack. Ipsos MORI’s 2011 ‘veracity index’ found that, on average, 61 per cent of the public trust the police, less than half trust civil servants, and just 19 per cent trust government ministers.2 Yet since the last major law – the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act – was passed over a dozen years ago, the oversight of intelligence has been on a long technocratic drift, becoming less a public and more an official concern. At the same time as trust in official bodies declined, the responsibility for holding the security services to account has become more a matter for them.

Surveillance juries We need to find new ways of making the public confident that surveillance is properly overseen. So here’s an idea.

Let’s have ‘surveillance juries’, involving the public directly in the process.

Juries are consistently shown as one of the most trusted of all public institutions.3 In the justice system, they are essential purely because there are no special qualifying criteria: anyone could be called. The principles that sit at the heart of the surveillance system – proportionality and necessity – are similar to those related to innocence and guilt. They are not technocratic issues, but rather fine balancing acts over which a body representing society should sit in judgment.

There are of course costs and risks to surveillance juries. They would need to be supported by a secretariat, by experts and clerks. They would need to be protected from intimidation and undue influence. The intelligence agencies themselves would need to be protected from unethical jurors.

However, many of these important problems – from jury intimidation to leaking official secrets – are ones we have faced before, and ones we have responses and laws to deal with. Every generation re-interrogates questions of democracy and the relationship between governors and the governed in the light of their own times and challenges. As this generation does the same it should not shy away from bold, even radical, solutions to the profound problems of trust and confidence that it faces.

1 ‘We need to build a much closer relationship between government, the private sector and the public when it comes to national security’, Cabinet Office, A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty: The National Security Strategy, Oct 2010, www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/ resources/nationalsecurity-strategy.pdf 2 http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/ Docs/Polls/Veracity2011.pdf 3 http://www.icpr.org.uk/media/10381/ Juries%20MOJ%20report.pdf

Carl Miller is the founding research director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos Carl.miller@demos.co.uk

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September 2013

TWO VIEWS

Citizen science: proper science?

Noel Jackson and Helen Roy differ

Noel Jackson has doubts Citizen Science seems to be flavour of the month, but I question its novelty, the depth of its engagement and its use to science as a whole.

making the records to the role of an unpaid field assistant and certainly doesn’t make them a scientist.

Citizen science projects seem to fall into two types; those which crowd source data and those which require identification in the field. I take it on trust that projects like Galaxy Zoo are important, but remain more sceptical of biorecording projects. I have to admit that I am addicted to identifying animals and so love the 1 challenges posed by Instant Wild.

However, judging by the comments posted by other contributors, the general quality of identifications is low and the value of the project to science must be very limited indeed.

This is particularly the case where the project uses some form of mechanical device to identify the target species. An example of this is the Bat App where people are invited use their mobile phones to record bats in flight. The phone logs location by GPS and matches the input to a database of bat sound.

The problem is that bat sound is not usually a form of communication but a form of navigation, so it as much dependent on habitat and prey as it is on the species of bat.

Sterile interaction BC (Before Computers), there were lots of local natural history societies and specialist recording groups.

Data transfer was slower as people exchanged letters and plotting was slower as maps were marked by hand. But there was more personal interaction, as voucher specimens were checked by a recorder. The nearest to this in Citizen Science is the UK Ladybird Survey, where observers submit pictures of their finds. It’s a pretty sterile form of interaction compared with the apprenticeship, peer review and transfer of enthusiasm one received when part of a recording group.

I am yet to see anything involving investigation by experiment in Citizen Science. I can see that the data collected might be analysed centrally, but this reduces the person

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March 2013

Batty project

Identification of bats from their echolocation is a complex art, much harder than learning bird song. BatApp surveys in Durham, where the bat fauna has been well recorded since the early eighties, suggested that Leisler’s Bat was the commonest species in some areas.

Unfortunately it is not known to breed north of Wakefield.

It cannot be right to suggest that people are doing something useful by wandering around doing a survey where the results are likely to be wrong.

Identification of bats from their echolocation is a complex art, much harder than learning bird song

was the AshTag project, which tracked a potentially landscapechanging tree disease across East Anglia. However, it was not the technology that was impressive but the way it was supported by scientists and media specialists, so that the data was immediately used to highlight the problem to the general public. Contributors saw the value of their work very quickly.

Citizen science has great potential but I don’t think project organizers have gone far enough in engaging with their publics. Too many apps are like computer games and hence seem trivial.

Even with all my reservations about Citizen Science, I can’t help but see the potential it has to offer if harnessed properly. All we have seen so far is the fizzing of the blue touch paper. I look forward to the big bang that is yet to come.

1 http://tinyurl.com/7bxhdkc

Big bang Modern technology has the potential to make fantastic contributions to some areas of science. People I work with are looking at phone add-ons that analyse genes, opening up enormous areas of biology for widespread exploration. One project which I thought really proved the worth of Citizen Science

Noel Jackson is a keen amateur naturalist and is a founder-member of Durham Bat Group. He is currently head of education at the International Centre for Life, Newcastle noel.jackson@life.org.uk

Recording ladybirds is inspiring, asserts Helen Roy People have been recording wildlife in Britain for hundreds of years. By simply noting the occurrence of a species on a given date and locality, people have provided information which is proving invaluable for understanding changes in the British flora and fauna.

Biological recording is undoubtedly one of the earliest examples of citizen science. In some guises biological recording could be termed ‘mass participation citizen science’, whereby volunteers contribute data to a scheme led by professional scientists. In many cases, however, biological recording involves volunteers in all aspects of the scheme from the contribution to the compilation, analysis and interpretation of biodiversity observations. There is no doubt that the role of volunteers is pivotal in ensuring the legacy of these large-scale and long-term datasets.

The UK Ladybird Survey, one of these volunteer recording schemes, started life in 1968 as the Coccinellidae Recording Scheme. Tens of thousands of people have now contributed records – simply inspirational.

Role of the individual There is no doubt that internet technology has revolutionised citizen science and increased participation beyond the imagination of early pioneers. It could be argued that, with this number of contributors, the role of the individual and their sense of contributing to real science might be lost. I do not believe this to be the case for ladybird recording (and indeed many other citizen science initiatives) in the UK. One of the many appealing aspects of successful mass participation citizen science is that people can very easily get involved without having to commit

much time or effort but with the opportunities to progress and learn along the way.

From one submission to research An individual may begin by submitting one ladybird record – perhaps of a particular ladybird in their garden. This may be accompanied by a photograph of the ladybird. The contributor will then be notified as to whether or not their identification was correct (by me or one of the other UK Ladybird Survey volunteers) and encouraged to submit further sightings.

Some people will submit further records and others will not. Some will submit hundreds, and perhaps extend their recording to monitoring a specific locality on a regular basis. Others will get so involved that they undertake research projects quite literally on their kitchen table – the UK Ladybird Survey invites people to study parasites of ladybirds and, perhaps, amazingly some people are willing to do so!

Traditional engagement essential It is critical that people contributing to citizen science initiatives are provided with feedback and the opportunity to get deeply involved in biological recording – not just of ladybirds.

