Government Office for Science

Science, engineering and technology improves the quality of daily life, increases our readiness to face the challenges of the future and underpins prosperity.

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

GO-Science is based in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS)[1] where it benefits from a close relationship 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

GO-Science works collaboratively, using formal and informal networks, including colleagues in other departments and external experts. Together, we 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.

Professor John Beddington's Vision for Science in Government

• The UK should stand as a beacon of good practice in the use of science and scientific evidence by Government
• Science and scientific evidence will continue to contribute to effective handling of major challenges
• Foresight and Horizon scanning will continue to be widely recognised as key elements of long term strategic planning
• We continue to improve the status of scientists and engineers across Government

Our 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 Centre Futures Analysts Network
• Global Science and Innovation Network (based in British Embassies and consulates)

Foresight[2]

Much of GO-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 programme and its Horizon Scanning Centre enable the Government to plan for the long term by providing a credible and coherent 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 Centre 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 organisations 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 its unique approach to 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 synthesised 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. Therefore policies based on reducing the issue merely to individual choices about diet and exercise where likely to fail. 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: official website
• Foresight: official website