We must use the technology

Foresight panels had a rocky start but should now carry on.Ben Gill explains. The 1993 White Paper Realising Our Potential highlighted the need to make wealth creation the major driver in prioritising research and development, while pointing out the need to have a complete reappraisal of the whole research and development sector to ensure that it was more directly related to industry's needs, and minimise the British failing of not capitalising on our world-class science.

As a result the Office of Science and Technology launched the Technology Foresight exercise in late 1993. Fifteen panels were formed in April 1994, of which the agriculture, natural resources, and environment panel was the major focus for farming, although we had varying degrees of interest in a number of other panels such as food, chemicals, and life sciences.

The timetable of nine months set for the panels to reach their conclusions was tight but not unachievable. First the panels had to be appointed and to achieve this it was decided to use a process of "co-nomination". This got the whole process off to a bad start for it worked on the principle that a large number of people would write into the OST saying who they thought should be on the panels. For certain areas it became apparent late in the proceedings that few had been aware of what was required of them and as a consequence nominations did not cover the full breadth of the panels. This was eventually remedied but not without some loss of confidence in the process. However all could still have been achieved to plan if the panels had been given a free hand.

Regrettably this was not to be the case as all groups were instructed by the OST to proceed via a "Delphi" exercise which could, time permitted, form the basis of a scenario approach. The concept of the "Delphi" is to list a series of statements of varying likelihood and provocation based on an extrapolation of how events have unfolded over the past few decades. While this may have been logical for certain scientific areas in a steady state it was particularly inappropriate for agriculture which is facing a period of dramatically altered direction. It seemed, therefore, more logical to examine the consequences for research of these changed priorities; competitiveness, sustainability, and marketing development through better quality. But this was not to be.

The exercise was constructed with about 100 statements per panel on which comments were required from a broad cross-section of society based on unused names from the original "co-nomination" process. The comments explored the general acceptability of each statement; the country's relative international position; industrial relevance; the stage of development and a number of others. Perhaps the question which caused the most difficulty asked respondents: "What is your level of expertise in connection with the statement?" Respondents were asked to reply on a scale of one to five with only one answer possible for all the varying competences covered in the exercise. As it was unlikely the respondents would have the same level of expertise in each of the areas on which comment was required, this immediately cast a question over the validity of the exercise.

Furthermore, unknown to the participants, all responses scoring either one or two, in answer to their level of expertise, were disregarded when an attempt was made to analyse the results. When those respondents not commenting at all on specific statements are also excluded, the average level of responses to each statement was between 30 and 40, with some recording fewer than ten replies.

With a question already hanging over the statistical significance of the data, highly qualified statisticians pointed out that the sheer complexity of the questions meant it was virtually impossible to draw any meaningful conclusions. The exercise, having taken up most of seven months, turned out to be an academic exercise which was of some limited interest in looking at the base statements, but of virtually no value in determining the nation's research priorities for the next two decades.

By now time was pressing, for the draft final report had to be completed by mid January. With no possibility for delay, this meant that the report had to be finalised extremely fast which did not permit time to weigh properly differing priorities and inevitably meant that rather than setting priorities the report tended to be a catch-all.

The whole exercise will be drawn together by the end of this month by the national steering committee which has the unenviable task of trying to draw a consensus from all the reports. It is to be hoped that they will realise that while the original idea was long overdue for implementation, the constraints placed upon the panels have severely handicapped the value of the reports. But all must not be lost. While I am totally opposed to self-perpetuating bodies for the sake of them, it was clear that the groups had developed some basic comprehension of the magnitude of the problem facing them by the end of the year. To disband them now would waste a valuable bank of expertise that could be of enormous value to the government, scientists, industry, and the country as a whole. The national steering group should seek, therefore, to draw on this expertise by retaining them, regrouping where appropriate, to stimulate and advise those who control our research and development expenditure.

It is interesting to see how the newly formed Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council is responding to the exercise. Its predecessor had already carried out its own mini-foresight exercise which served it in good stead when setting up new supervisory arrangements for the council. The decision was taken to mirror the success of the biotechnology directorate of the old Science and Engineering Research Council, which acted as a means of drawing together work on a cross-science theme. Within the BBSRC three directorates with similar aims were established for food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and agricultural systems in conjunction with the science committees. These directorates are working up their strategies which in themselves are a foresight exercise. They will include a number of themes such as wealth-creating products of plants. In that case the theme will be supervised by a small group whose remit will be to establish what research is actually going on, and what it is that industry wants from research. Having achieved that, the two profiles can be mapped over one another to see the strengths and weaknesses and hence more effectively direct scarce scientific resources to maximum effect.

At the same time industry's involvement will ensure that there is more effective technology interaction between the two parts at an earlier stage which should achieve one of Foresight's original aims: to facilitate a far more effective and efficient uptake of our world-class science by British companies.

Ben Gill, deputy president of the National Farmers Union, is a member of the agriculture, natural resources and environment panel of the Foresight exercise.