Anniversary Day Address 2024 from President of the Royal Society, Adrian Smith

Thank you, Linda and Sheila and congratulations again to all those who have been honoured here today.

I also want to thank Julie for her review of the year – our activities cover a very wide range of undertakings and there is much to be proud of. 

Today, I want to focus on three interconnected themes. 

We have a new Government and I want to give an early report card on its approach to policy for science. 

That Government has already committed to a curriculum and assessment review and if we do not get education right, in a world where data and maths literacy are increasingly important, young people will not be well prepared to be good citizens or for the high quality, well-paid jobs of the future. 

And I also want to look at one of those areas of science that will be key to our future – AI.

Policy for science

A new government can present both opportunities and threats. Political support for science has been growing over the last decade and there was plenty to welcome in Labour’s manifesto, including our own call for a longer-term approach to research funding.

The first Budget had the mantra of ‘invest, invest, invest’ in support of a mission to drive growth – as well as missions on the UK being a clean energy superpower and an NHS fit for the future.

Investment in research and innovation are essential to deliver each of these missions.

For now, the science budget is protected with the core science budget growing at least in line with inflation. 

To quote the Chancellor; “To drive innovation, we are protecting record funding for UK research and development to harness the full potential of the UK science base.”

A science base she described as ‘a crucial national asset’.

We have three Universities in the world’s top ten and great strength in depth in universities and other research institutions across the UK. 

We are second only to the US for Nobel Laureates. Last month we had Geoffrey Hinton, a British researcher working in Canada, and Demis Hassabis, another Fellow. There was also John Jumper who has chosen to come to the UK to pursue his research. All leaders in the field of AI.

In green tech, the International Energy Authority recently backed the UK to keep its lead in cutting-edge energy industries and leave us well placed to be one of the leaders of clean power around the world. And we have world leading businesses in the life sciences, AI and engineering.

So a protected science budget is good in the context of the current challenges facing public finances.  

But standing still is not the way forward.

Look at our investment levels compared to our competitors. 

The UK’s research budget has been growing but the UK is 11th in the OECD for R&D investment, behind countries including South Korea, the US and Germany as well as Belgium, Austria and Finland. And China is currently increasing its R&D spend by 7% every year.

In the last parliament the science budget grew quite significantly from around £14 billion to £20 billion, we need to return to that trajectory. 

Our Science 2040 programme is looking at what the UK science system could and should look like in the future. There are big questions posed in the Nurse, Tickell and Grant reviews on the Research, Development, Innovation landscape, research bureaucracy and UKRI respectively that the new Government will, no doubt, be mulling over.

We certainly need to look at the funding landscape to ensure the best research is properly funded wherever it is being done, particularly given Paul Nurse’s conclusion that current models are no longer sustainable in terms of full economic cost recovery. Grant and Tickell both conclude that we have to take the bureaucratic brakes off, so how do we do that?  

We also need more interdisciplinary research and more collaborations between academia and business and across borders.  And making translation easier is a recurring theme in relation to our science base.

We must compete on ideas, with investment and training, retaining and attracting the best people and ideas.

Training starts in schools and I will come on to that. 

Retaining means ensuring that the right conditions and funding are in place to keep the best talent.

On attracting, researchers who want to bring their skills to the UK face upfront visa costs 17 times higher than the average fees of other leading science nations. The Global Talent Visa has an upfront cost of almost £6,000 per applicant. This is a punitive tax on talent for UK business and public and non-profit research organisations. There are rumours of further increases, in the rather febrile debate around immigration. That does not make sense – why would we do anything to drive talent away, when competition for these people is already fierce.

We have a science base that can be at the very heart of delivering key elements of the Government’s missions. Those missions are ambitious, we need an ambitious approach to support our world leading research.

Education

Investment and creating the right environment for research is essential to our future success but getting education right is just as fundamental. That is not just to produce the scientists of the future but also to equip young people with the right mathematical skills, general quantitative literacy and scientific understanding to be ready to thrive in the modern world and be ready for the well-paid jobs of the future.

Against the backdrop of a country where;

Around half of adults are no better with numbers than a child leaving primary school, 

…where access to hands-on practical science for GCSE pupils has almost halved 

…and where many students have to give up all maths and science at the age of 16

It is clear that we need a radical relook at education.

