Innogen Insider

Great minds think alike

2011-12-06T12:54:00.002Z

Reporting from the 2011 Financial Times Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference, #ftpharma

By Joyce Tait and Jo Chataway

Several key speakers have been heard echoing major research findings from the Innogen centre at the Financial Times Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology conference this week, where David Cameron announced significant support for the life science industry sector.

Pharma-agro synergies

The keynote by Dr. Jörg Reinhardt, Bayer HealthCare AG, highlighted the potential benefits for Bayer of having retained its pharmaceutical and agro-biotechnology divisions within the same company, unlike all the other multinationals who split the two components in a variety of demergers and mergers around 2000. Innogen researchers commented on Bayer’s strategy and predicted that the most likely benefits would be realised through research-related synergies, a point stressed during this conference.

(Tait, J., Chataway, J. and Wield, D. (2002) The Life Science Industry Sector: Evolution of Agro-Biotechnology in Europe. Science and Public Policy, 29(4), 253-258.)

Smart regulation

Dr. Margaret Hamburg, Commissioner of the US Food and Drugs Administration, pointed to the need for centres of excellence in regulatory science to develop better bridges from a good idea to a product. The last decade of Innogen research supports this call, given the negative impacts on innovation of the expensive and time consuming regulatory regimes that govern most life sciences.

New and innovative regulation could lead to products that are still safe and effective but reach the market faster and at a reduced cost. Several multinational companies have recognised this need for some time - and although some regulators are now also beginning to think along these lines, there is not yet impetus for regulatory reform from Europe.

(Tait, J. with Wield, D., Chataway, J. and Bruce. A. (2008) Health Biotechnology to 2030. Report to OECD International Futures Project, “The Bio-Economy to 2030: Designing a Policy Agenda”, OECD, Paris, pp 51.)

Public private partnerships (PPPs)

New and intensified collaboration across public and private sectors is at the heart of the government's new life science strategy. This is an area in which Innogen has particular expertise and has contributed insights into the way PPPs function and collaborate. One particular issue we have focused on is the need to better harness learning opportunities that exist between PPPs operating in developing countries and those in developed countries.

(Mittra, J. (2008) Impact of the Life Sciences on Organisation and Management of R&D in Large Pharmaceutical Firms, International Journal of Biotechnology, Vol 10, No 5, pp. 416-440.

Chataway, J. et al (2010) Global health social technologies: Reflections on evolving theories and landscapes, Research Policy, Vol 39, No 10, pp. 1277-1288.)

Disciplining Interdisciplinarity

2011-10-20T16:06:00.005+01:00

By Catherine Lyall

Professor Gabriele Bammer is doing something very exciting. In her forthcoming book ‘Disciplining Interdisciplinarity’ she sets out to build a new discipline – Integration and Implementation Sciences or I2S.

Disciplines exist because, in the past at least, they made knowledge manageable. They also bestow considerable benefits in terms of peer recognition, access to resources, clear training pathways and professional kudos. But the changing dynamics of the natural, social and political world mean that researchers are increasingly called upon to generate innovative solutions to multi-dimensional, policy-related problems on a regional, national or global scale.The ability to deliver solutions to such challenges increasingly requires integration across disciplines. It also requires that academics reach out to the policy, private and third sectors.

Interesting and meaningful work happens at these boundaries and in the gaps between disciplines. It is without question that the opportunities and need for I2S will intensify in the future.
Developing a new discipline is a major undertaking and not without risks. In offering her ‘Big Science’ manifesto for I2S, Gabriele’s approach is fittingly ambitious and optimistic but, as we describe in our own work (Interdisciplinary Research Journeys), I2S can expect to encounter institutional barriers – departmental structures, management systems and career pathways are most often based around well-established disciplines. These challenges need to be recognised and managed if individual researchers and centres are to build effective and successful I2S programmes.

Some interdisciplinary fields have reached the point that they are recognised as disciplines in their own right, with a shared knowledge base and associated measures of merit. This has resulted in stable communities within which researchers concentrate their experience into a particular worldview. So, in developing the new ‘discipline’ of I2S how do we retain the freshness and spontaneity – how do we accrue the reputational advantages of a discipline without the potential disadvantages of rigid convention?

'Splicing mice'; regulating human and animal mixtures

2011-08-03T14:43:00.001+01:00

By Gill Haddow, Ann Bruce, Jane Calvert, Shawn Harmon, Wendy Marsden

As the Scottish poet Rabbie Burns warned us, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." (The best laid schemes of mice and men / Go oft awry.)

The fact is that progress is rarely predictable, hardly ever linear and most importantly, never able to be undone. However, there are certain cases in innovation where although the future is murky, one can usually find some precedent in the past from which to learn lessons.

As the recent Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) report, 'Animals containing human material' (July 2011) reminded us, this is particularly apparent in the context of regulating mixed human and animal embryos.

We addressed this issue in our recent article 'Not human enough to be human but not animal enough to be animal', published in New Genetics and Society, and argued that the Human Fertilisation Embryology Authority was the regulatory organisation not best suited to regulate cybrids (that is human DNA placed in an animal egg for research purposes). We suggested that in order for the HFEA to regulate in the area of cybrids regulators needed to classify a cybrid as ‘human’ in order to regulate it, as opposed to classifying it as animal which would therefore have been under the jurisdiction of the Animal Procedure Committee (APC).

To illustrate the regulatory landscape, such as it is, we constructed the following chart, which shows the regulatory or advisory body responsible for each human-animal combination:

It would appear the AMS has implicitly picked up on the case of GM animals and hybrids (cases 2 and 4 above) suggesting that they require a special regulatory body to oversee developments in these areas. The AMS has (quite rightly, in our view) removed two 'combinations' from the APC and advised the creation of a specialist body to oversee such work.

We applaud this decision and would suggest that commonsense might also dictate this regulatory body would oversee all human and animal mixtures regardless of the direction, nature, amount or purpose of the transfer.

It is not the case that we see oversight or regulation either as a hindrance or inhibitor to progress in this area. It is true that it can be viewed as a precautionary step to prevent social or ethical transgressions in the future because, to us, it is an opportunity to compare and contrast lessons from the past, from equivalences in the present, in order to remove some of the unexpectedness from the unpredictability of the future. Yet, knowing as we do that progress will not be predictable, nor innovation unprecedented, we need to look 'both' ways before stepping over gaps.

Ending on a more blue-skies note, the hubristic desire for control over 'nature' will always be accompanied with fear because the paradox is that that the more we do 'manage nature' the more uncertain and contingent it becomes: “Advancing technology changes everything that is into our object of choice…[I]f human nature itself becomes makeable, it can no longer naively be laid down as the norm” (Swierstra, Van Est, & Boenink, 2009).

Capturing – and sharing – creativity

2011-07-20T12:59:00.004+01:00

By Catherine Lyall

Generously described by reviewers as ‘an essential guide for researchers and research managers in how to do interdisciplinary projects and programmes’ and as a book that ‘marks an important turning point in the literature’, we are delighted to see our new book Interdisciplinary Research Journeys: Practical Strategies for Capturing Creativity in print.

And – significantly – Bloomsbury Academic’s creative approach to publishing makes it easier to share this creativity. Their innovative approach to 21st century book production – which offers access to knowledge and learning to all by licensing their research content so that it is freely available online – will, we hope, ensure wide dissemination and uptake of this work.

A full-text version of this new book is available free online under a Creative Commons non-commercial licence.

Read the book on the Bloomsbury Academic webpage.

The Oblivion of Biofuels

2011-04-26T15:48:00.000+01:00

By James Smith

2011 is witnessing another crisis over rising food prices. In turn, concerns over food insecurity have intersected with ongoing anxiety over water and energy insecurity to create visions of perfect storms and future threats. All have meant the West is facing the very real possibility that it may no longer be able to import or buy its way out of tomorrow’s problems. The dawning realisation of the true global nature of these risks has ignited action: investment, innovation and policy. And biofuels have been presented as one of the key solutions.

... Read James' full blog post on the ActionAid campaign blog website.

James is author of 'Biofuels and the Globalization of Risk: The Biggest Change in North-South Relationships Since Colonialism'.

What lessons learnt from herding cats?

2011-04-04T16:14:00.000+01:00

By Dave Stevens, Marrella Communications

Written for the QUEST project team

“A new vision is required to promote organisational learning for interdisciplinarity within and across the Research Councils.”

So said Catherine Lyall, when she presented at a Royal Society workshop on Challenges in Policy Relevant Interdisciplinary Science.

To conclude her talk, she floated five ideas as to what RCUK might do to facilitate greater organisational learning around interdisciplinarity based on findings from a recently-concluded project funded by NERC and conducted with Innogen colleagues Ann Bruce, Wendy Marsden and Laura Meagher.

An interdisciplinary reviewers’ college, consisting of individuals expert in a range of interdisciplinary areas, could address the challenge of finding reviewers who, as Lyall put it: “are both sympathetic to interdisciplinary research, and understand how to evaluate it both rigorously and appropriately”.

The team’s idea of sharing administrative resources for interdisciplinary investments would draw administrators from across RCUK who would bring with them their experience in the particular requirements of interdisciplinary research and research training.

Looking to promote shared learning, she suggested creating an Interdisciplinary Funders Forum; envisioning something similar to the former Environmental Research Funders Forum (which is now part of LWEC) or the UK Strategic Forum for the Social Sciences.