But every record counts and the submission of just one ladybird record will make a difference to the UK Ladybird Survey and hopefully to the participant too.

New technologies are revolutionising biological recording but they are just one of many components that contribute to the success of citizen science.

Traditional methods of engagement are essential to ensure the sustainability and progression of a citizen science initiative.

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There is no doubt that internet technology has revolutionised citizen science and increased participation beyond the imagination of early pioneers Current resources The UK Ladybird Survey has just launched a new smartphone app called iRecord Ladybirds. There have already been thousands of downloads and a surge in ladybird records. Each and every contributor will receive confirmation and feedback on their observation.

The UK Ladybird Survey team has also published the revised edition of the Naturalist Handbook Ladybirds.1 First published in 1989, this book placed emphasis on equipping all enthusiasts with the relevant techniques for studying ladybirds. The revised edition also encourages those who want to get more involved to contribute to increasing our understanding of ladybird ecology, whether in a professional research laboratory or on the kitchen table. That is what the UK Ladybird Survey is all about – real science for everyone.

1 HE Roy, PMJ Brown, RF Comont, RL Poland and JJ Sloggett (2013), Ladybirds (Naturalists’ Handbook 10). Revised from Majerus and Kearns (1989)

Dr Helen Roy is head of Zoology at the Biological Records Centre (BRC), part of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology which hosts more than 70 of the UK’s volunteer-led wildlife recording schemes and societies.

She tweets as @UKLadybirds hele@ceh.ac.uk http://www.ceh.ac.uk/ staffwebpages/drhelenroy.html http://www.ladybird-survey.org

PEOPLE&SCIENCE

March 2013

EXCHANGE

Digital by Default In November 2012, the government published its digital strategy, setting out how it would become digital by default. That’s its aim for public services, whether we’re applying for an apprenticeship or a student loan, finding out more about a property, transferring the ownership of a car, or managing our tax affairs - and a whole lot more. Here, Martyn Thomas, William Heath and Kevin Seller lay out their hopes and fears for the strategy.

Trouble ahead

Martyn Thomas foresees problems

To make Digital by Default work, government services need to build in strong security. There are some worrying signs of trouble ahead.

been updated to fix many known security problems, contrary to all sensible cybersecurity advice. The website is not fit for purpose.

Website quality

Security

The quality of current government websites is variable. DVLA, for example, seems to work well with a wide variety of software, whereas someone trying to claim Disability Living Allowance for a child, online, is confronted by a page that explains

There must be a secure way for users of services to identify themselves online.

The Government Digital Service has published a Good Practice Guide on Identity Proofing and Verification (IPV) that lives up to its name but cannot get round the dilemma that usability and security pull in opposite directions. If you need to be very sure that an online user is the person they claim to be, then you need to carry out a range of checks that may make the service difficult to use.

The service was designed to work with the following operating systems and browsers. Many of these are no longer available…

You are likely to have problems if you use Internet Explorer 7, 8, 9 and 10, Windows Vista or a smartphone..

If you use browsers not listed below, including Chrome, Safari or Firefox, the service [may] not display all the questions you need to answer. You may wish to claim in another way.

In other words, to apply for this benefit online you must have a computer that is several years old and that has not

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Exposure or corruption of sensitive personal data may risk serious injury to one person and only be inconvenient to another. Should the service be designed to satisfy the highest risks, even if that means using IPV procedures that are expensive, highly inconvenient for most citizens and reduce the takeup of the digital service? Testing alone can never guarantee security. How can

citizens be certain that their sensitive data is secure?

‘Anonymised’ data Politicians and civil servants often suggest that it is safe to make personal data that departments have collected available to others once it has been anonymised. This is at best naïve and at worst fraudulent.

If the ‘anonymous’ data contains enough information about an individual for it to be useful commercially or for research, then it will often be possible to re-identify the individual by comparing the data with other available datasets.

So Digital by Default is a great aspiration but delivering it is far harder than it may appear, and the most likely outcome is a flawed implementation followed by very damaging security breaches.

Dr Martyn Thomas is a Vice-President of the Royal Academy of Engineering martyn@thomas-associates.co.uk

Personal security is possible William Heath explains how One route the government has chosen for future ID assurance is Mydex, a social enterprise community interest company based in the Young Foundation.

Mydex provides personally encrypted online data stores free to individuals, and a technical and legal trust framework within which individuals can acquire and redeploy all sorts of personal data.

Crucially, this includes proofs to claims, such as having a driving licence, paying council tax at a specific address, having a passport or bank account.

This means that individuals can acquire evidence of relationships and trustworthiness as a normal part of engaging in online life. They can then sign on to services securely, receive structured data of all sorts at no cost, and personalise services without compromising privacy.

Midata and Mydex ID assurance requires that individuals present themselves for online public

services with an identity token or proof provided by a third party such as Mydex. The BIS Midata policy backed by the new Enterprise Reform Act 2013 - requires that regulated industries such as banks, phone companies or utilities be ready to give individuals their customer data back in a common structured format.

key, operating in a trust framework so sharing is controlled by technology and contract law. That’s what Mydex CIC does. It gives the individual a unique, personally encrypted data store to which only the individual sets the combination lock.

Trusted, protected online relationships will save people time and the Exchequer vast sums. An organisation and an individual can share a twoway encrypted connection for a decade at the same cost to the organisation of sending a single letter.

Of course, a business can’t be sure it’s giving the data back to the right customer without some form of ID assurance or secure login. And as banks and utilities start to provide structured data back to customers it’s a small step for them to sign it such that it in turn becomes the proof required for ID assurance. Similarly government passport and licensing services are moving to provide electronic counterparts of their paper licences and certificates. This brings about the digital counterpart of what we used to do in providing paper bank statements and utility bills.

There are plenty of valid priorities for public expenditure. The crippling costs of organisation-centric or even Victorian era information logistics are not among them.

William Heath is an entrepreneur and chairman of Mydex CIC mydex.org william@mydex.org

The missing link is the personal data store controlled by the individual, and to which only the individual has the

The Post Office can deliver It’s ideally placed, argues Kevin Seller We think that the Post Office should play a central role in helping the government deliver its Digital by Default agenda.

More than nine out of ten people in the UK population live within one mile of a Post Office, and almost 20 million customers visit a branch every week.

Our network, at around 11,800 branches, is larger than the banks and building societies combined.

The Post Office already plays a crucial role in providing the public with access to key services and supporting government to reduce the cost of delivering services. We handle, for example, 1.4 billion transactions that include managing nearly three million passport applications, 20 million motoring service transactions and three million Post Office Card Accounts.

Support for customers One of the key challenges is to ensure that the 16 million who are not online,

or lack the confidence or skills to transact online, are not left behind.

Many of these people are some of the most vulnerable members of society, with complex needs and high levels of dependency on government support.

They are intensive users of public services. The extensive Post Office branch network and the trust people place in it offer the opportunity to support all these people to ensure universal access to services.

