Royal Society called to account

LONDON — At an emergency meeting on Wednesday night, the House of Commons select committee on Science and Technology decided to call the Royal Society next week to explain why it has seemingly obstructed efforts to modernise an official committee charged with improving science communication in the UK (the Committee on the Public Understanding of Science – COPUS). The select committee's decision was prompted by evidence from Dame Bridget Ogilvie, who on 17 May announced she would resign as head of COPUS at the end of June. In her statement at the time, she wrote, "I am highly embarrassed by the total paralysis shown so clearly by the last two meetings of COPUS Council. I apologise to you all. As things stand I think it is pointless to continue." Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson, chair of the committee, spoke of the blow that Dame Bridget's resignation is to British science (she formerly headed the Wellcome Trust) and invited her to make a statement about her resignation. Gibson told her that in his opinion, "The Royal Society has walked all over you." Afterwards he told The Scientist that the Royal Society's actions "smack of control freakery." Both science communication and how the learned societies spend public money are currently unusually hot political issues. Behind this increased awareness by politicians of science and science policy is concern about the way that controversial issues — ranging from animal experiments to the MMR vaccine or GM crops — are handled in public, particularly given their significance to the country's economic well being. Only three weeks ago, the prime minister, Tony Blair, expressed government discomfort with the anti-science attitude that he argued is taking root in the UK, and called for a more mature public debate about science. In a speech at the Royal Society he said, "We need better, stronger, clearer ways of science and people communicating. The dangers are in ignorance of each others point of view; the solution is understanding them." In parallel, the Commons select committee on Science and Technology has decided to exercise its parliamentary right to inquire into the public expenditure by the learned societies, in particular the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering (which respectively spend £25 million and £4 million of public money per year). "The Royal Society does not see itself as a national academy of sciences," says Gibson, "but as an elite. They have a lot of unexamined influence over official appointments." Yesterday's emergency meeting followed one of the hearings scheduled as part of the select committee's inquiry into the learned societies. Originally intended chiefly to take evidence from the British Computer Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry about their relationship with the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, the hearing ended up being dominated by the state of science communication in the UK. Several members of the committee clearly found Dame Bridget's statement disturbing. In particular, attention focussed on the failure of COPUS to change to take account of developments in science communication since it was formed in 1983, and the role of the Royal Society in this failure. Though COPUS is the brain-child of the Royal Institution and the British Association as well as the Royal Society, it is the Royal Society that controls the body's finances. And it emerged during the hearing yesterday that the Royal Society has not drawn down funds from the Office of Science and Technology (OST) intended for COPUS. Dame Bridget told the hearing she had asked the Society why not, but that she still had no idea why plans for the "development" of COPUS were held up. There is considerable consensus that development of COPUS is needed because, said Dame Bridget, mandating the research councils in 1993 to include science communication in their remit had precipitated an explosion in bodies dealing with science communication. What is needed now, she said, is a body that can establish strategy and facilitate co-operation between these different bodies. "We don't need COPUS to become the 101st science communication group," said Roland Jackson, the incoming chief executive of the British Association, "but we need it to be a body in which we all have a sense of ownership." The delay in turning COPUS into an umbrella organisation taking a lead nationally in science communication strategy is surprising because the plans that Dame Bridget and others formulated were, she told the committee, endorsed by Lord Sainsbury, the science minister. Further, an influential report, 'Science and Society', which the House of Lords Committee on Science and Technology produced in the summer of 2000 recommended that the OST should "favourably" consider a request for funds from COPUS to make its new role effective. Dame Bridget favours a model for COPUS that is similar to that of the Association of Medical Research Charities. The AMRC became a formal organisation in 1987. It is an umbrella organisation intended to further medical research in the UK and the effectiveness of individual medical research charities. The AMRC promotes the public understanding of science and acts as a lobby group for medical charities to government. The Select Committee's report on the learned societies is expected to be published in early summer. It is examining a wide range of issues, but given the attendance yesterday, the tension generated by the topic and the prominence that Blair's speech of three weeks ago gave to the issue, science communication is likely to be moving up the committee's agenda. Efforts are being made to take some of the heat out of the debate with respect to COPUS and one of the possible diplomats in the process is Lord Patrick Jenkins, who headed the report on Science and Society. Obviously reluctant to fans flames further, he said only that Dame Bridget's resignation had brought matters to a head.

Royal Society called to account

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