Hosting community-building events across different interdisciplinary capacity-building schemes and investments would help facilitate the development of a cadre of early career (and perhaps more senior) interdisciplinary researchers, whilst an Interdisciplinary Portal (analogous to the current RCUK Knowledge Transfer Portal) would co-ordinate and consolidate access by the research community to information about funding, training and other forms of support dedicated to ID researchers.

It is clear that capacity-building (in a variety of forms) is critical to the growth and longevity of interdisciplinary research in the UK, and as the Innogen team has pointed out, this poses challenges for funders and research leaders alike - to ensure that learning from past experiences of interdisciplinary investments becomes embedded within collective organisational memory.

A number of these issues are addressed in the series of Short Guides to Interdisciplinarity which are available from the Innogen website.

Interdisciplinary Research: A Series of Short Guides

Tax and grow

2011-03-25T15:39:00.000Z

by Mariana Mazzucato

Today’s Budget uses taxation policy to try to encourage corporate investment. The idea is that reducing corporation tax will increase investment and employment, benefiting us all. The problem is that such tax cuts in the 1980s, both in the UK and the USA, did not increase investment but merely changed the composition of where the total tax bill came from and had a regressive effect on income distribution.

So what is wrong with focusing on taxes to increase investment? While the concept of, ‘animal spirits’ came back after the financial crisis to explain the ‘herd-behaviour’ that characterised financial markets, its main lesson did not. Keynes’ primary insight was that business investment, the most volatile element of spending in GDP, is not a function of taxes or interest rates but of ‘animal spirits’ - the gut instinct of business regarding the future growth prospects of a particular sector (eg. the future of biotech), a particular stock or of an entire economy (eg. emerging markets).

These growth expectations are affected by the key structural and institutional properties of a country. These include a country's education system - which widens the pool of potential innovators; its science base - which provides the fruit that determines new technological opportunities that incumbents and new entrants can profit from; regional and national agencies which encourage networking between businesses and between businesses and academia; the openness of a country’s lead sectors to new entrants and competition and finally, its venture capital system and institutional arrangements (eg. an efficient patent system).

Reagan’s and Thatcher’s tax cuts did not increase business investment because they were not accompanied by a serious industrial policy targeting such investments in a systematic way. During that same period Japanese growth soared due to a successful industrial policy, which saw its Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) tackling many of the aspects mentioned above.

How does today’s Budget deliver on such fronts? The carrots came in various forms, but unfortunately as separate blips rather than as part of a coherent industrial policy that could revolutionise infrastructure, education, networking and the other fundamental aspects that increase 'animal spirits'. The Budget includes some excellent initiatives, such as funding for 24 new university technical colleges, 25,000 new apprenticeships, the Green Investment Bank, and 21 new 'enterprise zones'. But given this is all happening at the same time as Regional Development Agencies have disappeared; the UK Film Council has been abolished (a successful and efficient funder of one of the UK’s top sectors); many universities are seeing their teaching budgets cut by 80 per cent; research budgets cut by up to 40 per cent (except in STEM subjects); and EMA cuts damaging the ability of youths to stay in school.

Only once the carrots become more substantial and targeted towards long-run investments and growth opportunities will they stop serving only token purposes to hide the impact of the cuts - which, for now, are very real in their impact on the current low 1.7 per cent growth rate.

Supply and demand

2011-03-01T09:37:00.002Z

By Dave Stevens, Marrella Communications

Written for the QUEST project team

Management guru Peter Drucker once wrote, if you think training is expensive, try ignorance.

The UK is in danger of finding out the truth of this statement - with RCUK now focusing so heavily on interdisciplinary investments, and giving out multi-million pound grants in these areas, there is a need to give greater support to the people who will be expected to carry out this research. Interdisciplinary research requires a very different range of skills from the normal discipline-based academic model but most researchers receive no training in these skills.

The success of the recent masterclass ‘Leadership Training for Interdisciplinary Environmental Initiatives’ highlighted this gap in the training market.

The course attracted senior researchers from right across the UK, and from a wide range of disciplines which suggests there is a genuine need for this type of instruction. Indeed, participants themselves bemoaned the lack of training opportunities currently offered to those leading, or about to lead, interdisciplinary investments.

The Innogen team behind the Interdisciplinary Masterclasses has now successfully developed a unique format. It incorporates novel training activities (this time they included a scenario-based training exercise in the form of a play), and provides useful networking opportunities with others in the same ID boat.

The ESRC grant that enabled the team to pilot the interdisciplinary Masterclass model led to invitations to run further training sessions across the UK and it is clear there is still an unmet demand for this sort of capacity building at all levels - postgrad, postdoc, mid career and for those who have interdisciplinary research leadership thrust upon them.

As Pfizer closes down its R&D site in Sandwich, what does this say about the future of Big Pharma?

2011-02-08T11:59:00.001Z

By James Mittra

Pfizer’s recent announcement that it will close its major R&D site at Sandwich is a clear blow both to the regional economy and the broader UK research base, but the decision also illustrates the continuing tumult within Big Pharma. Companies continue to experiment with large scale merger and acquisition activity and “R&D rationalisations” as they try to deal with deeper challenges of blockbuster innovation; including low productivity; high regulatory hurdles; the financial markets’ demand for sustainable growth strategies and the ‘patent cliff’ that most multinationals are facing in the next couple of years.

The announcement of the closure of the Sandwich lab comes just 3 months after Pfizer acquired Wyeth in a cash and stock merger worth around $68bn. Back in early 2009, when this deal was taking shape, the rationale was that Pfizer could diversify its business in preparation for the loss of a key patent on its blockbuster product Lipitor. Pfizer announced at the time that it would need to cut 10% of the work force and close 5 factories after the merger (Times Online ‘Pfizer to merge with Wyeth in $68bn Deal’, January 26, 2010).

Major restructuring programmes are common after any large-scale merger, so in many ways it is unsurprising that Pfizer is closing down some facilities. However, questions still need to be asked about the sustainability of further industry mergers.

Our past research on Big Pharma mergers showed that such strategies tend to represent a defensive response to internal weakness in a company, such as an empty drug pipeline or, as in the case of Pfizer, potential loss of major patents. However, while mergers can bring short term benefits to a company in difficulty, industry representatives that we interviewed all strongly argued that the industry was operating in an unsustainable manner.

Yet, large scale mergers are continuing, and with them will predictably come the closure of key R&D facilities and loss of jobs. And we continue to ask the question: Is the Big Pharma model sustainable and, if not, what is there to replace it?

1. Tait, Joyce and Mittra, James (2004) 'Industry Challenges',Chemistry and Industry, 6 December, 2004, No. 23, p. 24
2. Times Online ‘Pfizer to merge with Wyeth in $68bn Deal’, January 26, 2010).
3. Mittra, James (2007) 'Life Science Innovation and the Re-structuring of the Pharmaceutical Sector: Mergers, Acquisitions and Strategic Alliances', Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, Vol.19, Issue 3, pp. 279-301
4. Mittra, James (2006) 'The Socio-Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Mergers: A Case study of Sanofi and Aventis', Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, Vol.18, Issue 5, pp. 473-496

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

2010-11-30T14:30:00.001Z

By Dave Stevens, Marrella Communications

Written for the QUEST project team

I wondered, whilst reading Interdisciplinary Research Journeys, whether there is a recipe for managing the tensions in an interdisciplinary research team of academics and practitioners?

It brought to mind some of the so-called ‘men-on-a-mission movies’ that Hollywood is always pumping out, where a ragtag band of ‘specialists’ is thrown together to complete some near impossible quest.

Take the Guns of Navarone: a mountaineer, a chemistry professor and an assortment of military types are sent to destroy an impregnable fortress on top of an unscalable peak. But it is the intra-group conflicts, not the enemy, which nearly derails the mission.

I can’t help but think that, before setting off to the Aegean, Gregory Peck would have benefited from boning up on Chapter 4 ‘Making the Expedition a Success: Managing interdisciplinary projects and teams’.

As the book says, “effective management of an interdisciplinary team entails a continuous balancing act, in which individual participants are assured of endpoints meaningful to them and their careers while at the same time the group as a whole steadfastly pursues a joint vision that none could achieve alone”.

Poor old Gregory had to muddle through with just a stiff upper lip and a cynical David Niven for support.

However, the rest of us can have no such excuses as the authors of Interdisciplinary Research Journeys - Catherine Lyall, Ann Bruce, Joyce Tait and Laura Meagher - will be running a master class on Leadership Training for Interdisciplinary Environmental Initiatives on January 18-19.

For more information (and a booking form) for this FREE workshop, visit the ISSTI Interdisciplinary Wiki homepage.

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New rules of engagement?

2010-11-24T12:33:00.002Z

By Catherine Lyall

On a recent visit to Edinburgh, David Guston from Arizona State University spoke about ‘anticipatory governance’, describing it as building capacity now for what might happen in the future, as a way of understanding the political and operational strengths and weaknesses of emerging science and technology. Others are talking of ‘tentative governance’(1), suggesting that governance modes need to be tentative in order to respond to the uncertainties and dynamics associated with such activities.

