REVIEW OF SCIENCE IN FSA
Response from the Institute of Food Research

The Institute of Food Research is sponsored by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council. Its vision is to be a world-leading contributor to harnessing food for health and controlling food-related disease. IFR is a not-for-profit company with charitable status. It is sponsored by the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council. IFR is the UK’s only integrated basic science provider focused on food. IFR is an FSA contractor.

IFR’s response to the FSA review is corporate, with comments gathered in feedback from a number of scientists. In responding we have addressed the items laid out in the review.

1. Develop a clear, overall science strategy
Departments should take a strategic approach to setting R&D budgets, and should publish science (or evidence) and innovation strategies that set out the broad framework within which research programmes and other science-related activities are carried out. This is an important step in linking research and development to the effective delivery of a department’s objectives and show how value for money is achieved.

• IFR believes that the Agency’s R&D budget is not adequate to allow it to address key, fundamental scientific questions with the rigour that should be applied. The value of the science to the Agency’s decision-making should be the leading driver and ‘value-for-money’ should not be allowed to dominate decision making if this means lower quality evidence.

2. Horizon scan – to identify future science-related issues
Horizon scanning is defined as the systematic examination of potential threats, opportunities and likely future developments, which are at the margins of current thinking and planning. Horizon scanning may explore novel and unexpected issues, as well as persistent problems or trends. Departments should regularly undertake horizon scanning to improve the robustness of their evidence base and policies.

• Horizon scanning is weak. The FSA tends to focus too much on existing issues. 

3. Review and harness existing science and identify gaps and opportunities for future research
To demonstrate value for money and effective use of resources, departments should have in place effective arrangements for deciding what current or potential science could benefit the department’s delivery of its objectives and hence whether new research is needed or where it would best be targeted. In particular, departments should actively manage existing knowledge, synthesise existing research, and work with Other Government Departments (OGDs) and the research bases in the UK and internationally.

• IFR believes that on occasion, priority setting not done in a sufficiently rigorous manner.

The FSA appears to be putting most of its funds into "short-term fixes" or surveys.  There is insufficient  longer term underpinning fundamental science. The result of this is an eroding of scientific expertise in UK centres of excellence. 

IFR believes that reducing its funding for fundamental scientific research is a retrograde step, but recognises the multiple demands on Agency spend.

IFR feels that on occasion, territorial boundaries between Departments and the Agency have the potential to interfere with the prosecution of the best science to address key problems.

There is potential for FSA to address its strategic needs and to leverage additional resource to pursue them by investigating greater co-funding with others. This could be a win:win where the strategic needs addressed  provide evidence of socioeconomic impact for a potential co-funder such as BBSRC.

4. Commission and manage new science [and]
5. Ensure the quality and relevance of the science they carry out and sponsor As part of the drive for evidence-based policy and improved service delivery the Government needs to use, and be seen to use, high quality science and the most appropriate new technologies. Science programmes funded by Government departments make a very important contribution to policy formulation. Even though the outcomes of the science itself cannot always be predicted, departments must be able to commission the right science, assess its quality, and use it effectively. The credibility of departmental policy-making generally will be undermined if individual policies are perceived to be based on poor, or the wrong science.

• Studies with human subjects are expensive and the numbers of such studies commissioned by external sponsors is falling.  We believe that this is short-sighted, as decision-making needs to be based on work with humans rather than models.

6. Use science and scientific advice Departments need scientific advice to underpin their policy making and regulatory activities.  Such advice can be provided by external or internal experts, and / or informed by the output of research programmes commissioned by the department. There needs to be an effective communications bridge between the experts and the policy makers.

• At the outset of FSA, we understand that FSA were not in a position to receive advice from experts who had industry funding within their portfolio. We are glad that this changed.

7. Publish results and debate their findings and implications openly
In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act and to ensure robust interpretation of scientific findings and their policy implications, departments should publish and openly debate scientific results 

• We feel the Agency has a good record of openness. The FSA has never been unhelpful when we have sought to publicise the results of FSA-funded work for our own knowledge transfer purposes.

8. Share, transfer and manage knowledge
Knowledge transfer should be treated by departments as a strategic goal and enjoy high-level focus.

• See 7 above. However, the reports on scientific papers in FSA News are sometimes too specialised for sectors of the stakeholder audience.

9. Follow the Guidelines on Scientific advice and policy making and the Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees
The Guidelines on Scientific Advice and Policy Making provides high-level high level guidance and were used in formulating these ten key criteria for the Science Reviews. Its key messages are that departments should

1. think ahead and identify early the issues on which they need scientific advice; get a wide range of advice from the best sources, particularly where there is scientific uncertainty; and,
   
   
2. publish the scientific advice and all relevant papers. The purpose of the Code of Practice is to provide more detailed guidance specifically focused on the operation of scientific advisory committees and their relationship with Government and to help them translate the principles in the Guidelines into day-to-day practice.

• IFR scientists assist Advisory Committees and IFR believes its scientists are of the calibre to provide more support to Agency decision-making.

10. Use, maintain and develop scientific expertise (including both capacity and capability building)
Whether a department has its own dedicated research unit, or commissions work from outside organisations, it needs to ensure it has long-term access to experienced scientists who are able to understand and interpret issues at the science-policy interface, taking into account the full range of scientific opinion as appropriate.

• IFR feels that FSA does not necessarily maximise the benefit which could accrue by linking closely with a small cadre of key contractors, as we suggested when the Agency was first determining it strategies.