We can help these people access the service they require by providing inbranch assistance, for example through practical advice and assistance. We can support those elements of a transaction that cannot be completed on-line, for example high-level identity verification and assurance. We can also remove paper from the system by converting face-to-face transactions into digital form, and sharing directly with government back office.

Ongoing assessment After the transaction is completed, the Post Office has the potential to assess the support these customers need to access the services independently the next time. The Post Office, for example, is already able to signpost customers to their nearest free or low-cost internet access and training.

The Post Office is a Founder Partner of Go ON UK, the UK’s Digital Skills Alliance, chaired by Baroness LaneFox. Its purpose is to inspire and support individuals and organisations that want to share their digital skills with others. And so the Post Office is ideally placed, working alongside our partners, to ensure our customers get the help they need to use government digital services independently.

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Kevin Seller is head of government services of Post Office Ltd. kevin.seller@postoffice.co.uk

PEOPLE&SCIENCE

September 2013

FEATURE

Public engagement and the research excellence framework One step in the right direction, conclude Peter McOwan and Charlotte Thorley

November 2013 will see a short collective sigh of relief across UK universities, as the submissions for the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) are made. It will be around a year later that the results are available, determining how research funding from government will be distributed to UK tertiary education institutions.

As in the past a large proportion will depend on the quality of research papers published, and how panels of experts assess the standing of these pieces of work. This time, however, something new is on the table: the REF impact statements.

Generally it’s fair to say that academics are still unsure of REF and Impact. After all, it’s a new set of largely untested rules. However, impact has the potential to be useful for those trying to establish and reward a culture of public engagement activity. It provides both a carrot (potential funding) and a stick (provision of robust evidence, in other words more data to collect and forms to fill in).

Scope of impact The REF guidelines1 state: Assessment criteria: impact: ‘The main panel welcomes case studies describing impacts that have provided benefits to one or more areas of culture, the economy, the environment, health, public policy and services, quality of life, or society, whether locally, regionally, nationally or internationally.’

This definition clearly includes public engagement (PE) but critically, only PE based on specific and citable research papers from the individuals involved. General PE activity, such as promoting and undertaking dialogue on the subject area, is not counted. This is worrying, especially if it leads universities to reframe their PE activity to the metrics instead of the

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Just doing more activity isn’t necessarily a good thing right now. Quality is the key

interests of teachers and students.

What counts?

The problem is that the rules for assessment are not entirely clear, and as it is a new system there is no precedent to indicate exactly what the assessors are looking for.

Though a number of exemplar case studies were undertaken, reviewed and rated, and the results made public, many institutions will choose to play it safe, reducing their risk.

They will put in case studies where direct impact can be clearly demonstrated, for example in industry, where research paper A lead to the production of widget B. In medicine and science this may be a safer bet. However, it acts as a disincentive to wider PE activity, as it encourages researchers to focus on doing PE around their own research papers rather than more generally on the subjects they teach. In the humanities the needs and delivery models of impact are frequently very different, and many feel we have a long way to go in understanding the best ways of reporting, documenting, evaluating and sharing practice from current PE work.

Staying ahead Just doing more activity isn’t necessarily a good thing right now.

Quality is the key. Evidence collection and activities that are thoughtful, have the audience in mind and consider wider economic and social benefits should be what makes a good PE REF case study, and perhaps as importantly a more

transparent and engaged university system. However if we encourage staff to do more PE, and they don’t make it into impact statements, we run the risk of discouraging them.

Regardless of REF, institutions need to ensure that they value PE work more generally in promotions criteria, workload allocation and appraisal, and by finding ways to support and develop practitioners, and sharing best practice.

This time we learn; next time we’ll be more ready and know what’s what.

Unless of course, the next REF includes as big a change as this one – then we’ll have to get our crystal balls out again to make sure we’re ahead of the game.

1 See http://www.ref.ac.uk/

Note: This article reflects the authors’ personal views as experienced PE practitioners.

Professor Peter W. McOwan is Vice Principal, Public Engagement and Student Enterprise at Queen Mary, University of London pmco@eecs.qmul.ac.uk scienceassocation.org Charlotte Thorley Manager Public Engagement at Queen Mary, University of London c.thorley@qmul.ac.uk

FEATURE

One man’s experience Martin Coath persists with engagement

I have been sharing my scientific proclivities, in public, since I was 13.

My early enthusiasm for science was ignited by space exploration, the rise of the microprocessor, and the promise of unlimited energy from artificial suns.

It has continued to be some part of my everyday work almost ever since; in industry and further education; in schools, prisons and drop-in centres for disabled people; at public events and evening classes; in engineering firms, and at the Workers’ Educational Association.

I didn’t apply for my first research job until 12 years ago. It was immediately obvious that many academics, already adjusting to the increasing emphasis on undergraduate teaching, saw engagement with the wider public as a mere side-show.

Of course researchers know that funding councils and big industries don’t print the money that funds them. They also know that we live in an open, connected society.

So any attempt to ignore how the funding bodies get their money is, as described by Brian Cox at the British Science Association’s Science Communication Conference, ‘myopic’.

Not part of the contract You cannot blame academics for being short sighted. We have had decades of short-term contracts, the pellmell pursuit of scarce posts via a good publication record, and increasing pressure to secure funding is piled on to the demand for excellence in undergraduate teaching. And anyway, when I emailed a colleague recently to ask for someone to represent their research group at a universitysponsored public event, he said one of his postdocs might be willing,

Science needs to foster a joint enterprise with the society that funds it, and which benefits from its work

but that it was ‘outside her job description’. He is absolutely right – it is; the myopia is, by omission, part of the contract.

I am lucky to be working alongside senior colleagues who can see that there is value in my continuing outreach activities. When the new Cognition Institute at Plymouth University came in to existence, I successfully applied for the first research fellowship at the university that incorporated an explicit public engagement remit. For me, at least, it is inside my job description. I regarded this as a small victory despite the short–term, part-time contract.

Seven years ago I was a Famelab finalist which led to my first invitation to speak at the Cheltenham Science Festival. I had sailed too close to the wider public engagement community and, because I had no one to tie me to the mast, I was lured onto the rocks. This opened my eyes to many more disparate routes through which academics can develop ideas and cooperate on projects: national competitions, open-mic events, citizen science, and many others. If we are to reach the widest audience, it is essential that the projects we support are diverse and inventive.

are ‘pointless’. There is certainly a lot of work yet to be done.

Science needs to foster a joint enterprise with the society that funds it, and which benefits from its work. When I say this out loud I still tend to receive blank looks and awkward silences. This isn’t just about publicity for your research, getting your face in the media, building your CV, or meeting a grant deliverable.

If you believe that democracy is strengthened when the people who vote understand the issues, then it is a matter of citizenship.

Only the research community can take responsibility for this, and as a result universities must commit to taking a leading role.

Martin Coath is a scientist, communicator, and musician.

He works both as a freelance and at the Cognition Institute, Plymouth University. He worked with Timandra Harkness on a project for the 2013 Edinburgh Festival called ‘BrainSex’

‘Pointless’ Not all academics will want to get involved in any of these, but I have been surprised by how sceptical, or dismissive, many are of their value. This is particularly true of my regular support for science and maths in primary schools, which I have been told recently

mcoath@gmail.com

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September 2013

FEATURE

Turn maths and science education on its head!

