Scientists, academia and industry need to pull together to solve climate change and help lift the UK out of recession. That was the key message from yesterday’s Science & Innovation 09 Conference at London’s QEII Conference Centre, hosted by GovNet Communications.
‘We are at the beginning of a new industrial age, facing the challenge of how to support the world’s population with a high quality of life but with low carbon,’ said conference chair Chris Rapley CBE, Director of the Science Museum. He added: ‘This conference shows there is a strong will to achieve this aim, I am very encouraged.’
A new investment fund for small, innovative companies that develop low carbon technology is being created, led by Lord Drayson. The government will put in £150m and Lord Drayson hopes the fund will eventually attract £1bn to invest in low carbon technologies.
Philip Rycroft, Director General, Innovation and Enterprise at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said science and innovation are vital to the UK economy because we cannot compete globally on costs alone. Developing countries such as China are increasing their investment in science and technology. ‘We could do more to realize the value of the UK’s intellectual property, by translating it into commercial exploitation,’ he added.
The future growth sectors of the UK economy will include low carbon technology, life sciences and digital technology, according to Charles Pickford, Director of Employer Partnerships at fdf (Foundation Degree Forward). He called for greater support for lifelong learning:
‘Along with the drive for more STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics] graduates and the government’s similar push on apprenticeships, there needs to be equal emphasis on upskilling and re-skilling the adult workforce,’ said Pickford.
David Kidney MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said it is still possible to limit the rise in global temperatures to 2⁰C.
‘We must improve collaboration between investors, academics and business on low carbon technologies,’ he said. ‘We welcome ideas from across the scientific and innovation community’, Kidney added. ‘I want us to work together to put the UK at the heart of the transition to a low carbon world.’
Simon Wright, Head of Engineering at BAE Systems UK, said STEM skills are ‘crucial to the fabric of our society’ and would help to ‘address the deterioration of our ecosystems.’ But Wright warned that on current trends, the UK would decline to be ranked 100th in the world for its high-level technological skills by 2020, ‘unless we take urgent action’.
Professor Robert Watson, Chief Scientific Adviser at Defra, closed the Science & Innovation 09 conference by addressing the global crisis of climate change and the need for research and investment: ‘We need to transform our technology and we need behavioural change.’
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