Tax and grow

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).

Supply and demand

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.

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

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.

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

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.

New rules of engagement?

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.

Vive la différence?

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.

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

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).