Protect science spending, urges Brian Cox

PROFESSOR Brian Cox, the Manchester University physicist who has become a household name through his science programmes for the BBC, has urged all political parties to commit to ring-fencing the science budget in the next parliament.

Prof Cox was speaking at the launch of Manchester as the European City of Science at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) today.

The science budget was fixed by the Coalition at £4.6bn for 2010-15 but there was some concern that it could be trimmed earlier this year.

However, even with the ring-fencing in tact the Treasury has estimated that the 2010 settlement represented a 10% cut after allowing for inflation.

Prof Cox said science investment was fundamental to the economic health of the UK. “We need to commit to ring fencing science again, as the Government did. We must allow it to increase and chase the US and Germany.”

He added: “What I’d hope to see is every political party at least committing to ring-fencing the science budget. Every party I think will do that – possibly with the exception of UKIP – and we can achieve that goal of making Britain the best place in the world to do science.”

Chancellor George Osborne had earlier discussed the £235m he made available in his Autumn Statement for a new materials science centre in Manchester called the Sir Henry Royce Institute. He also made an extra £3m available to MOSI and the Government is supporting a major big data venture with IBM at Daresbury and an innovation centre on ageing in Newcastle.

But Mr Osborne also used the Autumn Statement to outline his commitment to austerity in the coming years which will mean huge cuts to Government spending.

Prof Cox aaded: “These investments are terrifically important, they’re fundamentally important to our country. I’ve been in Turkey and it has a vision to put itself into the top 10 countries in the world by GDP. The way they intend to do it is by investing in research and development and innovation.”