Psychological sciences should inform what goes on in the classroom, says Jo Evershed One hundred years ago, science transformed medical practice, resulting in a seismic improvement in human health and wellbeing. The psychological sciences – which seek to understand the mental processes involved in learning – could impact education in a similar way.

Mathematical story-telling Basic arithmetic is to mathematics as basic letter and word recognition is to literature.

Thankfully, the joy of reading stories is shared with children, before they can read, and inspires children to persevere with basic reading skills.

By the same token, it can be argued that engaging children in the application of mathematics, before they can do arithmetic, will inspire them to persevere with basic arithmetic skills.

Like language, mathematics describes and constructs the world around us.

Demonstrating mathematical relationship with everyday objects that relate to a child’s experience can show them this. For instance, mathematics describes how many loaves of bread you need a week in order to feed a family of five who each eat four slices of bread a day.

The beauty of a concrete approach is that children learn that their observations can be combined – in a mathematical model – to answer novel questions. It may even inspire children to seek out new information in order to make better predictions about their environment; a motivation that is a foundation to STEM careers.

Unfortunately, most children spend the majority of primary school learning arithmetic and have to wait until secondary school or university before they encounter applied mathematics.

If their early experience of arithmetic is unpleasant, they can be put off for life. Consequently, exposure to realworld uses of mathematics in tandem with the current syllabus should form the basis of maths and science education from nursery to graduation.

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Concrete and abstract thinking People readily accept that teaching applied mathematics would engage and motivate students, but fear such an approach would inhibit a student’s ability to develop abstract (contextindependent) representations of mathematics.

Abstract representations are essential for transferring knowledge from a known to a novel domain, and this knowledge transference is essential to success in STEM subjects. But psychology teaches us something counter-intuitive: that we form the most meaningful abstract representations if we start with a concrete example.

So, in science, children can recognise that their skin protects them from dirt and infection, that their clothes protect them from their environment, and that a house protects them from the elements. From these multiple and varied concrete representations, children can derive an abstract representation of a barrier affording protection and use this to understand that the ozone layer, something that they can neither see nor touch, protects the planet from the sun’s radiation.

Children can form abstract representations more easily when a teacher gradually simplifies multiple concrete and detailed examples so as to draw attention to the common structural features which are necessary for the abstract idea.

An approach informed by evidence from the psychological sciences would advocate that educational best practice would teach using a practical experience first, and study

The beauty of a concrete approach is that children learn that their observations can be combined - in a mathematical model - to answer novel questions the theory second, as this supports the natural formation of abstract representations.

Neuroscientists are also currently investigating the neural underpinnings and development of abstract reasoning. Several fMRI studies have shown that specific prefrontal areas (the front of the brain) are involved with abstract thought, and that these regions change in many different ways between childhood and adulthood.

This understanding may eventually inform teaching practice.

Lifelong learning An applied approach to maths and science education enhances student motivation, and supports and enriches the development of contextindependent thought. Through learning to see both the concrete experience and abstract representation in everyday experience, children become equipped to be life-long learners and original thinkers.

Jo Evershed is an economist turned psychologist. This article is adapted from a presentation given to the Royal Society Vision Committee for Maths and Science Education jo.evershed@cauldron.sc

FEATURE

The dementia lab Laura Phipps lifts the lid on dementia research The Lab empowers people to take an active interest in research and how they can help

With 820,000 people in the UK living with dementia and numbers rising, there has been a huge increase in interest around dementia and research. To help the public feel more informed about dementia research and confident in interpreting new research findings, we at Alzheimer’s Research UK created a virtual lab tour – The Lab. The Lab takes people through three photo-realistic research environments – Discovery Lab, Development Lab and The Clinic – representing the translation of ideas through to new treatments for people with dementia.

Discovery The Discovery Lab represents the early stages of the research process. Visitors can learn about how researchers’ ideas are funded and the current state-of-play of dementia research funding in the UK. Despite dementia costing the UK economy more than £23bn a year, dementia research still only accounts for around 2.5 per cent of the government research budget.

Our Dementia 2010 report showed that investment in research for every £1million in social and health costs was £129,269 for cancer and only £4,882 for dementia.

The Discovery Lab reveals more about why studying the minute detail of genes and molecules can help to unravel dementia, why fruit flies can provide important insight into the genetics behind diseases like Alzheimer’s, and presents slide shows of amazing images seen down the microscope by our researchers. Discoveries made at this stage can make huge strides for our understanding of the diseases that cause dementia, but there is often a long way to go before these findings lead to benefits for people.

Development and clinic The Development Lab takes these findings a step further, discussing how potential new treatments developed from these ideas are shortlisted for testing in people.

This area also helps people to understand other types of clinical research, from the development of blood-based markers to improve detection of diseases like Alzheimer’s, to longitudinal studies vital for teasing apart risk factors.

The final stage of The Lab is called The Clinic and discusses how new treatments are taken through clinical trials. Successes at this stage can have a direct impact on people with dementia, but these studies can take many years and cost many millions of pounds. The Clinic also outlines a new drug discovery initiative announced by Alzheimer’s Research UK to help streamline the development of new drug targets, to help bring benefits to patients sooner.

Hopes for support Visitors to The Lab can connect to the site using Facebook, allowing their visit to be individually tailored and to encourage them to pledge their support for dementia research to their network of friends. There are many different ways to support research, from fundraising for Alzheimer’s Research UK to volunteering to take part in research studies. The Lab empowers people to take an active interest in research and how they can help.

We know through talking to our supporters that medical research fascinates people and supporting research can provide hope and positivity to those going through tough times. But the idea of dementia research can also be an intimidating one. With so many different kinds of research taking place into dementia and new research breakthroughs announced every day, it can be difficult to know how it all fits together.

With around 40 per cent of the UK population knowing a close friend or family member with dementia, it is a subject close to many hearts and its impacts can be felt across generations. We want The Lab to be an engaging and fun way for our supporters to learn about the research we are funding, as well as attracting new and younger audiences to show an interest in medical research.

Visit The Lab by Alzheimer’s Research UK at www.dementialab.org

Dr Laura Phipps is the Science Communications Officer at Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research charity l.phipps@alzheimers researchuk.org

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FEATURE

The different ages of space weather Cathryn Mitchell and Joe Kinrade try to amuse them all Earlier this year the University of Bath was invited by the London science museum to display an exhibition about space weather and remote fieldwork in Antarctica.

In 2010 the university deployed a network of specialised GPS receivers across the Antarctic continent for long-term observation of space weather effects. This involved camping at remote sites across the central icy plateau and working outdoors in temperatures o as low as -30 C. To bring the ‘Space Weather’ experience to the science museum in July 2013, we exhibited actual camping equipment and clothing used in the Antarctic as an interactive and hands-on display.

This worked particularly well for younger children who enjoyed trying on furry headwear and snow boots! The challenge for the exhibitors was to get across the scientific aspects of the research.

