{"id":1212,"date":"2012-01-18T21:24:09","date_gmt":"2012-01-18T20:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2012-01-18T23:39:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T22:39:47","slug":"more-on-willetts-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2012\/01\/18\/more-on-willetts-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"More on Willetts&#8217; Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the days following Willetts&#8217; big science policy <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2012\/01\/04\/the-case-for-support\/\">speech<\/a>,\u00a0there had been a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/blue-sky-bias-should-be-brought-down-to-earth-1.9722\">piece<\/a>\u00a0in <em>Nature<\/em>\u00a0by Daniel Sarewitz and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/science\/science-news\/9006447\/Whitehall-threat-to-future-of-science-academics-letter.html\">letters<\/a> from disgruntled physical scientists to the EPSRC that in different ways highlighted the role of scientists in directing research funding. I was therefore asked by the Guardian higher education network to offer some further thoughts on who should decide how science is supported by public money.<\/p>\n<p>Which I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/higher-education-network\/blog\/2012\/jan\/17\/david-willetts-funding-scientific-research?commentpage=last#end-of-comments\">did<\/a>, in a piece cobbled together last week and published yesterday. Please have a look.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, there has appeared a superb analysis of Willetts&#8217; speech by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.softmachines.org\/wordpress\/?p=1163\">Richard Jones<\/a> (a physicist and\u00a0Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield).\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/exquisitelife.researchresearch.com\/exquisite_life\/2012\/01\/how-to-read-david-willetts-big-speech-on-growth.html\">William Cullern-Bown<\/a> at <em>Research Fortnight <\/em>has also written\u00a0a very perceptive blow-by-blow account.<\/p>\n<p>I recommend both \u2014 each makes the point that the Willetts was signalling a more fundamental shift of industrial and scientific policy than I had realised.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the days following Willetts&#8217; big science policy speech,\u00a0there had been a piece\u00a0in Nature\u00a0by Daniel Sarewitz and letters from disgruntled physical scientists to the EPSRC that in different ways highlighted the role of scientists in directing research funding. I was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/2012\/01\/18\/more-on-willetts-speech\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","category-science-politics","tag-science-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/scurry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}