Innogen’s research has examined many facets of current governance structures for the life sciences (see, for example, The Limits to Governance). What we have learned is that – while a governance approach expands the political vision and the assemblages of actors involved in policy making – this focus on participation also runs the risk of creating a misleadingly consensual picture.

This leads to a significant ‘governance gap’ when participation and decision-making take place in different locations. Some may even argue that ‘governance’ has gone too far and that we have forgotten about the legitimate role of the state in decision-making. Synonymous with hesitancy and timidity, ‘tentative’ may not be the right adjective in this situation if we are seeking to engender greater confidence in decision-making processes.

Innogen’s current work endeavours to address these limitations by developing a more creative set of alternatives that offers some new rules of engagement – look out for our new policy brief and working paper coming soon.

(1) Tentative Governance in Emerging Science and Technology, 28 & 29 October 2010, University of Twente, The Netherlands

Vive la différence?

2010-11-11T14:49:00.003Z

By Dave Stevens, Marrella Communications

Written for the QUEST project team

Nature recently reported (Oct 28) the EU was admitting failure in attempts to reach its (fairly modest) gender targets for the research workforce that it set itself back in 1999, citing lack of political support for the shortfall.

So I was particularly struck when glancing through the references cited in Interdisciplinary Research Journeys, the new book by Catherine Lyall, Ann Bruce, Joyce Tait and Laura Meagher, that the majority of authors listed were women.

Whilst trying to reconcile these two facts, I got to thinking – was this unexpected bibliographical skew a blip? To use the language of statisticians (and I’m guessing, like birdwatchers, train spotters and other fearless hunter-gatherer types, they too are mostly men) was it just sampling error?

Or was there something about interdisciplinary working that inherently favoured, or attracted, women? (And we cannot ignore the flip side: was it an approach that in some way repelled men?)

Armed with just a digital spear and a virtual loin cloth, I strode off manfully into the vast plains of the Internet in search of a herd of answers...

Writing in Research Policy, Diana Rhoten and Stephanie Pfirman previously identified four modes of practice within interdisciplinary working – and looked at various strands of evidence to see whether women had a predilection for them.

They found women more likely to cross fertilise (weave together information, approaches and ideas from different disciplines) which they suggested is because women are “more apt to make connections between language, ideas and the larger context”.

There was less evidence to support the idea that women were more likely to collaborate in teams, which is perhaps surprising given the strong theoretical support for the idea from numerous psychological studies.

The suggestions that women are more drawn to new areas, or ‘interdisciplines’ (field creation) and that they are more attracted to questions involving the real world (problem orientation) were backed up by data on the proportion of female students enrolling on certain interdisciplinary courses, and the greater number of female faculty holding joint appointments across areas that connected directly with society - such as business, biology and law.

Whilst the evidence isn’t extensive, it does seem that interdisciplinary working is, by its nature, inherently more attractive to women.

That’s a good thing, isn’t it? After all, interdisciplinary research is set to play a much greater role, right across the board. More and more science is becoming focused on problem solving (read one such example) where no single area can understand the problem or provide the answers, whilst technological breakthroughs like systems biology, regenerative medicine, and nanotechnology have already started blurring the traditional boundaries.

Well, not entirely. Current academic reward structures don’t favour interdisciplinary fields. For starters, it is very difficult to disentangle the individual’s contribution to team work – which makes it difficult to apply the usual criteria for measuring success, thereby hampering career enhancement. Researchers may then have to be judged against a different set of criteria to their discipline based counterparts if these fields are to burgeon.

If this and the various other hurdles facing interdisciplinary work can be overcome, then we might also see a rise in the number of women staying in science. And whilst not suggesting that interdisciplinary science should be encouraged purely in the interests of equality, it certainly gives those wishing to realign the gender balance some food for thought.

So let’s try to be optimistic. It took us awhile, but if we can accept that women and men are different but equal, can we not do the same for the disciplinary and the interdisciplinary?

Now, you’ll have to excuse me but I have a CD collection to alphabetize...

The governance of science: The shadow of the genetically modified crops experience

2010-11-04T12:45:00.004Z

By Joyce Tait

A shadow looms over many of the life sciences: the question of public acceptance of the science and technology – most evident in the context of genetically modified (GM) crops.

Opposition to GM crops by public-interest groups cannot be underestimated: it has prompted debate about the competence of researchers, banned research trials and seriously affected the advice given to governments.

In 2000, when the decision was taken not to rule against 27 Greenpeace activists who destroyed GM crops because of their belief it was the right thing to do, The Independent newspaper called it ‘[…] a defeat for scientific truth’ (Anon, 2000).

There has been a lack of tolerance for any alternative views of GM crops and a refusal on the part of anti-GM activists to consider alternative options involving this technology. This cynicism has pervaded public beliefs through relatively uncritical media reporting of anti-GM activity, compared with the more hostile reception and accusations of bias that greet more neutral or positive news items.

There is no evidence of direct environmental damage or health risks from approved GM crops and considerable evidence of their benefits and attractiveness to some farmers. Nevertheless, many governments in Europe refuse to allow GM crops in their region.

The social science agenda, now bound by public engagement which can influence decisions about scientific research without balancing evidenced risks and benefits, may soon have no solid evidence base for making decisions about scientific developments (Collins, 2009). Decisions will vary depending on public-opinion shifts in response to the latest events, amplified or modulated by media campaigns.

We should develop ‘rules for engagement’ that set standards for the quality and breadth of evidence that is brought to discussions, and that encourage a willingness to listen to and accommodate, where possible, the views of others. We should also consider carefully the circumstances in which it might be necessary or valid to allow the values and interests of one group to restrict the freedom of choice of others.

Anon (2000) Lord Melchett’s victory will prove to be a defeat for scientific truth. The Independent, 21 September. http://www.independent.co.uk/
Collins H (2009) We cannot live by scepticism alone. Nature 458: 30–31

For more information, read Joyce Tait’s article, ‘Upstream engagement and the governance of science’, published by EMBO reports (2009) 10, S18-S22.

Politics, governance and life science innovation: How to get more bang for the bucks you’ve already spent

2010-11-01T15:46:00.000Z

At the Conservative Party Conference on 5 Oct 2010 Professor Joyce Tait raised the following points about policy, governance and life science innovation. Joyce’s talk was part of Innogen’s contribution to the 2010 EGN Party Conference Fringe Programme.

Investment in biotechnology and life science research is expected to stimulate innovation and the UK's economic recovery. While this investment is needed, Innogen research shows that it is radical changes in governance and regulatory systems for life sciences that will be the key to maximising public benefit (economically and societally) from the money already spent on scientific research and from future investments.

Government decisions about the regulation of new biotechnologies need to ensure safety and efficacy; they also need to enable products to reach a market place where they can contribute to economic and societal wellbeing. The current regulatory systems for life science related products are so complex, expensive and time consuming for things like new drugs, new therapies and new food crops that they are preventing potentially safe, useful and effective products from being developed. Indeed current regulation is excluding the very companies that could bring the most innovative products to the market.

Policy makers faced with choosing how to regulate new technologies need to broaden their vision to include the latest insights into how regulatory systems interact with company innovation strategies; this will determine which products reach a market place, as well as the structure and innovativeness of entire sectors (1). This broader vision could lead to a significant increase in the number of innovative technologies, based on currently funded and future research, brought to market and impacting positively on the health, energy, agriculture and environmental sectors.

We are not suggesting ‘deregulation’ or even the current ‘better regulation’ initiative in BIS. What is needed is a smarter, more systemic, targeted approach for the life sciences using modern technology and a new evidence base to deliver safety, efficacy and a more vibrant innovation environment. This systemic approach will be relevant to major multinational drug companies and the thousands of SMEs working in areas like stem cell therapies and diagnostics.

The UK has a long record of shaping and reforming European regulatory systems and is host to the European Medicines Agency. The kind of initiative being proposed here could improve our ability to respond to many pressing societal challenges, deliver major benefits to the European economy as a whole and enable a sea change in innovative capacity of one of the most important economic sectors in the UK.

1 Tait et al (2008). Innogen Policy Brief series, Appropriate Governance of the Life Sciences. Available from http://www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/innogen/publications/innogenpolicybriefs/title,20871,en.html

How to build an ideas factory

2010-10-21T15:51:00.012+01:00

By Mariana Mazzucato
Published on guardian.co.uk at on Saturday 9 October 2010.

The Tories have told us that they want the UK to become a "factory of ideas", fuelling the economy, and indeed the world, with new products and services. Policy and headlines so far have focused on cuts as the central plank of the economic policy. Little attention has been given to the much needed growth plan that will deliver the promised innovation and prosperity.

With budgets so restricted, transforming the UK into a factory of ideas will depend on carefully targeted investment in those activities that nurture the experimentation necessary for innovation. Innovation is a collective process and depends on systems: the interaction between companies and publicly funded research, education, public infrastructure, venture capital and regional development agencies.

One tangible policy measure agreed is the creation of the green investment bank, which is expected to raise £2bn to kickstart a green technology revolution. Yet Ben Caldecott, Climate Change Capital's head of UK and EU energy and environment policy, said improving the UK's ageing energy infrastructure will "require investment at a scale and speed not seen for a generation".

Leading in the green tech race means attracting the best scientists from around the world. Yet last week we were told that the cuts in research budgets are already causing a brain drain; some of the UK's best scientists – the ideas! – are leaving the UK.

