There’s a certain amount of anxious anticipation in UK nanotechnology policy circles, as tomorrow sees the publication of the results of a high-level, independent review of the government’s response to the 2004 Royal Society report on nanotechnology – Nanoscience and nanotechnologies: opportunities and uncertainties.
The report was prepared by the Council for Science and Technology, the government’s highest level science advisory committee, which reports directly to the Prime Minister. I wrote earlier about the CST seminar held last autumn to gather evidence, and about the Royal Society’s suprisingly forthright submission to the inquiry. We shall see tomorrow how much of that criticism was taken on board by the CST, and how the Science Minister, Malcolm Wicks, responds to it.
By the time you read this, the Honorable Science Minister will have risen and spoken. While it is hope he take the criticism leveled by the much revered Royal Society in stride and perhaps even advances upon it, what is heartening about this exercise is that he is rising at all.
With my bias clearly stated, if perhaps, not completely understood, I contend that even if the response is not to the pleasure of the masses, at least it will be a response and not silence, as we too often encounter.
The work of Science, regardless of discipline, in the UK, as seen from across the ocean, is regarded often with awe at the Sovereign Necessity it is recognized to be, and for this the wqorld at large benefits from it.