The people responsible for commissioning research in the UK government departments agree: They are spending public money and they must make scientists more accountable. But researchers, already dogged by paperwork and procedure, fear the introduction of yet more layers of bureaucracy. That civil servants, and not scientists, set the new standards makes matters worse. Researchers argue that rather than promoting high-quality research, government bureaucrats are simply making it more difficult.
The Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), which has a €321 million science budget, is a striking example. The first department to appoint a senior-level chief scientific adviser, DEFRA is moving to exert more control over the research it commissions.
John Sherlock, a civil servant who heads the quality assessment and liaison team in the department's science directorate, is a key figure in its new science management strategy. Sherlock has been in government for some time, and came ...