So what could and should be done to improve our competitiveness and prevent economic stagnation? To echo the CBI two weeks ago, it is of course essential to continue investing in the very best early-stage research, human capital formation and the nation's infrastructure. These are the wellspring of innovation and cutting them will damage the "animal spirits" that drive business confidence and stimulate investment.

But, on its own, this will not be sufficient. Industrial policy needs to return after decades of taking the back seat, and part of this policy must be to help financial markets reward rather than penalise innovation – a serious problem even before the current crisis.

Evidence demonstrates that companies who engage in more risky innovation are being penalised by banks with higher interest rates than those being offered to less innovative companies. Any growth policy needs to include new incentives for motivating banks to support these firms, perhaps by subsidising the difference in the rate offered to innovative versus non-innovative companies.

Venture capital has not done enough to nurture companies through to product development, giving priority to making millions from the initial public offering phase (IPO). So rather than hyping up the role of venture capital, policy should promote and support those VC companies that have a record in the formation of new products and services.

Credit ratings also need to be re-examined if we are to ensure that they better reflect the high risk taken on by companies that invest in the long term. Sadly, currently, the ratings tend to overemphasise financial indicators (share price) and underemphasise industrial ones (productivity, innovation) and hence often cause more harm than good.

Financialisation and the focus on short-term profits rather than long-run growth has caused many companies to spend millions repurchasing their shares simply to boost their share price, at the cost of spending on R&D. So policy must favour those companies actively engaged in breaking new ground and inventing the new products and services that have the potential to create growth and new jobs rather than those whose sole concern is boosting their share price.

If growth in the UK is going to be led by the creation of new ideas, these policies along with targeted state investment are key. Thatcher and Reagan's trickle-down policies, which assumed that investment would increase automatically if the rich got richer, did not work. They did not work because the cuts they imposed hurt the animal spirits that deliver the confidence and bravery to experiment with new wild ideas which are uncertain today but the foundation of tomorrow's future. The Tory dream of turning the UK into a hotbed of innovation will require a major change of mindset – and a lot of cash.

Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Economics Director of the ESRC Innogen Centre, is an industrial economist with a particular interest in the economics of innovation and its implications for innovation, growth and economic.
Follow her personal blog, dedicated to thoughts on how investment in innovation, with all the uncertainty and risk taking that it encompasses, can lead to more equitable growth.

Biofuels and the Globalization of Risk: The Biggest Change in North-South Relationships Since Colonialism?

2010-10-18T14:17:00.011+01:00

By James Smith

We are facing a future shaped by uncertainty. ‘Perfect storms’ of food and energy insecurity, the threat of climate change, and growing interdependencies are generating global risks of irreconcilable complexity. This coupling of uncertainty and complexity creates environmental, economic and social risks; and so-called solutions risk exacerbating problems rather than alleviating them.

Biofuels have been backed as one such solution to the perfect storms of tomorrow. Their multiple promises of low emissions, energy security and economic development are attractive to policymakers, entrepreneurs and governments. A combination of subsidy, market, technology and policy has quickly created a tightly integrated global system that plants biofuel crops, processes liquid biofuels and promises a better future for all. The ultimate, unspoken promise of biofuels is that they encourage us not to confront the roots of uncertainty and complexity: overconsumption, an over-reliance on fossil fuel, growing inequality.

Investing in biofuels means investing in uncertainty. We simply do not know enough about their impacts and implications. Do biofuels divert food from the fork to the forecourt? Are they more sustainable than other sources of energy? Can they ignite development? Perhaps the only certainty is that the production of biofuels will allow rich consumers to live their lives as they fit at the expense of the lives and livelihoods of poor people and countries. We may understand the chemistry of photosynthesis and the physics of combustion, but we do not yet understand the array of interactions and implications necessary to maximize benefit and reduce risk.

James Smith’s book, ‘Biofuels and the Globalization of Risk: The Biggest Change in North-South Relationships Since Colonialism?’, published by Zed Books Ltd will be released on 11 November 2010.

Cloning futures?

2010-08-23T14:32:00.002+01:00

It has recently emerged that meat from cloned animals has entered the UK food chain without authorisation under the Novel Food Regulations. The safety of these products, the welfare of the cloned animals and how the general population perceives the risk of this technology pose challenges for policymakers. In the European Parliament, MEPs voted to ban cloning-derived products and this could become EU law in the autumn.

In December 2007, the Daily Mail announced that a calf which was the offspring of a cloned cow, had been born in the UK, apparently without the knowledge or approval of the regulatory authorities. In response, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was tasked with investigating safety aspects and the European Group on Ethics of science and new technologies (EGE), the ethical implications of food products from cloned farm animals. This original calf (named Dundee Paradise) and her contemporaries are now adults and are reproducing and producing milk, causing the recent media attention.

Why is cloning regarded with such disfavour? There are three main reasons. A large part stems from the welfare problems experienced by clones. Arguments have been advanced by some scientists that these problems in cattle have been mainly resolved, but my understanding is that some individual animals clone more easily than others, so that clones from some animals consistently have many fewer welfare problems.

But are cloning practices restricted just to these animals that clone well? That seems unlikely. Progeny of clones, however, don’t seem to have these welfare problems. The welfare problems are also much less in cloned pigs. If welfare was the only concern then, if it was possible to produce cloned animals so that there were no adverse consequences to welfare, then the technology would become acceptable. But the second concern relates to the morality of cloning: for some, cloning is just plain wrong, particularly if applied on a wide scale using the factory production line mentality to living animals. Those who argue against cloning from an animal welfare basis may also have ethical concerns about the technology that could never be met by focussing on welfare standards. Food safety is the third issue. Expert committees have not found cause for concern regarding food safety but public surveys suggest a high degree of suspicion. A Eurobarometer report in 2008 found that 84% of the 25,607 EU citizens asked felt that there was insufficient knowledge about the long-term health and safety effects of using cloned animals for food. Over half (61%) felt that animal cloning was morally wrong and a smaller proportion (41%) that animal cloning would cause animals unnecessary pain, suffering and stress. In the UK, participants in four deliberative reconvened workshops run for the Food Standards Agency by Creative Research in 2008, were again concerned about the safety of food from cloned animals and were fearful that the process may somehow create new diseases, such as BSE. They were also concerned about the morality of cloning animals and, as with the Eurobarometer survey, there was a demand for labelling of food derived from cloned animals and from their progeny.

Technology has offered new possibilities but to what extent does cloning fulfil a real need? To breed ‘better’ animals more quickly might help address food security concerns by increasing productivity. Some might argue that we don’t need cloning as alternative approaches could be used to achieve these same ends. Others may argue that using cloning to assist breeding could enable other important breeding goals to be achieved more quickly, for example, reducing the environmental and climate impact of livestock or increasing disease resistance. But what else might cloning be used for? If you had a valuable bull, perhaps with some unusual characteristic, being able to keep a clone for a ‘spare’ in case the bull breaks a leg or something else catastrophic happens to it, might be attractive. How about storing cells from rare breeds in a biobank to be available to use cloning techniques to ‘recreate’ animals in case of sudden disease outbreaks or natural disasters that would otherwise decimate irreplaceable stocks?

The European Parliament has voted to ban cloning, how do they propose that legislation be written? And will it also prevent the above or other potentially useful applications that we may only think of in the future? The European Parliament earlier planned to regulate products from cloned animals and their progeny under the Novel Food Regulations which would have required labelling of these products. Since there is no ‘test’ for cloning nor an obvious scientific basis for developing such a test, this labelling would need to rely on traceability, which might be possible in the EU given the current requirements for cattle traceability but would seem to be very difficult for some products such as powdered milk or gelatine etc.

The development of commercial cloning raises a number of further issues. The first is how relatively small companies (in this case based in the USA) are able to promote technologies that can then quickly have world-wide implications. Farming has traditionally had affinity with a local geography and culture but this has changed with the advent of globalisation of biotechnology and trade in food. The number of progeny of clones reported in the UK is small, eight was the last reported by the Food Standards Agency, in contrast to the over 80m cattle reported to be in the EU by Eurostat. But the animals with one parent a clone will themselves multiply. Reports of 97 offspring by the BBC indicate how quickly they can increase in number. These animals have a grandparent who was a clone. How long does the ‘moral taint’ of cloning continue?

These are really difficult issue to deal with. There is little evidence that EU public want this technology, yet there is also little evidence that products from cloned animals are unsafe to eat. At least as important are the negative connotations associated with cloning. The call for a ban on cloning farm animals was made strongly by the European Parliament. Arguments against farm animal cloning were made even by those parliamentarians who would normally seem to advocate biotechnological developments. This appears to be less a case of regulating a hazardous technology but rather more of one that causes nebulous anxiety on a variety of different levels.

Ann Bruce, Senior Research Fellow

Agricultural Innovation and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tracing Connections and Missing Links

2010-07-22T15:40:00.005+01:00

Julius Mugwagwa and Simon Outram edited a Special Issue of the Journal of International Development (Vol 22, Issue 3), published in April 2010. Here, Julius describes some of the background to this issue:

With a special emphasis on agricultural biotechnologies, the special issue examines from different perspectives why advanced expertise and technological availability have seemingly had only a minor impact on the productivity of agriculture and hence food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The different contributors use various case studies to explore both the overarching context of how different stakeholders within the agricultural sector understand the role of expertise and technological availability in the agricultural innovation process, along with the specific details of how these function within countries and regionally.