The Government has announced a curriculum review and that is good news but it cannot be the same tinkering we have been doing for decades – the current system of A-levels was introduced in 1951, when we still had rationing and the telephone was the new technology being adopted by the masses.

This time we need radical reform.

But the initial call for evidence for the government review lacks the required ambition.

We need to work with teachers to create a new curriculum that combines mathematics as we know it with data, computing and AI and that places maths in real world contexts – our report outlining a new approach to mathematical and data education sets the case out well. 

Some of the key recommendations of that report include;

• Reviewing the early years and primary curriculum to provide strong foundations
• Developing assessment methods that identify and communicate what students know and can do with their learning; and assessment methods for general quantitative literacy that reflect how it is used in practice
• Prioritising government funding to support a major programme of professional development for teachers, including initial training, early career training and continuous professional development to support implementation of maths and data education.

We also need a broader, more balanced, curriculum, with some form of maths and science, alongside subjects like English, history, music and sport, for all pupils through to 18.

Students are already voting with their subject choices, with Maths the most popular A-level and the sciences growing in popularity. That is good news but it shouldn’t mean they have to give up other important areas of learning. And there should also be a path to mathematical, data and scientific literacy for the students who do not want to focus exclusively on those areas. 

And that is not just for the traditional academic route of A-levels, we need to ensure that those who follow a vocational route also need to maintain and develop mathematical, data and scientific skills.

I am under no illusion – this will not be an easy task. Reforming the education system will take time and major investment. It will also need to fully involve teachers and employers. 

If we do not start on radical reform now, we risk today’s young people being ill-prepared for the future, and the exacerbation of existing regional, gender and socio-economic inequalities.

We also need the review to look beyond a single parliamentary term and that requires cross-party support 

Having said that, there are things we can change quickly that would benefit young people; the current GCSE resit policy is damaging and Core maths is a ready-made starting point for integrating appropriate data, statistics and digital technologies coherently with maths, but most schools are not currently offering it.

The review must also start out by questioning the assumptions that we all share around the purpose and nature of the education system.

Education has value in and of itself and that is important, but knowledge doesn’t necessarily put food on the table. For many, education is the only route to a good job.

When we surveyed parents back in 2019 their top priority was for education to prepare their children for work. I doubt that has changed.

To do that we have to provide them with the right skills for the jobs of the future, including the right mathematical skills, general quantitative literacy and scientific understanding.

AI

Perhaps one of the most discussed areas of science in recent years, and an area that will have a clear impact on how we work and the skills and scientific and numerical literacy we will need, is AI.

This year’s Nobel prizes were dominated not just by AI but also by its application. It is clear it has the potential to revolutionise many areas of science and bring huge benefits to society.

AI can play the role of tutor, peer or assistant, allowing scientists to use AI applications to perform tasks at a pace and scale previously unattainable.

We recently held a joint event with GoogleDeepmind that brought together a glittering array of leading scientists and thought leaders to explore the ways AI is advancing science and benefitting society.

But we must also recognise the challenges both technical and ethical.

Ahead of the Global AI safety summit in the UK last year we put together a red teaming exercise at the Royal Society and showed how easy it is circumvent guardrails that are meant to protect Large Language Models against mis and disinformation.

And this year we published a report, Science in the age of AI, which sets out a way forward which calls for; Improved access to AI infrastructures, prioritising usability for researchers, applying open science principles and ensuring oversight to deliver ethical use for public good.

Among our Fellowship are many leading experts on AI. There are those who believe AI poses an existential threat to humanity and there are those who believe that the benefits of AI will be many, varied and rich. For me, this highlights the uncertainty that underpins technological advances at the cutting edge of research. It is at this cutting edge that the Society can play a hugely important role as a convener and a place of open, evidence based debate.

Conclusions

As I look ahead to my last year as President, it is clear that humanity faces many challenges. 

But I remain optimistic because science can help us both understand and tackle those challenges. It is also a key driver for productivity and growth.

The UK is well placed to be at the forefront of progress but we need three things to capitalise and to lead:

• Increased investment in knowledge creation and application
• Radical reform of the education system that produces citizens with the skills to pick up the ball and run with new developments and knowledge
• And an enlightened approach to drive progress and make sure it is delivered, in the words of the Royal Society’s charter, for the benefit of humanity.