Complex physics

geomagnetic field lines. Periods of enhanced solar activity can energise the Earth’s atmosphere, when it exhibits dynamic storm-like behaviour that affects radio signals.

The physics is complex and, in order to understand this behaviour, observations have to consider processes that occur over a huge range of scale in space and time.

Different age groups Most people are now familiar with GPS through navigation, and so for adults it was easy to explain that these signals can be disrupted by the aurora and that this can cause problems for other technological systems such as radio communications.

For teenagers already studying science subjects at school, the exhibition gave them an opportunity to see a different aspect of career progression in engineering at university. For older children below teenage years, the concept of the Earth having a magnetic field (like a big bar magnet) and aurorae was appealing. However the unifying theme for all age groups from 3-83 years old was the movie of the penguins whose appeal transcended all ages!

Space weather describes the interactions that occur within the complex Sun-Earth system.

Our technologies and critical infrastructure are now heavily dependent on a growing family of satellites that sit in the fragile near-Earth space environment.

Satellite positioning and timing systems now control a vast number of applications ranging from aircraft and marine navigation, ocean floor drilling, and tracking of endangered species.

Personal experience

The Northern and Southern lights of the aurorae are a spectacular phenomenon associated with space weather, but they’re only one component of a large and dynamic Sun-Earth system. The Polar Regions are essentially ‘open’ to solar radiation through the funnel effect of near-vertical

On reflection we learned a lot from the exhibition. Firstly, to a lot of people a scientist is a general scientist and should be able to answer any science question.

‘What do my dreams mean?’ for example, was perhaps the most unexpected question throughout the exhibition week. Secondly,

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The main thing we learned was that, as scientists, it was well worth giving up our time to explain what we’re doing

young children are easy to engage but also lose interest very quickly, so it’s important to have a number of different activities to do. Once they see other children trying on Antarctic clothing they are very happy to join in, but they needed encouragement at first.

We found that the most challenging age group was 9-12 year olds – too old to try on giant gloves, but perhaps too young to see themselves as scientists or engineers of the future. The adult visitors ranged from keen parents and grandparents, to amateur radio enthusiasts, and young couples that were out for the day in London. We had positive responses and interaction from all of these groups.

The main thing we learned was that, as scientists, it was well worth giving up our time to explain what we’re doing. The visitors really appreciated speaking to people who had personal experience of the fieldwork and science in the exhibition, and we thoroughly enjoyed sharing our stories.

Cathryn Mitchell is Professor in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering c.n.mitchell@bath.ac.uk

Joe Kinrade is a research assistant in the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering j.kinrade@bath.ac.uk

FEATURE

Picaresque recollections Pauline Marstrand remembers previous Festivals 1948, Brighton

1981, York

The President was Sir Henry Tizard. I was studying at Brighton Technical College for a degree in Chemistry with Physics, Zoology and Botany, awarded externally by the University of London. Science students were invited to volunteer as ‘runners’ for this first post-war meeting, and I was delighted to be allotted to GP Wells, as his father HG was one of my heroes. The only qualification was possession of a bicycle, and I spent almost all the time scurrying between the Dome, the Pavilion, the Tech and various hotels. I met friends of my late grandfather, the amateur naturalist and geologist EA Martin,1 who were very welcoming. I attended the closing ‘banquet’ – mainly sandwiches, and a dance led by a local band. An astonishing conjunction of academics danced the Boompsa-Daisy, the Hokey Cokey, the Lambeth Walk, the Chestnut Tree and the Palais Glide.

The Section X theme was nuclear power and nuclear weapons. One of the speakers was David Owen, the Foreign Secretary, who was much in favour of continuing and renewing Trident. He didn’t want to meet the press, and I spent much of my time heading them off. [I finally caught up with him as he was leaving, and interviewed him in his taxi on the way to the station. – Ed] I was secretary of X by this time.

1974, Stirling The President was Sir John Kendrew. I attended Section X, which had been founded by JD Bernal, Peter Ritchie Calder, Solly Zuckerman and others as a general committee to hold more or less annual meetings during the war. When normality resumed they persuaded Council to reinstate it as a General Section, known as X, and able to arrange programmes on almost anything. I was invited onto its committee in 1975.

1976, Aston Section X had Chris Brasher as its President for the topic Science and Sport. CB was very enthusiastic, but after about two meetings he became entangled with his new London Marathon (which he co-founded), and resigned. Help! Someone suggested a professor at Loughborough, who fortunately accepted.

I think this may have been the last occasion on which we paraded the streets in caps and gowns, watched by an enthusiastic gaggle of locals.

Science students were invited to volunteer as ‘runners’ for this first post-war meeting, and I was delighted to be allotted to GP Wells, as his father HG was one of my heroes

On the morning of the meeting in Belfast, JM appeared looking rather wan. He was amazed at how uncomfortable the bed had been, and appalled by the queue for breakfast. He booked into the Sheraton for the rest of the week.

1984, Norwich John Durant was Secretary of X. The theme was Science Fiction and Fantasy. James Randi, the American magician, claimed to be able to produce any ‘magic’ tricks by material and explicable means.

He almost came to blows with some more romantically-inclined enthusiasts for the occult.

1990, Swansea Colin Blakemore was President of Section X. The dinner was held at a place on The Mumbles, and CB carefully checked underneath and in the bonnet of his car for bombs planted by animal-rights activists before driving to and from the venue.

1986, Bristol Sir Richard Gregory led Section X, on Perception and Illusion. Dan Dennett took everyone out to dinner. We had a moving eulogy for Alan Turing.

1 Amongst various other activities, EA Martin FGS worked with Bernard Shaw, Malcolm Muggeridge’s father and Croydon Mayor Keighley Moore to save Croham Hurst, near Croydon, from development.

1987, Belfast Jonathan Miller was President of Section X. The theme was Humour.

We had on the committee a very lively and talented entrepreneur of science and the arts, Jasia Reichardt.

The only way we succeeded in getting JM to a meeting was for Jasia to invite him to her house in Belsize Park for breakfast.

Even then, she had to go and fetch him! The breakfast was more memorable than the meetings: asparagus and bacon, croissants, canapés, copious Rioja.

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Pauline Marstrand is a retired biologist and science policy researcher. She is a long-standing member of the British Science Association

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September 2013

Obituary

David Dickson, 1947 – 2013 David Dickson, who died suddenly at the end of July, was widely admired for his career advancing the global conversation about science and society.

After his Cambridge degree, where he enlivened his mathematical studies with work on Varsity, a vacation stint as a sub-editor on a medical weekly persuaded him he could make his way as a journalist. He covered science policy for the Times Higher Education Supplement, then as Nature’s Washington correspondent and Science’s man in Europe, based in Paris.

He came back to Britain at the end of the 1980s so his children could complete their education here, and worked at New Scientist as news editor, and then – briefly and unhappily – as editor. He regrouped at Nature, which he rejoined as news editor in 1992. Later that decade, he worked with Nature’s support to assemble the elements of a new organisation, Sci-Dev.Net, dedicated to exploiting the internet to bring information about science and technology to developing countries.