The contributors also explore the relationship between technology, policy and public engagement approaches and wider concepts of technology development and governance. Overall, this is ultimately not a negative story. Instead of the now common despair about the abilities of Africa to meet it is own food-security requirements, this issue presents articles which demonstrate how much is already in place, with reflections and suggestions on how such resources can be made to work together for the greater socio-economic good of the continent.

On a more personal level, this special issue originates from an awareness that while researchers frequently carry out their work in fine detail, with time and funding limitations and disciplinary structures, there is seldom the opportunity to see how each piece of research relates to another.

This special issue is a gratifying reflection and opportunity to review the products of such separate research projects together in a way that tells a grander and coherent story. In this case, the combined contributions pause questions and seek to provide suggestions on why specific areas such as policy and stakeholder engagement, which are necessary for the success of any technological innovation, remain only partially-functional in Africa’s agriculture arena.

Each of the papers looks at technology development, utilisation, policy and public engagement systems from different theoretical perspectives, laying bare how technology is only fully possible to utilise when other (non-technological) elements – such as regulatory frameworks, marketing structures, and communication of benefits and risks – are all in place. This is not an argument for perfection in all facets, but that the degree to which each of these elements functions fully will have a substantial impact upon the success (or otherwise) of the introduction of such new technology. Policy development and implementation need to constantly reflect on this.

While this special issue is largely grounded in research carried out by researchers engaged in various levels of technological and institutional innovation in SSA, we target a broader contribution to empirical evidence and literature on agricultural innovation globally, particularly how a broadened perspective on innovation can generate new ways of thinking that can ultimately improve upon existing practices.

Issue Details:
Journal of International Development Special Issue: Agricultural Innovation and Food Security in Africa: Tracing Connections and Missing Links Issue,
Edited by Simon M. Outram, Julius T. Mugwagwa
Volume 22 Issue 3 , Pages 283 - 389 (April 2010)

Sustainable Businesses in the Regenerative Medicine Industry

2010-06-25T16:05:00.003+01:00

By Joyce Tait

Successful and sustainable businesses in the Regenerative Medicine industry need to incorporate strategies to address key factors beyond individual business boundaries. These include legal, ethical and financial frameworks, distribution and logistics, and end users willingness to adopt and ability to pay. Business models need to be well adapted to the needs of this market and wil vary depending on whether the end product is a cellular therapy, a delivery system for cells, genes or small molecules or enabling tools and technologies for stimulating endogenous repair. The value systems for each of these types of products are likely to have unique features but will also need to be compliant with global regulatory and legal frameworks.

The REALISE project brings together a UK wide consortium of business and academic partners, with experience of working in innovative technologies and a background in road mapping, assessing, funding and commercialising Regenerative Medicine products. It builds upon some pre-existing work but seeks to create a novel product for wider use.

REALISE is developing a set of software based tools to analyse each step of the value chain from Discovery, through Development to Delivery to the market and impact on the economy. These tools will be validated on a small but diverse set of regenerative medicine products with which the consortium is directly involved so as to define value systems for a more diverse set of products in future.

A generally applicable analysis method, the Therapy Pathway Realisation Tool (TRPT), is being created and its findings made available to the UK Regenerative Medicine industry, its investors and stakeholders to use in developing the value systems, assessing the impact of investment and as an aid to defining business models for its products and services.

The outputs for this project will be

Generic business models and business plans and development strategies for three regenerative medicine products which are close to commercialisation.
A generally applicable Therapy Pathway Realisation Tool, a software based road mapping and decision making tool. This will allow projects to define their best suited business model, and the opportunity, through interrogation of the Therapy Pathway Realisation Tool, to make Impact Assessments which allow decision making based on issues of strategic and economic impact.
Insight into the interaction between business models and regulatory influences within the UK and global value systems.
Determination of the availabiliby and influence of private and public sector funding and identifying potential short falls.

Scottish Stem Cell Network with KLCE Consulting Ltd, Roslin Cells Ltd, the ESRC Innogen Centre at the University of Edinburgh and specialist design firm, New Game Plan Ltd, have received Funding from TSB, Scottish Government, the Economic and Social Research Council and Edinburgh Bioquarter, to develop the Therapy Pathway Realisation Tool. The project will be completed within 18 months from May 2010.The knowledge gained by the partners and our collaborators will form the basis of a generic tool with wider applicability across the pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic sectors.

The £444,000 award was made under the Technology Strategy Board Regenerative Medicine Programme: Value Systems and Business Models.

Does DNA = life?

2010-05-21T18:31:00.004+01:00

Jane Calvert and Emma Frow reflect on the Venter Institute’s breakthrough

The publication of the paper ‘Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome’ by scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute has been accompanied by the expression of a whole spectrum of hopes and fears that we have come to associate with new biotechnologies. But we suggest that some of the more overlooked features of the paper may turn out to be the most interesting. Here we highlight four.

Synthetic vs natural
The authors of the paper are keen to stress the 'synthetic-ness' of their new cell. The word ‘synthetic’ in this context relates primarily to the fact that the genome was chemically synthesized from component DNA nucleotides in a laboratory (by the company Blue Heron Biotechnology). The sequence of genome itself is virtually identical to one found in nature (that of the bacterium Mycoplasma mycoides), and characteristics of the ‘synthetic’ cell are almost identical to the ‘natural’ M. mycoides. But it is interesting that the paper continually draws our attention to novelty of the synthetic genome compared to the ‘natural standard’. However, this natural standard is itself a strain of bacteria that has been bred over decades for use in a laboratory context. We might ask how ‘natural’ this lab strain really is.

Watermarks
One fascinating feature that differentiates the ‘synthetic’ from the ‘natural’ genome is the insertion of four ‘watermarks’ by the JCVI team. These apparently include a serial number, the names of scientists involved in its creation, and – it is rumoured – three quotations. The paper states that these were introduced so that the investigators could distinguish their synthetic DNA from naturally occurring DNA, and assess whether their experiment had been successful. However, other possible reasons for watermarking DNA are not mentioned in the paper. One such reason could be to mark provenance, and to trace illegitimate use. Another may be to do with patentability. It is not possible to patent a 'product of nature', so the less natural the genome is, the easier it will be to claim it as an invention.

The importance of cellular context
Some commentators have already argued that synthesising a genome is not the same as synthesising a cell, because a genome needs a cellular context to transform it from an inanimate chemical sequence into a part of a living system. Although the authors admit that their ‘synthetic cell’ does not have a synthetic cytoplasm, they say that the properties of the cell are the same as if the whole cell had been produced synthetically, because the new DNA takes over the production of all the proteins in the cell. But does this underplay the importance of cellular context? This context is still a crucially important part of the new ‘synthetic cell’ because it provides all the initial machinery for DNA replication and other essential processes.

Use of metaphor
One thing that is striking in this paper is the continual use of computational metaphors – for example, that we can store “the genetic instructions for life as a digital file”. We are also told that “the DNA software builds its own hardware,” and much of the press surrounding this paper has referred to “booting up” the recipient cell with the synthetic genome. Seeing DNA as software instructions in this way, and thinking of cells as small computers are now very familiar ideas, but we should not forget that they are metaphorical. The fact that these metaphors have become widely accepted and unproblematic is interesting in itself, but this shouldn't stop us from asking about their limitations and the assumptions that they carry with them.

The language of ‘control’ is also heavily present in the paper, which repeatedly talks about how the new cell will be ‘controlled’ by the synthetic genome. But is this the appropriate way of understanding the interaction between a genome and its cellular environment? If context-dependence and evolvability are important characteristics of living things, does the idea of ‘control’ lose some of its force?

Synthetic biology & Scotland

2010-04-20T16:00:00.004+01:00

Innogen’s Professor Joyce Tait participated in a debate about synthetic biology at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on 13th April 2010.

Joyce joined renowned chemist and synthetic biology expert Prof. Ben Davis (Oxford University) and Dr. Jim Haseloff, researcher and lecturer in synthetic biology (Cambridge University) and Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh for the event Designer Life: Scotland’s Next Industrial Revolution?, chaired by Quentin Cooper, BBC Science Presenter.

Could the next industrial revolution be based on biological rather than mechanical systems?

The industrial revolution altered our entire approach to manufacturing and lead to breakthroughs in IT and electronics. Synthetic biology, ‘the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems, and the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes’(1) has an even broader scope with applications in generating energy, regulating and monitoring the environment and creating medicines and vaccines. It is estimated that the synthetic biology research market could be worth over $1.5 billion by 2013 (2).

Scotland made major contributions to the industrial revolution; will we have as big a role to play in synthetic biology?

“Yes and no.” said Joyce Tait. “Synthetic biology has to be an international effort: Scotland can’t do something on its own. However, we are well placed to be a major international player. Synthetic biology draws on expertise from a broad range of disciplines including chemistry, biology, physics, biotechnology, informatics, engineering and social science and we have research strengths across all these areas.”

