What is science for?

The process behind assessing the merits of projects is designed to ensure public money is not being wasted, and this is highly laudable, unfortunately it is also highly risk averse, or at least there is a barrier of risk beyond which the peer review process is unwilling by nature to step beyond.

The proposals which are understandable and have a known degree of risk will tend to be better accepted than the truely revolutionary as, almost by definition, these are harder to accept from the position of the existing knowledge base. It is often difficult to tell the difference between a true genius and a crackpot. The result is that the vast quantity of accepted proposals are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

To enable true blue skies research we need to accept that a proportion of the research funding may be wasted, and to provide that portion of funding with no strings attached. It reminds me of how places like Bell labs used to work in the past - all engineers and scientists could spend a portion of there time working on whatever they felt like, and indeed would be expected to do something different and risky.

Bearing that in mind, how about supplying a degree of available funding (20%?) to go with any successfully applied for project - this funding could be drawn upon at any time with a simple guaranteed application, and can then be used for whatever the recipient wishes, indeed they would be encouraged to use it not to extend existing work (which could be a temptation) but to try an entirely new direction.

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Hmm...perhaps environmental scientific research will show that the economic growth philosophy must come to an end in order to ensure the susbtainable development of modern civilisation. Lets see how far the economists will go in funding that sort of reseach! Some pills are hard to swallow.

Perhaps the problem is not with targeting money but time scales for exploiting results. An investment in blue skies research now may not pay off for ten years or more, and it is very difficult for government or funding bodies to track the results of their investment. The effects of more applied research are easier to see because they pay off in a shorter time, but the size of the payback is smaller.

If Britain can attract and keep the best people doing the best work it will prosper.

Having the best men and women doing world class science in our country will always have valuable spill over benefits even if the topics they choose seem obscure or take time to reap rewards.

Science produces new knowledge, but it is engineering and technology that produce the economic benefits. If we want economic results in the next few years, then we should be funding the technological development of existing science not totally new science. And that should be science from anywhere in the world, not just by British scientists. We should still fund British science for its own sake as a contribution to the good of humanity, not for any national economic benefits.

I have two comments.
Firstly the idea of economic GROWTH is outmoded. We are witnessing why right now, Globally. You cannot grow a finite resource. Blue Sky research is going to be needed to bring about SUSTAINABILITY for all Earth's inhabitants. Secondly, to get blue sky research universities need to be independent of industrial bribery and should be a place where brilliant minds can be set free in their quests for future solutions to our very considerable problems.

Finally, I applaud the PMs thinking about science. Far too many of our citizens are scientifically ignorant. I teach Physics. You would think I was teaching black magic!

@7 sunnyteacher

Absolutely spot on. In effect we're going through a new industrial revolution, one way or another we will come out of it with a sustainable culture.

Scientific research (targeted and blue skies) will have a huge impact but if we just support research for short term economic growth, whether we pick 'winners' or not is irrelevant, we will all be losers.

Over the years Britain has lost numerous jobs, to overseas through lack of backing new technologies. Surely it is time to re-invest into our own economy, which will have the desired effects.

The 19th century had such adventure capitalists; this made the British Empire into a world leader, and the richest. Since the WW1 & WW11, we seem to have lost our way, always looking at the bottom for the profit. This fits very nicely into the present economic situation, the root cause and effect is GREED.
The adventure capitalist of the 19th century and accountants of today wished to make a profit. However, I think there are great differences. I believe the world is on the cusp of another industrial revolution, from the exotic material to nanotechnologies to name a few. The future is ours to grasp, failing to invest will be at our peril.

There is a lot of nonsense being here. What exactly is blue skies research in the 21st Century. Most research in Universities is being done to fill the scientific journals to get more money to fill more. Research in industry is in my experience targeted on product 'opportunities' and problem solving both of which may be quite 'advanced'. Looking around me at moment most of the things developed by science I use have come about in this way. Skunk Labs (free time research) which gave us bluetack and post-it notes) are a good idea in industrial labs because of their culture and orientation. The BBC software developer managers use these as their blogs demonstrate.) Open source development software is another example using experts spare time. But these examples either have resources already available or require next to nothing to do the work. Most science is not like that. It needs big money.
But there is another way to look at science, which might be dubbed the Attenborough syndrome. Science is a cultural product, and digging up dinosaurs and doing high class nature study (animal ecology for example) produces Science Museums, TV programmes and great books as does astronomy. These products of science, (useless) knowledge, aesthetic pleasure and simple amusement have the same sort of value as great literature, art or music. So may the funding should come from the Department of Culture with appropriate targets for public engagement for all, sponsored through the Micheal Faraday Funding Council.