We at the British Science Association have been privileged to have enjoyed a long and rewarding relationship with David.

He attended the British Science Festival since the 1970s, first as a journalist and later heavily involved in organising events. He devoted many years to the Festival's General Section, Section X, leading the Section as Recorder since 2002. He served on Council as a trustee from 2008 and the Association’s Audit Committee from 2010.

The Association and I personally have greatly benefited from knowing David.

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SciDev.Net launched as a not for profit company in 2001, and he directed it until his retirement last year. It was, in a way, a return to the concern of his important book, Alternative Technology and The Politics of Technical Change, which appeared in the 1970s: How can one maximise the contribution of science and technology to human well-being, worldwide?

A lifelong man of the Left, he wore his politics lightly, and was refreshingly unsectarian. It influenced his choice of subjects as much as the stories he wrote, and sharpened his appreciation of the workings of power. In later years, he welcomed the advent of public understanding of science and science communication as academic and policy concerns, and the richer debate about science and its publics that ensued. But he also continued to point out that, across much of the world, a little more scientific literacy would go a long way.

Under his leadership, SciDev.Net grew into an essential global resource. Its other main concern was developing capacity in science writing, and many budding writers benefitted from

Whatever I asked of him, whether it be taking part in a session at the Science Communication Conference, speaking in a debate on GM or helping wine and dine many an Association President or sponsor, he always delivered.

As I sit here thinking about him, I realise that he was a man of wonderful paradoxes – a deeply analytical journalistic brain yet a wonderfully warm kind heart. An incredibly busy person yet someone who always gave you time.

Speaking at his all-too-premature funeral, David’s brother said something that made me smile. As a small boy,

the tutelage of David and the network of regional co-ordinators he built up.

He continued to write, speak and lead workshops since his formal retirement in 2012, the same year he received a lifetime achievement award from the Association of British Science Writers.

The continuing success of SciDev.Net is his lasting legacy, along with a global constellation of writers who found him an inspiring mentor, a good friend and an unfailing source of good advice.

Dr Jon Turney is a science and policy writer based in Bristol, UK. He contributes to futureearth.info and Green Futures, among other publications and blogs at unreliablefutures.wordpress .com and scienceobserved. wordpress.com jonturney@googlemail.com

when David started at infants’ school, he went straight into the second year.

He didn’t bother with the first year as he simply didn’t need to.

David Dickson left a lasting impression on all who had the immense pleasure of knowing him. His life has been cut short way too soon.

Sue Hordijenko is Director of Programmes at the British Science Association sue.hordijenko@british scienceassociation.org

REVIEW

Biohackers: the politics of open science, by Alessandro Delfanti.

Pluto, 2013 Amanda Rees finds an odd concoction If you could combine the gangling garage physicists of Robert Heinlein’s early science fiction novels with John Wyndham’s prescient acknowledgement of biology as the queen of the sciences, you might wind up with the figure of the ‘biohacker’: committed to pursuing knowledge for its own sake, unwilling to be constrained, whether by bureaucratic, legal or institutional impediment. In this book, Delfanti has done an excellent job of outlining the hopes and embodying the optimism that lie behind this approach to research and knowledge.

Hackers as heroes

Thin case studies

Essentially, what he does is to show how the language (metaphors, narrative structures) used by or about those involved in such projects complements and resonates with that used to describe earlier – and more morally uplifting – periods in scientific history. So, the hacker is a heroic figure, even a heretic, comparable to Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

The trouble is that this is an enormous topic, and this is a very short book (only 140 pages). Delfanti’s outline of his main thesis, which comprises the first three chapters, is not really very well supported by his three case studies (Craig Venter, Ilaria Capua and DIYbio), all of which would have been improved by the inclusion of more detail and data.

They act in a way commensurate with the scientific ideals of the mid-20th century, which themselves derive from the values that emerged during the Scientific Revolution.

Knowledge should be publicly available, should be assessed on its merits and (crucially) should not be the source of monetary profit for the knowledge producer.

Many of these values, not all of which were consistently adhered to, seem to have been lost as knowledge becomes increasingly digitalised and monetized through the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Naturally, the story is a lot more complicated than this – as Delfanti is careful to acknowledge – but he is interested primarily in how the politics of the open science movement are influencing the doing of science, and how both are inflected (or, oddly, ‘contaminated’, in his term) by the values and social mores of the hacker community.

As things stand, his discursive analysis is allusive and thought provoking, but could have done with being rather more tightly tied to the earlier discussion of the studies of scientific practice and institution. This would have given greater context and wider significance to his analysis of the relationship between science, democracy, capitalism and neo-liberalism.

it’s odd to read a book about biohackers that has an index entry for ‘entrepreneurship’, but not one for ‘ethics’

language and morality in the consideration of intellectual property issues, it is rather odd not to see some of the other criminal aspects of hacking at least referenced.

Both at an individual and at an international, even global level, there are grounds for more and more concern about the relationship between cyber security and personal safety. In an era where scientists are asked to consider actually suppressing data, for fear of its misuse by terrorists, it’s odd to read a book about biohackers that has an index entry for ‘entrepreneurship’, but not one for ‘ethics’.

No Ethics In addition, Delfanti’s clear enthusiasm and approbation of the hacker attitude, while enormously enjoyable to read, is in danger of blinding him to some less salubrious aspects of this approach to ‘open science’.

In his introduction, he notes that a scientist friend worried for his physical safety in the context of poor US regulation of dangerous chemicals – but the question of the potential misuse either of resources or knowledge does not recur. Given that much of the study’s focus is on

Dr Amanda Rees is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University of York amanda.rees@york.ac.uk

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CORRESPONDENCE

Readers’ opinions Before we went online, we felt it was the right time to ask our readers what you think about our content. We will use your feedback to guide the content we create for the website.

Here are some of the comments the survey produced. By far the greatest group complained about discontinuing the paper edition.

I have to sadly admit that today’s email prompted me to read the on-line version for the first time! I found 3 articles that are of direct current relevance to projects I’m involved with. I will now make reference to the resource in my work as an international science education consultant and add it to my list of useful websites for teachers.

Make it more tangible and actionable.

I’d like more debates on ethics and science.

I stopped reading P&S when you had this incredible drivel on climate science by James Delingpole and Judith Curry. This was serious misinformation and I felt that I can’t trust the information in P&S any more if your editorial team apparently is not able to spot politically motivated obvious distortions.

The forums and opportunities to conduct online surveys etc are informative.

P&S reads like a stitch up. It makes me feel it is always pushing the line the government wants me to believe.

I’m sorry that this will not continue in print as I often go back to it, refer to it or give to others in a way I don’t think I will do with the digital version.

It also seems to push lines convenient to big business.

It would be nice to see more approval of science and technology and less knocking.

I know it’s the British Science Association but it would be nice to hear of successful projects overseas that engage school children or the public in science.

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The formulation of science, technology and medicine policy in Parliament should be covered more fully and reports provides on particular debates in the Commons and Lords.

I often feel your articles don’t go into enough depth.

