Alessio Corti
Department of Mathematics
Imperial College London
South Kensington Campus
Room 673, Huxley Building, 180 Queen's Gate
LONDON SW7 2AZ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 1870
Fax: +44 (0)20 7594 8517
Email: a.corti@imperial.ac.uk
Department of Mathematics
Imperial College London
To: Christine Salmon Percival
Clerk to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee
London, 25 November 2011
Dear Christine Salmon Percival
I know that the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee will question David Delpy and John Armitt of EPSRC next Tuesday at 11.30am. I write to tell you how upset I am by the introduction of National Importance as a primary assessment criterion of EPSRC grants. I am so upset in fact that I am considering refusing to peer-review. Regardless of the "operational definition" of National Importance, the wording seems terrible to me, and it calls to mind the most unpleasant associations. I briefly state some of my reasons.
(1) Science research is an INTERnational endeavour. In practice, science research projects are pursued by international networks of researchers; funding for these projects is shared among international teams; research objectives are negotiated together between researchers who work in different countries. It seems impossible in practice to subordinate research goals to UK National Importance and maintain intellectual honesty. (If a brilliant biologist is developing a cure of malaria, should EPSRC then not fund her research because other nations will be the beneficiaries? Let us keep in mind that the results of academic research are not "copyrighted." Should the researcher have to prove that a UK company will market the drug? How is her collaborator in the US going to like that?)
(2) This move is almost certain to encourage and fund bad science. An example is Lamarckian research in the Soviet Union. There are examples close to home: as a concerned citizen, I am worried that the nuclear industry today is saddled by nuclear station designs that are unsafe and dangerous, because they were chosen over better designs due to national importance priorities (that is, the need to make bombs).
(3) I am not a UK citizen and I can not muster the appropriately patriotic feelings. You must be aware of the fact that very many scientists who work in the UK are foreign nationals who may have the interests of their home country very much into their hearts. Did EPSRC think about how we would like the National Importance criterion? Perhaps we should not be allowed to peer-review EPSRC research applications for reasons of National Security?
Alessio Corti
Professor Alessio Corti
Department of Mathematics
Imperial College London