Can Managed Public Science Enhance Wealth and Quality of Life? A Process Industries’ View

Abstract

The UK government spends about £3.1 billion on civil research every year (HMSO, 1995). This is a large sum of money, and the taxpayers – and on their behalf the government – are entitled to ask whether this is money well spent. To ask this question presumes that there must be an objective for the expenditure, against which the benefits of research can be measured. In the past, the objectives of government-funded research may have been many, diffuse and not explicitly formulated. Spenders of government cash are sometimes advantaged by lack of objectives – it makes it much easier to continue the expenditure! However, in the Realising our Potential White Paper of 1993, these objectives were clearly stated: government expenditure on the science and engineering base was to enhance the nation’s wealth creating potential, and/or to improve the quality of life of its citizens (HMSO, 1993). We can loosely call these the health and wealth criteria. (In this convenient shorthand we understand that ‘health’ also includes environmental health, and those intangible aspects of human existence that contribute to a good quality of life.)