The Haldane principle arises out of the Haldane Report,
published in 1918, that examined the structure and function of
the UK government science. The central thrust was that general
research should be administered at arm's length from government
departments. The creation of the UK's Research Councils has been
seen as the embodiment of the Haldane principle.
In a speech on 29 April 2008 to the Royal Academy
of Engineering the Secretary of State considered that the three
fundamental elements of Haldane, as he enumerated them, remained
- that researchers are best placed
to determine detailed priorities;
- that the Government's role is to set the over-arching
- that the research councils are "guardians
of the independence of science".
He said that "these should be the basis for
Haldane today, and over the decades to come, and I am happy to
There has been criticism of the manner in which the
Government has interpreted the principle. It has allowed the Government
to have its cake and eat it: to let the Research Councils take
criticism for difficult decisions, while the Government can exercise
direction on spending decisions. In our report on the Science
Budget Allocations published on 23 April 2008 we had "reservations
about the influence Government appears to have on the use of the
budget and the extent to which the Haldane Principle has been
We concluded that large "parts of the budget are tied
to cross-council programmes that largely follow a Government agenda"
and that, while it was acceptable for the Government to set priorities
for UK research, it was not "for it to micromanage individual
Research Council budgets".
We recommended that the Government "make clear its role in
regional science policy and how this fits with the Haldane Principle".
It also seemed to us to be a "breach of the Haldane Principle
that the Government should direct a Research Council to switch
funding from postgraduate awards to programme funding merely on
the basis of it being out of step with other research councils,
or indeed for any other reason".
In its response Government rejected our points and drew attention
to Mr Denham's speech of 29 April.
In view of this exchange we returned to the Haldane
principle, when the Secretary of State gave evidence on 29 October.
We pointed out that the Government set up three new major institutes
for researchthe Office for Strategic Co-ordination of Health
Research (OSCHR), the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and the
Energy Technologies Institutewhich would set the direction
on spending decisions. At the same time it appeared that the Government
outlined six themes where research money should be dedicated
and there had been a significant shift of research money in the
Research Councils from responsive mode to programme research as
a result of that.
In response, the Secretary of State referred back
to his speech to the Royal Academy of Engineering when he has
been "happy to restate the core principles of the Haldane
Principle, but I pointed out three areas where I think inevitably
in the modern world ministers will have a greater degree of engagement.
The first was in major projects; so, for example,
the Camden Medical Research Centre would not happen if you just
said to the [Medical Research Council] it is up to you to make
it happen or not. You had to have engagement with ministers across
The second area is that I think it is legitimate
for ministers to say, "Look, there are some very, very big
questions in our society that we need research to help us answer:
for example, climate change; the implications of an aging society
and the other cross-cutting areas." I think that is one of
those areas where, provided ministers are open about it and upfront
about it, that is a reasonable contribution for us to make.
The third thing I think we were right to do [
was that if you have an overall responsibility for science policy
there are times when you will need to raise questions and initiate
things. So, for example, [
] my decision to get the Wakeham
Inquiry underway, which was taken before there had been any public
criticism of the [Science and Technology Facilities Council] at
all, it was just me looking at what they were proposing and saying,
"This is going to raise lots of questions about the state
of physics." So it was not for me to step in and say, "You
cannot do this, STFC" it was my job to say, "This is
going to kick off a debate about the state of physics," and
we then found the mechanism for Bill to come in and do his report.
So Haldane, I think we are respecting, but I am being
very honest that in practical government terms in those areas
of big projects of strategic priorities we have an input to make.
do not propose in this Report to reopen the debate about science
budget allocations and we put on record that we do not necessarily
share the Secretary of State's definition of the Haldane principle.
We accept, however, that it is entirely reasonable for the Secretary
of State to raise, and to suggest refinement, to the application
of the Haldane principle 90 years after it was formulated. We
hope that there is a debate on the application of the Haldane
principle to scientific research in the 21st century and we expect
that this is an issue we will return to in our inquiry "Putting
science and engineering at the heart of government policy".