Creating products from the science is another area where Scotland is has an advantage, thanks to support provided by Scottish Enterprise. Their £2.5million investment in the Genome Segment Assembly (GSA) programme aims to ‘enable the high-throughput assembly of DNA segments in an automated and reliable way. The technology developed is anticipated to benefit Scottish companies and universities developing synthetic biology applications across the range of market sectors.’(2)

“The infrastructure for innovation is important, and Scottish Enterprise have a vital role, but it is absolutely crucial to keep investing in the basic research.” said Joyce.

Is it safe?

“We need to be open about the risks of synthetic biology” said Joyce “ but we also need to be clear about how realistic those risks are, and balance those against the benefits.”

Regulating product development to reduce risks is essential, but it is also important that the regulations in place don’t stifle innovation. Joyce Tait’s work with the International Risk Governance Council, based in Geneva explores these issues.

“We don’t need less regulation, but we need to be smarter about how we regulate” said Joyce “We need a regulatory system which allows companies to deliver the benefits of the science safely”.

Want to find out more?

To read more about Joyce’s work with the Risk Governance Council, please follow this link.
To find out more about the Science Festival event, please follow the links below:

BBC Radio 4 - The Material World (15/04/2010)
The Herald - A Design For Life (11/04/2010)
The Scotsman – Synthetic life put under the microscope (12/04/2010)

Notes:

Can we get better at generating impacts from research? How can evaluation help?

2010-04-13T15:18:00.003+01:00

By Dr Laura Meagher, Technology Development Group and Visiting Fellow, Innogen and
Dr Catherine Lyall, Innogen

Like all governments that invest in university research, the UK government hopes to see returns, not only in terms of academic excellence, but also in the form of economic benefits and other societal impacts including health, culture, education, justice and well-being1. This is particularly apparent as we await further details from the pilot exercise being conducted by HEFCE as part of the consultation on the Research Excellence Framework2 which proposes to assess, for the first time, demonstrable economic and social impacts deriving from academic research.

We have conducted several evaluations of such non-academic impacts. In the process we have learned about the elusive, subtle, diffuse and long-term nature of impacts which, even where identifiable, can be virtually impossible to attribute to individual research projects. Identification of tangible impacts is especially challenging when many social science research projects potentially contribute, not to the commercialisation of a product, but to policymaking and professional practice.

But these evaluation challenges can also be seen as opportunities – chances to deconstruct and improve understanding of those processes which can mean that research has a greater impact beyond academia. By identifying what characterises these knowledge exchange processes we can help the wider research community to adopt them more readily in the future in ways that complement (rather than conflict with) the generation of excellent research.

An array of types of impacts is currently recognised(3) including:

Instrumental use (“direct impact of research on policy and practice decisions”)
Conceptual use (“where research changes ways of thinking, alerting policy makers and practitioners to an issue or playing a more general ‘consciousness-raising role’)
Capacity-building (this can refer to education, training or even development of collaborative abilities)

We suggest that there are also indicators of demand as well as process-oriented effects that can be identified as proxy indicators of relative likelihood that long-term impacts are in train:

positive changes in institutional cultures and individual attitudes toward knowledge exchange
enduring connectivity, when researchers and prospective users stay in contact even after a funded project ends.

We have sought to understand these processes in diverse evaluations(4) that recognise the inevitable heterogeneity that exists among researchers, research problems and users. We have found that(5):

impacts can take a long time to manifest themselves, and can go through various stages or iterative cycles of development (albeit not in neat linear fashion)
recognition or incentives for the generation of non-academic impacts can make a difference
supporting ongoing interactions and dialogue between researchers and users can foster two-way knowledge flows leading to longer-term uptake or utilisation of research findings
funding makes a difference – infrastructure and dedicated staff playing a “research brokerage” role can expedite the knowledge exchange process while removing some of the burden from a busy researcher
skilled, targeted communication can increase the perceived accessibility and relevance of research
knowledge intermediaries (in the media, a funding body, professional organisation, or professionally qualified individuals such as advisory board members) can play key roles
availability of flexible “bridge” funding (such as the ESRC’s Follow-on fund) might help prolong dialogue and help users develop and incorporate research ideas.

But there is much more to learn. There is a reservoir of tacit knowledge and both academic and non-academic participants in the knowledge exchange process have many useful lessons to share. We need to build on this learning and answer some deeper questions in order to probe the dynamism of knowledge exchange processes and hopefully capture more research impacts in the longer term.

Notes

See, for example, ESRC (2009), ESRC Strategic Plan 2009-2014. Delivering impact through social science.
HEFCE Research Excellence Framework Impact Pilot Exercise
See, for example, Nutley, S., Walter, I. and Davies, H. (2007), Using Evidence. How Research can Inform Public Services, (Bristol: Policy Press), p.36.
These include a Scottish scheme funding centres in emerging research areas, a UK-wide programme offering catalytic seed grants, a set of ESRC responsive-mode grants in one discipline, an assessment of ESRC research brokerage mechanisms and an ESRC/EPSRC/DTI programme in an emerging area combining physical and social sciences. For details see Innogen Working Paper 77
Meagher, L.M., Lyall, C. and Nutley, S. (2008), “Flows of knowledge, expertise and influence: a method for assessing policy and practice impacts from social science research” Research Evaluation Vol. 17(3): 163-173.

The truth shall not set you free?

2010-03-19T15:29:00.002Z

By Julius Mugwagwa

Spending a week in Uganda and taking part in the agrobiotech, biosafety and seed systems conference second week of March brought me head-on with a number of persistent realities facing the development and deployment of modern agricultural biotechnology in Sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve trailed biotech debates in Sub-Saharan Africa for a decade now, and consider myself well-equipped to understand the twists and turns in the terrain. Ten years is a long time, but for me it has brought persistent feelings of paramnesia … feelings of certainty that what is being said has to a large extent been said before. However, if you ask me, that in itself is not the problem, but the underlying reasons for that stagnant debate are.

For a start, and as has long been confirmed, the dynamics behind this technology go beyond what the science can churn out. It’s to a much bigger extent about the technology-transcending politics of governing the technology to gain a balance among the contending interests of many stakeholders dotted around the value chain. Many players have entered the fray over the years to try and unblock the many grid-locks that lie in the path of successful introduction of biotech products in the region. For example, a number of NGOs and other non-state players specialising in ‘biotechnology communication’ have emerged in the region and taken over the role of educating the public on the pros and cons of modern biotechnology.

While it appears like scientists have taken a back seat to allow the specialised organisations to find and deliver suitable messages, the reality is that the majority of the people running these organisations are established scientists in their own right. They have fought the science communication battle from different fronts, starting as laboratory scientists occasionally invited to give talks at workshops or speaking their messages through others. Now they say they see the need to fight their own battles, with a little help from colleagues who specialise in communication.

Meanwhile, for the ordinary member of the public, it’s the lack of a firm middle ground which is worrying. When the debate started several years ago now, there were a number of organisations championing a neutral, balanced-information agenda, but gradually they have all moved either to the left or to the right, a trend which mirrors the funding opportunities available. The messages and the messengers seem to be following the money. Putting all this together, one cannot help sparing a moment to ponder over what one of the delegates at the Uganda conference said … that in this biotech debate the truth shall not set you free! What will? Food for thought!

Press coverage for Innogen's Economics Director, Prof Mariana Mazzucato

2010-02-26T11:56:00.002Z

Find out more about Mariana's work in the following media outlets:

Television
Academic expert in 'Inside Story', 22 minute TV programme on Toyota Recall and its impact. Presented by Mike Hanna. Produced by Al Jazeera English, first aired prime time on Al Jazeera English TV, 7 February 2010

Key role in the design and development of the film 'Rules of the Game', 30 minute TV film on innovation and the industry life-cycle, Featuring work and interviews by academic experts: Mariana Mazzucato, Paul David, and Clive Sinclair. Presented by PY Gerbeau. Produced by BBC, first aired prime time on BBC2, June 2002.

News
'Is R&D spending worth it?' (forthcoming Spring 2010) - contribution to the 'Excellence in Leadership', the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants business publication

'Economic Insight' column (Jan 2010) - opinion piece on 'to what extent throwing money at funding innovation helps keep a country ahead in the knowledge economy' in the Business XL publication

'Fixing the Broken Innovation Model' (Dec 2009) - opinion piece for Pharmaceutical Executive Europe

'Innovate to Stimulate' (Jan 2010) - article on Prof Mazzucato's inaugural address (25 March 2009): 'Do the best firms always win?' featured in Sesame magazine.

'Economic Recovery is a Slow and Painful Process' (Nov 2009) - Peter Bartram from the Financial Director quoting Professor Mazzucato on the economic growth rate in 2010.

'Winning Advantage Through Innovation' (Nov 2009) - Brett Matthews from the Business Today quoting Professor Mazzucato on why people are not investing and a discussion piece on the relationship between innovation and company growth.

'Study Probes Role of Finance in the Economy' (July 2009) - Market Research Industry Online highlights FINNOV, the OU grant awarded by the European Commission (http://www.finnov-fp7.eu/), led by Mariana Mazzucato

Where are the users in the Global Health Research and Innovation System?

2010-01-14T10:40:00.003Z

Dr. Rebecca Hanlin, Director of Health Innovation at the ESRC Innogen Centre

During many of the discussions held at Forum 2009 towards the end of last year in Havana, Cuba, a particular set of users (patients and civil society members) were frequently missing. One concept discussed at the meeting and in a commentary piece published at the time in The Lancet was that of a Global Health Research and Innovation System. This concept acknowledges the need to consider more systemically the wide range of actors, stimulus and challenges impacting the ability to innovate (new) health related products and services to address the health of the poorest in the world. However, the current conceptualisation of this system put forward ignores the valuable role users play in the innovation process.

