Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Meeting of the Parliament 21 May 2013

21 May 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Public Science Engagement Initiatives

Gray, Iain Lab East Lothian Watch on SPTV

Nokia once ran a series of advertisements in which an overblown voice-over followed ordinary-looking people doing ordinary things quite anonymously, such as taking the bus home from work. The point was that they were the scientists behind the communication technology that was daily revolutionising our lives. They were of course not the celebrities that the narrator implied, but were completely unknown. Nokia technology might at a certain point in time have changed the world, but it did not change the public’s disengagement from the science behind it. Scotland is certainly guilty of that, too. After all, we are ranked third in the world for peer-reviewed papers, but none of those responsible for those papers would be recognised in the street. That is unlike, for example, our celebrity footballers, whose efforts—much as I support them—have left us languishing in 78th equal place in the world.

Our appreciation of science tends to be of the dishcloth variety. We have an ability to recite Scottish inventors of the past but a complete unawareness of the science that is happening right here and right now. However, Scotland is still profoundly a science nation. Last year’s Institute of Physics report showed that

“Physics-based businesses in Scotland, from electricity generation … to transport, contribute £8.5 bn to the national economy, and employ more than 100,000 people”.

That is significantly more than, for example, the financial services sector.

It would be good if science was more widely understood, and members will not find me arguing against anything that we can do to raise the level of public engagement with science. Only last week, I was delighted to be able to open a tremendous visitor centre at a major science-based enterprise in my constituency—an enterprise that provides 700 high-quality, science-based jobs, supports 33 full level 4 apprenticeships and pumps £30 million every year into the local economy. However, it was a nuclear power station—science from which the Scottish Government specifically wants us to disengage.

Happily, just down the road from Torness, Dunbar primary school has created its own remarkable science event—the Dunbar science festival. It was initiated entirely by a group of parents and, this year—its third year—attracted 6,000 people to participate in a week of science-based events.

That festival was timed to coincide with science and engineering week, in which I also participated by going back to my first profession and teaching a science class in Law primary school in North Berwick. In that lesson, we calculated the speed of light using chocolate buttons and the microwave oven from the staff room. I had a great time, and the pupils loved it when I set the microwave on fire.

It is good that both those events were supported by the Scottish Government. Funding for science week was £23,000 split between 47 schools and 30 public science sessions. Dunbar science festival got a £6,000 share of £121,000, which was split eight ways, with half of it going to Edinburgh science festival.

That is good, but it adds up to £144,000. In the same year, the Government found £7 million to promote a movie that already had the corporate power of Disney Pixar behind it, £500,000 to send the First Minister to America to promote the Ryder cup and even £250,000 to pay for a re-enactment of the battle of Bannockburn next year, but its celebration of science for science week commanded £144,000.

I listened to some of the figures that the minister outlined in his opening speech and I am glad that the funding will be more this year than last year, but the additional £100,000 or so hardly constitutes a game-changing new investment in public science engagement. What does that say about the real priority that ministers give to science?

Only last week, the Royal Society of Edinburgh commented on qualifications for primary teachers. The RSE is clear that the suggestion, which is current, that primary teachers should need a higher in a foreign language but not in a science sends completely the wrong signal and says absolutely the wrong thing about the real priority that we give to science. It also flies in the face of the recommendations of the Government’s own science advisory group.

Search Hansard contributions

Meeting of the Parliament 21 May 2013

In the same item of business