Specialised Research Units: Closures
Lord Kakkar Excerpts(3 weeks, 6 days ago)
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Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
As the noble Lord may be aware, I have been very clear about the need for supporting basic curiosity-driven, investigator-led research, and I will remain resolute in that determination. Some of these new centres have specified areas, such as mental health and multi-morbidity, but there is a whole round which is unspecified, allowing for people to put forward ideas of their own for units of the future, which I believe will be important for the very reason the noble Lord says.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. The funding base to support science in some of our leading universities, including those that may host these centres in the future, has become dependent on cross-subsidy from overseas student income. Is the Minister content that, with the obligation for universities to play a greater role in supporting those centres that receive MRC status, the funding base for scientific research in our universities is sufficiently secure to make that possible?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
Universities have been under pressure, as the noble Lord knows, for a number of reasons, including student fees, overseas student numbers and questions about the full economic costs of research in addition to inflation. These are all important areas that will need to be looked at. It is worth remembering that, over the years, roughly one MRC unit per year has closed and a new one has started. This process is part of that continuing change, which I believe is important to make sure that we stay at the cutting edge. As part of that, the staff on the new wards will be fully paid. The principal investigator salary is the one that will have to be picked up in part by a host institution or by other grants coming in to provide support.
Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence
Lord Kakkar Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for that important question. The convention does not apply to military matters, but the responsible AI in the military domain—the REAIM Forum, which the UK co-hosted in September this year—covers exactly those issues, which are incredibly important.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw attention to my registered interests. The Minister will be aware that the regulatory approaches to approving innovative medicines and to approving novel medical devices are quite different. With the introduction of AI to drive many of those devices, their impact on human health may be just as profound as administering a novel therapeutic. How do His Majesty’s Government propose to go about aligning the regulation of devices in the future when they are AI labelled?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
We are taking a sector-specific approach to AI regulation. On medicines, we announced last week the formation of the regulatory innovation office, which will look specifically at the question of AI in healthcare to try to bring together the different regulators and make sure that we have a clear system.
Horizon Europe
Lord Kakkar Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I draw noble Lords’ attention to my registered interests. The Minister indicated that we have got off to a good start in 2024, but that is particularly in terms of applications for European Research Council funding. The start has been less promising for Horizon pillar 2 funding, which requires collaboration between businesses and academia. What action do His Majesty’s Government propose to take to ensure that those kinds of relationships can once again be established and that we have a more successful approach to achieving that funding?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
The noble Lord is quite right that the numbers are looking more promising for 2024, particularly in the European Research Council mono-beneficiary schemes. In the collaborative and industry schemes, things still look fairly flat, although there are some examples of very good progress. In the European rail project, 61% in the most recent round had a UK participant and five out of the seven successful bids had UK participants, so there is some progress. We are doing a number of things: there is an increased communications campaign, the last one having led to a substantial increase of 64,000 hits on the UK Horizon website; there are roadshows, most recently in Birmingham and Glasgow and soon in Northern Ireland and Wales; there are pump priming grants, which have led to an ability to get money to work out how to make applications to Horizon programmes—I am pleased to say that of those people who received those grants and put in applications, 100% were eligible. Finally, European network programmes are being set up to link UK academic teams and industry to European teams in the most successful countries.
King’s Speech (4th Day)
Lord Kakkar Excerpts(4 months ago)
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Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Vallance of Balham, on his excellent maiden speech and the very thoughtful way in which he has introduced today’s debate. In so doing, I remind noble Lords of my own interest—in particular, that I am chairman of King’s Health Partners, UK Biobank and the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research, as well as serving as chancellor of the University of Lincoln.
In opening this debate, the noble Lord identified the importance of science and innovation to so many elements of His Majesty’s Government’s current agenda. The mission agenda ensures that the impact of economic growth benefits citizens as quickly as possible. Among the different domains and disciplines of science, life sciences play a particularly important role in providing the opportunity not only for substantial wealth creation in the economy but for substantial health gain, as the product of life sciences innovation is applied to practice in the NHS and, most importantly, to preventing ill health.
The Minister identified a number of potential hurdles that need to be overcome to ensure that the life sciences industry in our country and the broader ecosystem can progress at a rate that can make a meaningful impact. He mentioned the need for the development of new infrastructure and to secure growth funding to allow spin-outs and small-stage companies to develop at the pace that will provide maximal opportunity.
There are four other important areas that require very careful and immediate attention from His Majesty’s Government if the true potential of life sciences in our country is to be realised. I would be grateful if the Minister who will close the debate—my noble friend Lord Livermore—might be able to reflect on what approach His Majesty’s Government are going to take.
First, there is the question of free movement of scientists into our country and, in particular, the visa regime that is currently employed and the ease with which it can be used to encourage brilliant scientists to come and settle here and contribute not only to work in our universities but in the broader life sciences sector.
Secondly, there is the question of securing the research science base in our universities. Regrettably, that has been eroded over time. QR funding and full economic cost recovery have not been achieved appropriately for many years, and now charities and other funders of research find it very difficult to ensure that brilliant research programmes can be applied. We all recognise that overseas student income is a fundamental part of the university business model, to underwrite the opportunity for the science base in our universities. There is uncertainty about the future of large numbers of overseas students coming to our country, and His Majesty’s Government will need to address urgently the approach to securing the research base in our universities, which is critical not only to creating the talent that will service the life sciences sector but to securing the intellectual base of many of our research-led universities.
The third area is ensuring that the NHS, under substantial pressure to ensure clinical delivery, does not miss the opportunity to play its vital role in life sciences research and development. We must have a strategy to develop clinical academics, so that this part of the overall workforce continues to be nurtured and we have sufficient clinical academics able to serve and provide the opportunity for clinical translation and the rapid application of innovation to improve human health and outcomes in our National Health Service. This is particularly important since ill health is now such a drag on the economy and therefore, in addition to many other measures, innovation delivered through academic medicine will be vital to overcome that problem.
The final area that needs to be urgently addressed, as the Minister—my noble friend Lord Vallance—identified himself in his maiden speech, is the question of data. It is one thing to talk about or focus on the technological advances that will provide federated platforms for the use of the substantial datasets that we have available in our country, quite unique in the world; it is quite another to secure the social licence that will ensure that there is broad public support for the use of those data to drive forward the life sciences research agenda. Will the Minister comment on the approach that His Majesty’s Government propose to take to establish that social licence?