Labour Delivery for Science

Thousands of South Thanet people work in Science, at Pfizer (now leaving under the Tories!), Sericol or local universities to name just a few. Labour’s record on science is unsurpassed by any previous Government.

After the Tories let British science go to rack and ruin, Labour is building up the British research base:

Labour has more than doubled the science budget over the past ten years, from £1.3 billion (1997) to £3.4 billion (2007). The science budget will continue to rise above inflation reaching almost £4 billion by 2010/11.

Labour is increasing spending on medical research by 30% over the next 3 years. It will receive over £1.9 billion over the next three years from the science budget to fund both basic and translational research.

Labour is funding a number of multi-disciplinary research programmes, including a major contribution to the £1 billion “Living with Environmental Change” programme; a new research programme on ageing; and increased investment in energy research and stem cells.

Labour’s funding for R&D (including Higher Education Funding Councils and Research Councils) stood at £7.4bn in 2006.

Labour has provided £2.3 billion of support for business through R&D tax credits during the first six years of the scheme that began in 2000.

Labour is supporting knowledge transfer, including through the Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), which will receive £150M a year by 2010/11 to strengthen links between academia and business and help take research to the market.

Labour has increased capital expenditure through the Science Research Investment Fund (£500M per annum) and Full Economic Costing (£200M per annum), has significantly improved the research infrastructure in universities.

In 2006/07, the total resources made available under the Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI) was £2.3 billion. The value of contracts made with SMEs was £136.9M, representing nearly 6% of the baseline budget.

Our investment is working – Britain is recognised as a world class science base

A fifth of the world’s current top selling medicines were discovered and developed in the UK.

Britain is the sixth largest manufacturing economy in the world.

With just 1% of the world’s population, UK produces 9% of all scientific papers and receives 12% of all citations. UK is second only to US on the majority of leading scientific indicators.

Between 1992 and 2003, the percentage of UK research papers with international co-authorship doubled, from 20% to 40%.

In 2005-06, over 40% of students studying for PhDs came from overseas. Labour has established joint ventures with business to solve challenges facing the world

The Technology Strategy Board (TSB) has been created to have an important leadership role. It will develop and lead a strategic programme worth £1 billion over the next three years:

The TSB will be investing £100M in eight collaborative R&D technology areas – Materials for Energy; Technologies for Health; Advanced Lighting, Lasers and Displays; High Value Manufacturing; and Gathering Data in Complex Environments, Low Carbon Energy, Cell Therapy and the Creative Industry.

Five Innovation Platforms. An Innovation Platform creates the opportunity to bring together key partners (Government and business) to address a major societal challenge and to open up market opportunities to increase business investment in R&D and innovation:
Intelligent Transport Systems and Services
Low Impact Buildings
Network Security
Assisted Living
Low Carbon Vehicles

The Energies Technologies Institute was established as a 50:50 partnership between business and Government to raise up to £1 billion over ten years for low carbon energy R&D.

Public sector commitment announced publicly by DIUS (up to £50M per annum for 10 years) and DfT (up to £5M per annum for the CSR period to 2011).
Six companies already signed up (BP, Shell, E.ON UK, EDF Energy, Rolls-Royce and Caterpillar) creating the current capacity of up to £30M pa for matching by the public sector.

Labour has invested over £20m to create 10 Science Learning Centres - 1 national centre and 9 regional centres in conjunction with the Wellcome Trust. A further £10m over 5 years has been allocated for Project Enthuse, a scheme that covers the cost of teachers to attend courses at the national Science Learning Centre.

The DIUS-funded Science and Engineering Ambassadors (SEAs) programme now has over 18,000 individuals registered as SEAs and acting as role models within schools across the UK.
Latest UCAS figures for acceptances onto degree courses in 2007 show rises in some key STEM subjects in excess of the overall average increase for all subjects of 6.4% (Mathematics up by 9.1%; Chemistry 8.9%;
Physics 12.4%). Some areas of engineering also showing above average increases.

PhD stipends paid by Research Councils have risen by almost 45% (from £9,000 to nearly £13,000 and just over £13,000 to study subjects of recruitment difficulty – including some scientific subjects) since 2002 and have more than doubled since 1999 (when they stood at £6,500).