Government Office for Science

The Government Office for Science is part of the British government. This organisation exists to ensure that Government policy and decision-making is underpinned by robust scientific evidence and long-term thinking. It is led by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser (GCSA), Professor John Beddington who reports to the Prime Minister and Cabinet and works with all Government departments.

The office is based in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills where it works with other parts of the Department, including the Science and Research Group, which funds research through Research Councils and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

Networking

The Government Office for Science works collaboratively, using formal and informal networks, including colleagues in other departments and external experts. Together, they create and promote guidance and frameworks describing how departments can use the natural and social sciences, engineering and medicine to provide a sound evidence base for making policy. The guidance and frameworks encourage and support departments’ use and management of science, as well as challenging them to match best practice across Government and (where appropriate) outside.

Advice

Government departments each have their own Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA), and CSAs work together on cross-cutting issues. In some cases the GCSA leads in advising the Government on major cross-cutting issues, working with other CSAs. In doing so he engages the best scientists nationally and often internationally to help him and ensure that his advice is as robust as possible.

Main Networks

• Chief Scientific Advisers Committee
• Heads of Analysis Group (includes heads of all the main analytical professions in Government)
• Departmental Heads of Science and Engineering Profession
• Council for Science and Technology
• Horizon Scanning Center Futures Analysts Network
• Global Science and Innovation Network (based in British Embassies and consulates)

Foresight

Much of the Government Office for Science's work looks to the future, focusing on what science and the evidence base can tell us about how the world could develop and what effects potential interventions might have. The Foresight program and its Horizon Scanning Center enable the Government to plan for the long term by providing a view of potential futures under a variety of conditions. Foresight projects address broad policy areas with a strong scientific component such as flooding and infectious diseases, whereas the Horizon Scanning Center conducts smaller projects across the full policy spectrum and increases the Government’s capability to think about the future systematically. Much of the value of Foresight comes from connecting experts from diverse disciplines and organizations with each other and with policymakers, and facilitating their collaboration to produce credible yet challenging visions of the future.

A Typical Foresight Project

Tackling Obesities: future choices set out to offer new insights into the problem of rising obesity by gathering a range of multidisciplinary scientific evidence and taking a long-term view. The project set out to address the question: How can we deliver a sustainable response to obesity in the UK over the next 40 years?

The project synthesized the evidence from over 30 science reviews which demonstrated that the determinants of obesity and their interrelationships were highly complex and in many cases environmental. In response to Foresight’s report the Government published a new strategy for obesity: ‘Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives: a cross government strategy for England’ in January 2008.

External links

• Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills
• Foresight