This week, Theresa Villiers joined a Martlets's Society discussion in University College, Oxford, to consider how academics can maximise their influence on public policy-making. She was speaking alongside Professor Gideon Henderson who is Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Theresa's contribution to the discussion drew on some of her experiences as former Secretary of State and her introduction to the discussion covered the following:
"The linkage between great science and research and economic success are becoming clearer and clearer in the modern era.
Perhaps the most extreme example of this is Stanford which has helped create companies whose combined value now runs into trillions of dollars. bigger than the GDP of a medium-sized western economy.
In the UK, we’re lucky enough to be home to some of the best universities in the world.
They are truly our some of our greatest economic and cultural assets.
That includes this University of Oxford which has been responsible for around 900 years of scholarship.
In that time it has made a massive contribution to human progress, from Hobbs and Locke on philosophy, to Dorothy Hodgkin on DNA.
Most recently, the development of the Oxford vaccine in record time is estimated to have saved six million lives.
In my stints around the Cabinet table, universities were regularly on the agenda, and how we maximise the economic and regeneration potential our higher education institutions offer.
Much public attention is currently focused on AI, and academic input will be crucial as we grapple with the issues thrown up by this technology which will change our world in ways we cannot yet comprehend.
But we need academic insight across the policy spectrum. And I believe that it is highly influential.
That was at its most obvious during the pandemic. That crisis is being examined at length in the public enquiry, and no doubt there will be many lessons to be learned, including on the way in which Ministers acted on the scientific advice they were given. But there can be no doubt of the centrality of scientists to the Government’s pandemic response.
Climate change provides another example of scientific experts having secured a fundamental change of approach across the whole political system.
That stretches from the scientists who persuaded Mrs Thatcher to highlight this issue back in the 1980s, to the 2006 Stern Review which had a worldwide impact in bringing home to people the financial cost of global warming.
The more recent review of the “Economics of Biodiversity” by Professor Partha Dasgupta may ultimately have an equivalent role on the debate on nature depletion by illustrating how critically dependent our prosperity is on our relationship with the natural world. I’d also highlight the exemplary work of Deiter Helm and the Natural Capital Committee.
Both of these initiatives have been crucial to securing the ground-breaking government commitment to end species decline by 2030.
Another area where academic research has really opened the eyes of Ministers and policy-makers is early years development.
Just one of many influential studies was the EPPSE project led by Iram Siraj and Brenda Taggart at the Institute of Education. The Effective Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education project produced convincing evidence that high-quality early education results in better cognitive and social outcomes, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The effects of early years care and education were shown to persist into secondary school, improving academic performance and reducing later-life inequality.
The research provided solid evidence that early intervention can reduce social inequality and improve life chances. I’d also commend the work of Oxford’s Professor Jane Barlow on the role early years parenting can play in mental health issues and evaluating ways to improve parenting practices in the pregnancy and post-natal period.
Starting with Tony Blair this area of academic research has had a major impact on the policy of every Government of the 21st century.
Crucially, it was used to make a convincing case to the Treasury that investment in early years education would generate tangible benefits and by reducing the incidence of costly social problems, such as substance abuse, anti-social behaviour, and crime.
That illustrates a key function of academic research in relation to government policy - to provide an evidence base for devoting resources to projects which will only pay back in the longer term and in ways which might not be obvious to Treasury officials.
Another important role for academic research in the public policy sphere is to ensure that governments properly manage risks which have very severe consequences. But which aren’t perceived as urgent …and hence can be crowded out by the hubbub of the 24 hour news cycle and whatever crisis a Minister happens to be facing that day.
The risks associated with zoonotic novel coronaviruses were a fairly obscure topic which wasn’t exactly at the top of the paperwork in Ministerial red boxes, until people started getting ill and the world economy rapidly began to shut down.
There is a important role for scientists in making governments pay proper attention to such risks.
A further example is anti-microbial resistance. The increasing number of bacterial infections which are resistant to antibiotic treatment is something we’ve known about for many years. But it was during the years of the Coalition Government that the problem shot up the government’s agenda.
I recall from my time in his government that David Cameron took a personal interest in this topic. He was determined to take action, and he set up the O’Neill Review in 2014 to work out the best way forward. He also ensured that the UK raised it in global health fora and pressed for the international action that is vital. This helped secure the Global Action Plan on AMR published in 2015.
And I don’t believe that would have happened if Dame Sally Davies hadn’t been utterly determined to ensure Ministers gripped this problem.
She did that firstly by establishing a rigorous science base, and then by putting the case to Ministers in a way which was convincing and impossible to disregard. Jeremy Hunt told me that she was able to win over successive health secretaries with a combination of being both forthright and loyal.
Her book “The Drugs Don’t Work” coupled with her hard-hitting pithy soundbites really hit home.
That included pointing out that drug-resistant superbugs were already killing thousands around the world; that if we did not act, we could see a return to the era in which 40% of the population die for prematurely from infections we cannot treat; that minor operations and childbirth could routinely lead to death.
In short, AMR could involve “the end of modern medicine” and trigger a “post-anti-biotic apocalypse”.
Clearly not every policy area lends itself to such dramatic assertions (thankfully!).
But a key task for any academic wanting to make their voice heard (and one Dame Sally did so well) is to translate their knowledge and research into a form that a non-expert can understand.
Of course It’s not always possible to boil complex science down to simple concepts. But inevitably, the less accessible your material is, the harder it will be to persuade people to act on it.
I believe that the machinery of government in the UK does take academic/scientific input very seriously. For example our system of Chief Scientific Advisers provides vital expertise to Ministers and civil servants. It is also a great channel of communication to enable scientists to connect with policy-makers. Our scientists are amongst the best in the world and it’s important that we enable their perspective to be heard loud and clear in Whitehall."
The Martlets' Society has existed for several decades in Oxford and regularly hosts discussions of literary works and other academic topics. This event was chaired by George Hajipavlis.