I think the content feels dated, the layout of the magazine is unappealing (primary-schoolish) and generally there are more interesting things that could be covered in a more engaging way. I always have a skim and maybe get tempted to read just one of the articles.

Keep up the good work!

I value People & Science as the only specialised news source (that I’m aware of) for science communication/science in society issues, and always make a point of reading it to help keep abreast of what’s going on in the sector. It’s nice and clear to read and well-presented.

The design of the magazine is really uninviting. For an organisation about communication, it’s an incredibly dull looking publication.

To improve it, I’d like to see more investigative features that provide an overview and critique of key issues, to get you thinking.

I think People & Science is fantastic with really interesting and topical content.

People & Science needs to consider regular, focused e-newsletters to readers with links to its own articles and features on line as well as links to other sources. Such a newsletter might provoke me to read the on-line journal.

Inclusion of a specific P&S RSS feed would also be useful (not a generic BSA feed.)

E-journals are boring. Reading on computers is bad for your back and is generally horrible. It is too much like work. I used to read the journal for information and pleasure but why on earth would I want to go and read it online?

BROWNIE POINTS

Discussing science communication Too precious, argues Tracey Brown Just because knowledge – or lack of it – doesn’t account for everything people think, doesn’t mean you’re wrong to tell people what you know

The academic commentary about public engagement in science is too controlling. This autumn’s publication of a BIS review of science and society initiatives1 is a good moment to end the superior tone of academic discourse about knowledge versus consultation and chill out about discussing science.

Sure, argue about the best ways and which publics. If you have experience of doing it, you cannot help but find some attempts to discuss science with the public crass, or founded on odd ideas. I have noticed that more than a few scientists who moan about cod science do a good line in cod sociology about why people don’t like technologies. I have, too often, struggled to retain the will to live when chairing question sessions at events about science controversies, as the third questioner seizes the microphone and begins, ‘I think it all goes back to the schools...’

But ultimately, the diversity of what people want to achieve with engagement and what others want from it means that there is no one true path. There is not a rule about how much giving of information and how much consulting must happen in any science engagement exercise. It is not a Really Bad Thing if, say, paediatrician and immunology expert Paul Offit tells people what he knows about vaccines, forcefully. That might be a good way to challenge health writers, but not effective for a health visitor trying to increase vaccine uptake.

Knowledge matters A small kerfuffle broke out over the interpretation of the Wellcome Trust Monitor survey2 earlier this year. The survey indicated that the public often doesn’t want to be involved

in decisions, said Hannah Baker of Wellcome in a Guardian commentary, and perhaps we are not paying enough attention to the importance of science education.

While the knowledge deficit model might be discredited, surely that’s not the same as saying that knowledge doesn’t matter? Simon Lock and Melanie Smallman of University College London didn’t agree and pointed to the limited role of evidence in the way people respond to GM, for example.

That some attempts to tackle discussions such as organ retention or vaccines have been ineffective does not mean that the idea of imparting knowledge is wrong. It depends on what you are trying to achieve and on what people are asking from you. Sometimes people want expertise, sometimes they need to hear arguments against a news article on the HPV vaccine, sometimes they want accountability for how a decision has been reached, and sometimes they want to have a say.

telling them off), but their slide shows about others’ deficiencies are still a lot longer than those about their own successes.

Facts and information sometimes change things and sometimes they don’t. Just because knowledge – or lack of it – doesn’t account for everything people think, doesn’t mean you’re wrong to tell people what you know. After all, we as a society choose to pay for expertise, in the form of the education and research that give rise to it. It makes a mockery of democratic debate not to use it. And we should use knowledge, and argue about it, any way we like.

1 See www.gov.uk/government/policies/engagingthe-public-in-science-and-engineering--3/activity Blog at http://discuss.bis.gov.uk/bisdigital/ 2013/05/01/bis-digital-engagement-case-studyseries-science-and-society-review/ 2

See http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Mediaoffice/Press-releases/2013/WTP052617.htm

Too precious Ideas about science communication have just become too precious, when really there is no one size fits all response to questions before us which involve evidence and decisions. The science communication experts and academics have been advising government and big institutions for years about engagement (or rather

Tracey Brown is the Director of Sense About Science tbrown@senseabout science.org

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STEM IN PARLIAMENT

Regenerative medicine in the UK Phil Willis diagnoses huge potential but enduring problems There are very few occasions when a Parliamentary report creates an almost visionary landscape that has the potential to save millions of lives, alleviate suffering and reduce health costs for future generations.

Regenerative medicine, that is the replacement or regeneration of cells, tissues and organs to restore or establish normal function, has huge potential. This is no longer in question. There are already over a million patients who have received cell-based treatments globally. In laboratories across the USA, Europe and Asia, over 1000 clinical trials are taking place promising breakthroughs in the treatment of chronic diseases including diabetes, coronary disease and a wide range of neurological conditions associated with ageing.

Economic incentive For governments, the opportunities to reduce costs of dealing with long term chronic illness are highly significant. Some 30 per cent of UK citizens suffer from chronic conditions including diabetes, strokes, dementia, heart and kidney disease which take up 75 per cent of current NHS spend. This will continue to rise with the NHS facing a funding shortfall of between £44bn and £54bn by 2022 – not to mention the very significant economic costs where people are of working age. Regenerative medicine has the potential to provide more effective treatments and in a number of cases a cure.

This is why we need a more urgent approach to ensure the UK takes advantage of its position at the very forefront of this new landscape.

The House of Lords Report, Regenerative Medicine,1 acknowledges the excellence of the UK academic base in the PAGE 28

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areas of cell and gene therapies, recognises an almost unique infrastructure led by a 67 millionstrong NHS patient database, a growing R&D funding base and the buy-in of Ministers in BIS, Health and crucially the Treasury where the Chancellor has given the area ‘capital priority status’.

Improve funding and regulation The report however sends out a very stark warning that the UK is in danger of losing out on regenerative medical potential, largely because of a lack of coordinated leadership, a lack of appropriate funding models for high-risk low-volume treatments and an over-complex regulatory environment. As so often in the past, brilliant science is far too slow to move from laboratory to bedside as we attempt to apply traditional models of regulation, finance and governance when new, more radical approaches are necessary.

The lack of substantial private sector investment is hardly surprising. This is a relatively new field and it has potential risks which make investors wary. What is more, the development of treatments with potentially low volumes of patients is not attractive to big pharma. To expect the newly formed Cell Therapy Catapult to support late clinical trials with a budget of £70 million spread over five years is simply not adequate. The suggestion to look at other non-UK funding models must be an urgent priority. The French Citizens Innovation Funds model offers

The lack of substantial private sector investment is hardly surprising. This is a relatively new field and it has potential risks which make investors wary companies a tax-advantaged investment and tax breaks. This is one possible solution, as is the Californian model of the creation of ‘mega funds’ or secured bonds.

There are also other options.