This is despite an increasing recognition of the role of users within academic thinking around innovation more generally. There is a growing recognition that innovation is disruptive and often takes place as a result of those who, or to address groups who, are ‘below the radar’ thus recognizing the role of low income populations at the bottom of the pyramid. Much of this has been user driven innovation whereby innovation takes place in response to the needs of users while other innovation actually involves the user in the innovation process. Considering these forms of innovation provide one means to overcome the mismatches affecting innovation of health related products and services for those who need them most.

Further information:
[1] http://www.globalforumhealth.org/Forum-2009
[1] Matlin, S.A. and Samuels, G.M.R. (2009) “The Global Health Research and Innovation System (GHRIS)” The Lancet Vol. 374, pp.1662-3
[1] DPP (2009) BELOW THE RADAR: WHAT DOES INNOVATION IN THE ASIAN DRIVER ECONOMIES HAVE TO OFFER OTHER LOW INCOME ECONOMIES? Innogen Working Paper 69 January 2009
[1] Prahalad, C.K. (2004) The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits Wharton School Publishing[1] Hanlin, R. and Sutz, J. (2009) Where are the flags of our fathers? Rethinking linkages between social policies and innovation policies Innogen Working Paper (forthcoming)

Framing the engagement of science?

2009-08-04T14:36:00.001+01:00

By Gill Haddow, Ann Bruce, Jane Calvert and Robin Williams

Consulting and engaging with sectors of the UK population on the development of new scientific and medical technologies, such as GM crops, stem cell technology and DNA databases is considered to be of fundamental importance by some politicians, funding bodies, scientific organisations and social scientists. Social scientists have become involved with these ‘public engagement’ activities – studying their operation and impacts and, often supporting their activities. However the position of social scientists involved in these “engagements” remains rather unclear.

As social scientists, in recent years, we have become involved in public engagement activities with a number of groups (public, regulatory, academic etc) on various new scientific and medical technologies. Again and again, we have come across the problem of how to present complex technical, legal, ethical and social issues about these technologies to our participants. There is after all, a fundamental difference between asking people for their views on a particular topic based on their experience of it and asking people for their views based on little experience or knowledge. More often than not the public/s we engaged with had little experience, awareness and knowledge of these new scientific developments; and to be frank, were often little interested in them.

To reiterate, the problem is one of engaging with lay publics or with specialist communities (politicians, managers, specialists etc) on areas outside their specialism. This is why the issue of “framing” comes to the fore. There has been much criticism from STS colleagues about the disposition of scientists to persuade public/s that the science they are conducting is good and fair by framing the issues in a particular way. A much overlooked issue in these interactions is the problem of “framing” by the social scientists themselves. The role of “framing” in social interactions can be traced back to the classic work of Goffman who suggested that, “definitions of a situation are built up in accordance with principals of organization which govern events, at least social ones, and our subjective involvement in them; frame is the word I use to refer to such of these basic elements” (Goffman, 1974). Gitlin provides a convenient accessible definition: “Frames are principles of selection, emphasis and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens and what matters” (1980: 6). It is this question of “what matters” that has emerged in some of our latest research.

As social scientists, seeking to elicit the views of diverse constituencies in the course of fieldwork or public engagement activities, we may need to convey something about complex technical fields and associated social issues and policy debate. Time constraints, let alone the limits to our technical understanding, mean we can only provide a condensed and simplified account of these complex issues. Such simplification brings a risk of misinterpretation by giving some aspects greater emphasis than others. So no longer is it only about making sure that we do not ask leading questions, but it is the ability to present debates, issues etc that are provocative but reasonable; that stimulate debate but do not antagonise; that do not capture our respondents by our own analytical commitments and vested (critical) interests. Social scientists involved in PE activities around particular scientific or technological developments as “critical friends” of scientists are faced with additional questions such as, “how do we present information that does not alienate and antagonise scientific colleagues through inaccuracies, ignorance or unintended bias, yet allows the social scientist to present contested debates”?

We are also faced with a problem that, at one and the same time, the “picture we present” of such advances are to be inclusive, do not lead to power-differentials, do not “capture” the audience by our (conscious or unconscious) vested interests, do not lead to premature consensus and presents the information in a fair and unbiased way.

Some commentators have tended to discuss the issue of framing as a conscious strategy to lead (or mislead) those being engaged with towards a particular view (McCombs, et al 1997). In our experience this is less frequently an issue for social scientists as the unconscious representation of knowledge that reflects the social scientist’s interests. For example – there is an issue about justifying the involvement of social scientists as paid members of PE exercises; the general concern by social scientists to emphasise their value as intermediaries in techno-scientific change and there is also a question of the social and political personal commitments of social scientists. The solution is perhaps to spend more time reflecting on the presentation of information, more time discussing it with colleagues and more time thinking about the reactions it is likely to produce and to take more care in the results to demonstrate what and where the social science was in the frame.

References:
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience New York: Harper and Row
Gitlin, Todd. 1980. The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Berkeley, CA, Los Angeles, CA & London, U.K.: University of California Press.
McCombs, M., Shaw, D. L., and Weaver, D., (1997) Communication and Democracy: Exploring the intellectual frontiers in agenda-setting theory. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

How many scientists fabricate and falsify research?

2009-06-02T12:57:00.002+01:00

Press release from PLoS ONE

It's a long-standing and crucial question that, as yet, remains unanswered: just how common is scientific misconduct? In the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, Daniele Fanelli of the University of Edinburgh reports the first meta-analysis of surveys questioning scientists about their misbehaviours. The results suggest that altering or making up data is more frequent than previously estimated and might be particularly high in medical research.

Recent scandals like Hwang Woo-Suk's fake stem-cell lines or Jon Sudbø's made-up cancer trials have dramatically demonstrated that fraudulent research is very easy to publish, even in the most prestigious journals. The media and many scientists tend to explain away these cases as pathological deviations of a few "bad apples." Common sense and increasing evidence, however, suggest that these could be just the tip of the iceberg, because fraud and other more subtle forms of misconduct might be relatively frequent. The actual numbers, however, are a matter of great controversy.

Estimates based on indirect data (for example, official retractions of scientific papers or random data audits) have produced largely discrepant results. Therefore, many researchers have asked scientists directly, with surveys conducted in different countries and disciplines. However, they have used different methods and asked different questions, so their results also appeared inconclusive.

To make these surveys comparable, the meta-analysis focused on behaviours that actually distort scientific knowledge (excluding data on plagiarism and other kinds of malpractice) and extracted the frequency of scientists who recalled having committed a particular behaviour at least once, or who knew a colleague who did.

On average, across the surveys, around 2% of scientists admitted they had "fabricated" (made up), "falsified" or "altered" data to "improve the outcome" at least once, and up to 34% admitted to other questionable research practices including "failing to present data that contradict one's own previous research" and "dropping observations or data points from analyses based on a gut feeling that they were inaccurate."

In surveys that asked about the behaviour of colleagues, 14% knew someone who had fabricated, falsified or altered data, and up to 72% knew someone who had committed other questionable research practices.

In both kinds of surveys, misconduct was reported most frequently by medical and pharmacological researchers. This suggests that either the latter are more open and honest in their answers, or that frauds and bias are more frequent in their fields. The latter interpretation would support growing fears that industrial sponsorship is severely distorting scientific evidence to promote commercial treatments and drugs.

As in all surveys asking sensitive questions, it is likely that some respondents did not reply honestly, especially when asked about their own behaviour. Therefore, a frequency of 2% is probably a conservative estimate, while it remains unclear how the figure of 14% should be interpreted.

Contact: Dr Daniele Fanelli
Citation: Fanelli D (2009) How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data. PLoS ONE 4(5): e5738. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

PLEASE ADD THE LINK TO THE PUBLISHED ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0005738

Constituting Neurologic Subjects: Neuroscience, Identity and Society after the ‘Decade of the Brain’

2009-06-02T12:49:00.007+01:00

Are we are brains? Certainly, new research in the neurosciences is providing compelling evidence to suggest that much of what we think, say and do is governed by the brain, at least in part. Through their work, not least of which are powerful imaging studies, neuroscientists provide new ways of understanding ourselves, social relations, and societies. In so doing, the 'new brain sciences' are contributing to longstanding debates concerning free will, morality, and madness. Increasingly, neuroscience research is filtering into other domains and discourses, challenging existing practice and animating new social engagements and relations. Accordingly, social theorist Nikolas Rose has suggested that 'we' have now become 'neurochemical selves' (Rose, 2007: 188), understanding thought, feeling and behaviour as being mediated through the workings of the brain.

Rose's formulation captures well the broad shifts in identity that the meta-narratives of neuroscience and the psy-sciences have entrained. Anthropologist Joseph Dumit (2004) and sociologist Kelly Joyce (2008) have likewise examined some of the cultural practices associated with neuroimaging in particular. It is becoming clear that neuroscience is not a twenty-first century phrenology: neuoscientific narratives about personality and behaviour align somatic and societal registers in sophisticated ways which render problematic simplistic critiques of ‘reductionism’ or ‘determinism’ (Pickersgill, 2009). Yet, there are clearly a number of ‘gaps’ in our understandings of the complex interactions between neuroscience and society that need to be explored. In this project, funded by the ESRC, we (in collaboration with Dr Paul Martin, University of Nottingham) seek firmer analytic purchase on these important issues through empirical work examining the positioning of a range of publics (including neuroscientists themselves) towards neuroscience.

