Fund science at City levels, Blair urged

Universities must pay researchers City-level salaries, said the government's chief scientific adviser, David King. He was responding to a speech by prime minister Tony Blair yesterday in which Mr Blair hinted that the Treasury might be ready to foot the bill.

Professor King, a former president of the Association of University Teachers - which is strongly opposed to differential salaries - told The THES : "We need to get globally competitive salaries for all academics, in particular for young scientists who are increasingly looking at careers in law or consultancy or merchant banking. The top talent has the potential to deliver enormous returns to the country so we have to keep them in science."

Professor King argued that economics and business management were also in need of much higher salaries to attract and retain staff.

Describing Mr Blair's speech in London yesterday as "the biggest a prime minister has given for decades" (on science), he said the prime minister saw that science was good value for money.

Professor King has had extensive discussions with the Treasury. "I think the Treasury understands all the arguments for the investment in science. Now it is about producing the goods."

Professor King said he had it made clear that all science funding must be available without strict Treasury controls. He said the current system was working well and there was a clear correlation between those departments rated 5* getting more research council grants and producing more spin-off companies.

He warned: "If we lose the strength of the science base in universities, we lose the engine driving the whole process. Just as we've got the spin-offs going we don't want to run down their engine."

Since 1997, the government has increased science spending by almost £600 million, well above the rate of inflation. Professor King said he looked forward to this continuing, with the science budget doubling by 2007 to more than £2.6 billion.

Since 1999, the Joint Infrastructure Fund and the Science Research Investment Fund have committed £1.75 billion of government and Wellcome Trust money into upgrading university research facilities. However, only 15 per cent of applicants have benefited. Professor King said underfunding, which dated back to the 1980s, would take years to remedy, but he noted that new laboratories were bringing optimism back to universities.

With 1 per cent of the world population, the UK produces 8 per cent of the world's scientific papers and 9 per cent of citations. The UK spends far less of its gross domestic product on research than comparable nations. Earlier this week, John Taylor, director-general of the research councils, said: "We underfund UK science. We don't pay researchers or PhD students enough. In international comparisons, we have a very low research and development spend."

Mr Blair had been planning a speech promoting science since a visit to India earlier this year. There he discovered Indian researchers exploiting opportunities in contrast to the UK, which was paralysed by the anti-science attitudes among the public.

His speech was a pep talk to scientists and a public endorsement of the value of science to economic health and prosperity. He said funding was important and that the government would take the lead to inspire more public interaction. In particular, he pledged to protect scientists whose research involved animals and to safeguard genetic information from commercial exploitation. Mr Blair said he understood public fears about genetically modified foods, but he insisted that science must discover the facts and that public judgements should be based on those scientific facts.

A spokesman from Human Genetics Alert, which campaigns on the use of genetic information, said: "The real issue is not whether we should be pro or anti-science, but which science we should support and how it should be governed. If Mr Blair wants to address the real issues, he should stop bashing the critics as anti-science and start to listen."

Leading British scientists warned the government this week that recruitment and retention of career scientists and teachers was in "serious difficulty". In a letter signed by 29 Nobel prizewinners, parliamentarians and eminent scientists, chancellor Gordon Brown was urged to recognise the need to invest in science at the level of the UK's competitors. The signatories were members of the Save British Science advisory council.