A more readily achievable goal is to streamline the regulatory system which is robust but not responsive to this fast emerging field. The establishment of the Health Research Authority as a nondepartmental government body gives it the power and scope to make significant changes, to cut out overlap, establish a single point of entry and exit and offer a comprehensive advice service to researchers and commercial companies. The notion that ‘because the science is complex so must the regulation’ is as unhelpful as it is unnecessary.

The report sets out a number of clear and achievable objectives.

They must be acted upon swiftly, before other nations overtake us.

1 The report is at www.publications.parliament.uk/ pa/ld201314/ldselect/ldsctech/23/2302.htm

Lord Willis of Knaresborough is a member of the Lords Select committee on Science and Technology willisg@parliament.uk

SOUNDING OFF

Connect academia to the wider world!

Our education system is one of the most specialised in the world.

There is a lot to be said for this. It’s one of the reasons so many people spend so much money to travel from all over the world to study here. Specialism is a good thing in itself. It lets us – quite simply – specialise; learn more about the tiny details of the world and further deepen the sum of human knowledge.

But there are problems too. This is often understood in terms of lack of understanding between disciplines or subject groups (for example ‘two cultures’) but it’s a loss of a chance to consider complex subjects as a whole too.

As cracks in the system become ever more obvious, universities are increasingly looking for ways to reconnect educational programmes, and reconnect their students with each other and the wider world with them.

Set of problems Imperial College is experimenting with such a course, which I helped pilot and set up last year as part of its Horizons programme.1 Prompted partly from feedback from graduate employers, the course wanted to find ways of helping students to develop problem-solving skills and put their science in context.

We also wanted to give them more opportunities to think about how they could communicate work to nonspecialists, and put disparate – often incomplete – knowledge together.

‘Science doesn’t have a politics’ It’s easy to see ‘in context’ work as secondary to the apparently more important and authentic experience of a traditionally organised curriculum. Some also seemed to find it a bit of a threat.

Even supporters in the college would dub it ‘soft-skills’, and yet in many respects it was a lot harder. Or simply a different type of challenge.

Most worrying to me were those who maintained we couldn’t possibly talk about politics, only learn about how policy might better listen to science, because apparently ‘science doesn’t have a politics’. Such a blinkered view seemed simply unscientific, and made me deeply concerned about the consequence of spending too much time down your own disciplinary silos.

Only connect

It was an exercise in offering a science education as a set of problems and complex, mixed bits of knowledge, not the sets of ready-made answers to learn.

Students at all levels should have a chance to spend time learning about issues as they come to us in real life; a mass of interconnected questions and partial knowledges, not neatly divided and settled topics for study.

Climate change seemed like the obvious starting point, though we soon started to consider the various security issues of food, water and energy too, as well as global health and ageing populations.

The course was available to first-year (and now second-year) undergraduates across medicine, engineering and the sciences and – inspired by a course at the LSE – taught in part by PhD students and postdocs. The tutors

It’s as important as specialising, argues Alice Bell Climate change seemed like the obvious starting point, though we soon started to consider the various security issues of food, water and energy too, as well as global health and ageing populations.

learned alongside students, so young academics were offered the same challenges as undergraduates, but at higher level and with added chance to develop leadership and teaching skills.

This inter-disciplinary and inter-generational model also helped build relationships across the college, taking undergrad teaching not just as an end in itself but a space where the university could work together.

Specialism is a good thing. But we should think cleverly about what we want people to be specialists in, in the 21st century, and how we want to prepare students (at all levels) for a life that will probably increasingly be about connecting knowledge as well as deepening our understanding.

1 See http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/horizons 2 See http://www.lse.ac.uk/intranet/ students/LSE100/Home.aspx

Dr Alice Bell is a Research Fellow at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research) at the University of Sussex alice.bell@sussex.ac.uk

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September 2013

WATER COOLER

Tales from the water cooler Barrie Cadshaw reveals the movers and shakers in public engagement

Movers

Shakers

Pubic Lice

Penny Fletcher has left her role as National Science & Engineering Week Project Manager at the British Science Association to be Events and Public Engagement Manager at the Society of Biology. She is replaced by Christina Fuentes, former cognitive neuroscientist and STEMNET ambassador. Sue Hordijenko is leaving her role as Director of Programmes at the Association. Her (very fashionable) boots will be filled in the interim by the Association’s Director of Education Katherine Mathieson.

Nancy Lane has stepped down from her position as chair of the People & Science Editorial Committee and Wendy Barnaby has decided to resign from the editorship of the magazine from the end of 2013. Wendy has racked up some twelve years’ devoted service working on the mag and is quite simply irreplaceable.

At the latest Cheltenham Science Festival, self-confessed daredevil science presenter Greg Foot was caught climbing on top of a roof without having given prior notification to the logistics team (tsk tsk) and without a risk assessment!

The British Science Festival will announce the winner of your favourite ugly animal competition.

Currently a joint enterprise between the Association’s National Science + Engineering Competition and Simon Watt, who set up the original Ugly Animal Preservation Society, it is being run to highlight the importance of conserving some of Mother Nature’s more aesthetically-challenged children to young people during the school summer holidays. ‘The panda gets too much attention.

Also leaving at the end of the year is Involve’s Deputy Director Edward Andersson, He plans to return to his native Sweden. Jenna StevensSmith has joined Imperial College’s Department of Bioengineering as their Outreach Manager.

Physicist and scicommer extraordinaire Laurie Winkless left the National Physical Laboratory at the end of July, to work on Nobel Media AB’s international science programmes. Nobel Media AB is the media arm of the Nobel Foundation.

At the recent Science in Public conference at Nottingham University the prize for the most gorgeous delegate went to science engagement specialist Sophia Collins’s one week old son, Squiggle. She tweeted ‘Prepping Squiggle for his first conference appearance at #SIP13. He’s finding it hard to choose between some of the parallel sessions…’

At the same conference, delegates saw that the best laid plans can come unstuck. UCL’s Jack Stilgoe and SPRU’s James Wilsdon took part in a discussion following Harry Collins’s keynote address. As Harry crossed his arms and found it difficult to explain how separating ‘technical’ and ‘political’ phases of decision making would actually work (comparing himself to Marx in the process), James lost patience and called Collins’s framework ‘banal and irrelevant’. Following the event Jack tweeted ‘I was supposed to be bad cop @jameswilson good cop. But he went all Jimmy McNulty.’

Our society needs a mascot, one to rival the cute and cuddly emblems of many charities and organisations,’ declared Simon.

Each contending species is being supported by a comedian with a short campaigning clip, and voters are supporting their favourite by liking its associated Youtube clip.

Amongst our comedic campaigners are Helen Arney who will be agitating on behalf of the axolotol; Paul Foot battling for the blobfish; Rob Wells electioneering for the European common eel; Ellie Taylor politicking for the proboscis monkey; Steve Mould campaigning for the kakapo, Sarah Bennetto fighting the corner of the flightless dung beetle and Dan Schrieber pontificating on pubic lice - yes, really!

Barrie Cadshaw is at the British Science Association

ar any uch if you he at Do get in to th r water coole the next tales at the in to include you’d like us ple & Science. o edition of Pe

barrie.cadshaw@british scienceassociation.org

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