Bosses and boffins pact

Ronald Amann welcomes the unique opportunities the new funding culture creates for research, particularly in the social sciences.

In 1852, Sir Lyon Playfair, then a lecturer in chemistry in the newly created School of Mines, suggested that Britain's principal industrial weakness lay in the fact that we had "eminent practical men and eminent scientific men but that they are not united and generally walk paths wholly distinct".

This general theme found expression in the deliberations of the Devonshire Commission (1870) and is echoed in Corelli Barnett's poignant description of interwar British industry, with its deep social and occupational divide between "the theoretical man" and "the practical man". Postwar British history is littered with governmental attempts to bridge the various divides between boffins, bosses and shop-floor workers.

What is new about the Government's 1993 White Paper on science, Realising Our Potential, is the prominence that "users" of research have been given in the affairs of the research councils, both directly through board membership and, indirectly, through participation in the national Technology Foresight exercise.

Political scientists recognise the importance of this tactical shift. No longer is the scientific community simply invited to respond to eloquent principles or to engage in minor organisational tinkering. For the first time it faces a mass power base of users with a distinct and material interest in modifying producer behaviour.

The research councils have become, in a sense, brokers between their different users (both academic and non-academic), stakeholders and beneficiaries. The potential impact of the change is profound. The research councils have responsibility for ensuring that it is also beneficial.

The position of the Economic and Social Research Council in this new White Paper world is challenging. The social sciences have a disproportionately large role to play. The central thrust goes well beyond the linear thinking which has characterised much of Britain's science policy.

It is not simply a question of "getting the science right" and everything else, including application and public acceptance, will take care of itself. People intervene in the complex process and their behaviour is notoriously difficult to understand and predict.

There is a growing public realisation that the social sciences can help to illuminate the vital connecting links between science, economy and society: for example the behavioural patterns which need to be understood in order to capitalise on expensive investments in medical and environmental research.

Furthermore, social science cannot come in as an afterthought, deferentially helping to mop up the residual social puzzles and problems left by exogenous technological advance. Social scientists, from their own distinct perspective, must help to shape the question. These new challenges can be met from a position of strength. During the past five years the ESRC, under the banner of "modernising" the social sciences, has laid down a firm foundation of hard data and advanced methodologies. The British Household Panel Survey of 5,000 households, surveyed annually, and world-class work on macro-economic modelling are just a couple of examples of these far-sighted investments.

That commitment to strengthening the social science base will not diminish. Recent decisions by the ESRC to extend the funding of the Cambridge Population Group (CAMPOP) and to create a new Centre on Economic Learning should allay any anxieties.

What is needed is an even more extensive research agenda for the social sciences which will draw on existing strengths and focus on some of the pressing issues which are emerging as a result of consultations with users and stakeholders - including, of course, the academic community. From discussions with the business community, for example, it is evident that the concept of "business process" is one which might be pursued in depth: it contains rich possibilities for social scientists to analyse the informal networks and external alliances which differentiate successful businesses from unsuccessful ones.

Our national capacity to deal with social exclusion and to foster social integration forms an important context for future economic and social progress. This complex phenomenon needs to be properly understood on a comparative basis (as the European Commission's Fourth Framework Programme on Targeted Socio-Economic Research envisages). On the international front, the changes in the years following the collapse of communism have been dramatic. Some of the most promising markets for British exports are highly unstable or poorly understood - or both. Research on the consequences of a re-unified Germany, on the Ukraine, on internal developments in China, Japan and Southern Africa is weakly supported, while good original research on Latin America and the new states of Central Asia and the Caucasus is sparse.

There is an underlying problem of national capacity here. In some cases an unfortunate car accident on the way to a conference could wipe out an entire profession. These are only preliminary thoughts. It is more certain that the ESRC's priority themes for the future will be broad, interdisciplinary and will provide new opportunities for many of the smaller subject areas of the social sciences, such as social anthropology and social history, to make their distinctive contribution in a new analytical context.

The aspirations of social scientists are likely to be given a strong supporting wind by the findings of the Government's Technology Foresight exercise. Preliminary indications are that the senior businessmen and technical directors who predominantly make up the foresight panels have by no means confined their thoughts to identifying the generic technologies of the future.

In addition, they have called for new research on economic incentives and disincentives, on financial systems, on markets, on the impact of regulation, on the organisation of R&D, on the social "acceptance" of new technologies and on education and learning. These issues fall squarely within the domain of the social sciences.

This unprecedented degree of public support for the social sciences is not without irony. Though business and other non-academic users recognise the importance of the issues, many do not automatically associate their solution with social scientists as a professional community.

A meeting of minds needs to take place in order to move forward from this contradictory situation. Establishing a dialogue and, in some cases, overcoming stereotyped thinking (let's face it!) will not be plain sailing, but the generally favourable climate which now prevails offers unique opportunities. The ESRC, together with its academic community, must seize them.

Ronald Amann is chief executive of the ESRC.