Methodologically, this 11 month project employs documentary analysis and focus groups to reach an understanding of the range of subject positions assumed by publics in relation to neuroscience. Extending Sarah Cunningham-Burley’s work on science and publics, and Martyn Pickersgill’s research into the links between psychiatry and neuroscience, this investigation charts the constitution of neurologic subjects by exploring the shifting understandings of expertise and identity engendered by neuroscience. In the process, we seek to ground theoretical discussion about neuroscience in empirical reality, and create a new vantage point from which we can better engage with the ethics and politics of this potentially transformative science.

Contact:
Martyn Pickersgill and Sarah Cunningham-Burley
Public Health Sciences Section, College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh
martyn.pickersgill@ed.ac.uk

References

Dumit, J. (2004) Picturing Personhood: Brain Scans and Biomedical Identity, Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Joyce, K. (2008) Magnetic Appeal: MRI and the Myth of Transparency, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Pickersgill, M. (2009) ‘Between Soma and Society: Neuroscience and the Ontology of Psychopathy’, BioSocieties, 4, 1, 45-60.

Rose, N. (2007) The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century, Princeton: Princeton University

Reducing our carbon footprint: can selective animal breeding help?

2009-06-02T12:37:00.006+01:00

Innogen Research Fellow, Ann Bruce has been awarded an ESRC grant:

Mitigating the environmental impact of cattle and sheep: animal genetics and farmers' readiness for uptake

Global warming is often thought as being caused by energy production but the second largest contributor is animal production, with methane produced by cows and sheep a key component. One obvious solution is to reduce meat and milk consumption but this is unlikely to be acceptable to everyone. Moreover, grass-fed animals (such as cows and sheep) can provide other benefits than food, such as managing biodiversity. The UK has a good climate for producing grass and many of the upland regions of the UK cannot be used for cultivating anything other than grass. Grazing animals therefore provide the backbone of many rural communities.

A range of different animal breeding technologies (including but not limited to genetic modification) could be used to mitigate the global warming impact of farm livestock, but adoption of these may be limited by willingness of farmers to purchase these replacement breeding animals. The aim of this project is to:

understand how farmers reach decisions on where to source replacement breeding animals
understand how the whole system of producing replacement breeding animals impacts on the decisions made by farmers
evaluate what changes could be made to encourage the uptake of animals bred for reduced global warming impact

This project will identify key factors that influence the uptake of animals bred for reduced global warming impact. By working in collaboration with a key animal breeding technology transfer body (Genesis Faraday Partnership) this project will be working directly with the people who would be in a position to act on the knowledge created in this project and influence how breeding technologies could be used to mitigate the global warming potential of farm animals.

This project will run from January 2010-Decemebr 2011. For more information, please contact Ann Bruce.

Cross-national technology regulation in Africa

2009-06-02T10:38:00.003+01:00

Dr Julius Mugwagwa has won a very competitive and prestigious Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship. Julius will be working on 'Cross-national technology regulation in Africa' and the abstract below captures the essence of the project:

'Building on methodologies and theoretical insights from the doctoral study, the proposed fellowship seeks to make an original and innovative contribution to understandings of how policies and regulatory systems for innovations spread across countries with the mediation of supranational organisations and other trans-national policy actors in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This will be done through a multi-level comparative analysis of processes towards cross-national governance frameworks for biotechnology/biosafety policies and medicines control regulations in southern, eastern and western Africa'

For additional information about this project, please contact Julius.

Scientific experiment confirms what most people thought, a few scientists quite pleased

2009-05-14T15:53:00.002+01:00

By Ann Bruce, Innogen Research Fellow

The social science community often critiques life scientists for over-promising what their work will deliver. This was a strong theme from a recent stem cell conference, ‘Beyond Pattison’.

But what can we really expect life scientists to do?

They are expected to produce academically “excellent science” and to justify the relevance and value of this to publics – who are, after all, funding the research.

No wonder then that the life scientists might talk about their research in terms of potential therapies for say, multiple sclerosis rather than say, understanding how a particular signalling factor is determining whether a cell differentiates or not. No doubt there are occasions when individual scientists over-state their case or when newspaper headlines promise unrealistic cures but I for one am not surprised that natural scientists justify their research, which may be a long-way from producing applications, in terms of cures. We as a society have asked them to do so.

The question surely is not whether life scientists sometimes apparently promise one thing and deliver something else but when does this matter?

As a society we demand that scientists tell us why they are doing the research but we should not do this naively. Instead we need to do this with our eyes open to the myriad possibilities that could arise from the research and the complexity and timescale of the process needed to move from research finding to clinical treatment.

Pharma Futures: The Future of the Pharmaceutical Industry

2009-05-06T09:55:00.002+01:00

by Joyce Tait, David Wield, Joanna Chataway and Ann Bruce

The Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) is launching a book ‘The Bioeconomy to 2030: designing a policy agenda’ which summarises the outputs from a major International Futures Programme. Innogen contributed a major scenario report on health-related biotechnology up to 2030 .

Innogen’s research over the past seven years has focused on the interactions between innovation and regulation in the pharmaceutical industry. Unlike most industry analysts we see regulation as the key determinant of the overall structure of the sector, of the nature and mix of firms participating, and also of the relative competitive advantage of countries and regions. Rather than being an immutable part of the background, if we want to get the maximum innovative benefit (public and commercial) from the huge investment in basic life science, regulation is the key variable capable of driving radical change in the sector.

The starting point for our scenarios was a world health care system that, from the perspective of potential impacts of biotechnology, is mainly under the influence of the innovation model of multinational drug companies (big pharma). The scope and inventiveness of this model has been constrained by expensive and lengthy regulatory systems that act as a barrier to entry for small companies that could challenge the industry status quo. Radical regulatory change (smarter regulatory systems for 21st century science and innovation) is seen as a necessary precursor to the emergence of a new, more radically innovative, health care sector.

To achieve these beneficial outcomes for the health bio-economy our scenario suggested that a big pharma company and a major ICT firm could form a joint company to deliver ‘Networked Health Care’ and described how this could emerge, given ‘smarter’ regulation. To succeed, the new company would need to harness a wide range of global networks, bringing together new technology, new types of expertise, surmounting regulatory barriers to innovation, and embracing new competition models.

In this scenario, the most powerful partners would no longer act as technology gate-keepers, inhibiting the development of innovations that did not contribute to a drug-based approach to health care.

Achieving radical change in major industry sectors or regulatory systems is sometimes described as “turning round an oil tanker”. However, even once you have turned the oil tanker round, it is still an oil tanker. The challenge in this case was equivalent to converting the oil tanker into a multifunctional mother ship in charge of a fleet of smaller faster vessels capable of taking off in many directions while remaining well connected with one another. And regulatory change is the essential first step in enabling this to happen.

See: Innogen Policy Brief “Pharmaceutical Futures Health Biotechnology to 2030”; also presentation by Joyce Tait to LSE Complexity Workshop

Below the radar

2009-04-28T15:13:00.003+01:00

By Joanna Chataway, Innogen Co-Director

There was an interesting article recently in The Economist entitled 'Lessons from a Frugal Innovator' (16.04.09). The basic argument is that in the healthcare sector, Indian companies are responding with new products and efficient delivery systems to cost conscious national consumers. In some cases this is leading to superior treatment than can be found in the inefficient West.

This relates to arguments put forward in a new Innogen working paper, 'Below the Radar: What does innovation in the Asian Driver Economies have to offer other low income countries?' In that working paper we suggest that needs of poor consumers in low income contexts might constitute 'disruptive markets' which could in the end have radical implications for innovation trajectories. Our argument is that the needs of these consumers are often missed entirely by companies based in the West (thus below the radar...) and in any case the business models these companies use are inappropriate for addressing the needs of this type of consumer and user. Companies in India and China may be able to respond to poor peoples' needs more effectively and set in motion widespread change in the rate and direction of innovation in different economic sectors.

We would welcome feedback and thoughts.

Something to feel good about

2009-04-28T14:31:00.000+01:00

By Joanna Chataway, Innogen Co-Director

I don’t know how significant this is but on the face of it the University of Edinburgh should feel proud of itself this week. The University, under pressure from students, has said it will not license its science and technology to pharmaceutical companies that won’t sell their drugs at cost price to developing countries. Edinburgh is the first university to implement such a scheme. A longer article appears in the Observer (26 April 09).

The potential significance of this scheme is that other universities and public sector bodies might follow. With more and more patents owned by the public sector this might have quite an impact on availability of drugs in poor countries. I guess one could argue that this might be gesture politics but it will amount to more than that and anyway that in itself does not make this unimportant. Real change in making affordable drugs available to poor people in developing countries may depend on multiple factors (see Innogen’s OECD report on Health Biotechnology to 2030 for an idea of some the issues) but schemes like the one just announced by the University of Edinburgh are vital in signalling that the current situation whereby people die in their millions of totally preventable diseases must end.