EDT (2) SP11

Science Policy in Wales - Economic Development and Transport Committee Public Consultation

Evidence from the Welsh e-Science Centre

Introduction. The Welsh e-Science Centre (WeSC) has noted the invitation of the Economic Development and Transport Committee (EDTC) for written submissions of evidence in relation to EDTC's present review of the science policy in Wales. WeSC wishes to contribute the following response in the consultation exercise. We have described below where we believe some priorities might lie and hope it will constructively inform your work.

1. Preamble - e-Science and Our Designated Role

Progressively more and more of science today is conducted through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet. This is particularly true in fields such as high-energy physics, astronomy, chemistry, life-sciences and many forms of engineering. Science increasingly involves the use of very large data collections, colossal computing resources and high performance visualization techniques. Computation ranks alongside theory and experiment as a method of advancing scientific knowledge.

"e-Science" represents the next generation of information systems and communication technologies (ICT) that enables 21st Century science. e-Science or the "e-" way of doing science changes the dynamics of how science is conducted, putting great emphasis on collaborations between people and on the sharing of information and computing resources. As the World Wide Web arose out of science in the early 1990's and is the representation of the Internet today within society, so too will the ICT technologies arising from e-Science today become society's Internet of tomorrow.

Since 2001, the approach taken by the UK's e-Science Programme in laying down a national ICT infrastructure to support Science has been to establish both a national focus and a number of regional and specialist e-Science centres. The designated centre for e-Science in Wales is the Welsh e-Science Centre (WeSC), based at Cardiff University.

The aims of WeSC are to:

1. • Promote e-Science research and development in Wales;
2. • Encourage the exploitation of e-Science ICT technologies (i.e., Grid computing) by academia and industry; and,
3. • Pursue research in specific e-Science areas, including data and knowledge management, problem-solving environments and visualization.

Funded with monies from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on behalf of all the Research Councils, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Welsh Development Agency (WDA) and Cardiff University, WeSC has undertaken a comprehensive programme of projects and activities that have contributed directly to the development of Wales' knowledge economy through £6million of research income and £8million of infrastructure investment. More than 30 highly-skilled, research-related jobs have been created, resulting in several items of licensable intellectual property. More than 120 Welsh companies have been engaged and awareness of e-Science has been raised.

Through our January 2005 response to the Welsh Assembly Government's consultation on "Making the Connections - Delivering Better Services for Wales", we have become a Cymru Ar-lein partner and have contributed to the summer 2005 revision of "A Winning Wales". In particular, we put forward the view that appropriate use of ICT to deliver individualised public services is the key to delivering better services. Research recently begun with IBM, the Diabetes Research Unit (Llandough) and others on the delivery of patient-centred health monitoring ("Healthcare@Home") for Diabetes has already been well received in several quarters. This work -- with potential to revolutionise the health services associated with chronic conditions such as Diabetes -- represents the first step in our vision of a realizable path to a new knowledge-economy conceived with interoperability of information across different citizen-centred services. This is the cross-over from science to society.

2. Principal Comment

WeSC believes that any consideration of a science policy in Wales to more effectively support the development of a knowledge-based economy cannot afford to ignore the importance of developing the appropriate ICT infrastructures and the associated ICT skills that support science.

3. Appropriate ICT infrastructures

WeSC is committed to the view that new forms of computing emerging from worldwide "e-Science" efforts, specifically "Grid Computing"1, offer strength and flexibility through the philosophy of decentralisation and sharing of resources.

WeSC strongly recommends that in formulating its Science Policy the Welsh Assembly Government incorporates support (both policy and financial) for emergent forms of computing such as Grid at a fundamental level.

"The Grid is tomorrow's Internet"

The Grid model offers significant potential for new forms of collaboration that would allow scientists (and others) in Wales to more effectively contribute on and be recognised at a global level. Collaboration, between individuals, between organisations and between individuals and organisations, has always been an important element of daily work. In the 21st century, with growing emphasis on out-sourcing, partnering, globalisation and personalisation, collaboration assumes a new importance. Ever increasing amounts of information not only mean that individuals need to collaborate directly through personal contact, but also that they need to collaborate indirectly through the use and application of relevant information systems. Adoption of tools being developed today, not only in the UK's e-Science programme but also from farther a field, will be of crucial importance. A Grid infrastructure fit for purpose in Wales and the scientific advances achieved using it will contribute to elevating Wales' position as an economy with world-class characteristics. 2 of 3

1 Grid sits on top of Broadband Networks, an area where Wales is already making significant investments. Grid is a type of parallel and distributed Information and Communications Technology (ICT) system that enables the sharing, selection, and aggregation of geographically distributed 'autonomous’ resources dynamically at runtime depending on their availability, capability, performance, cost, and users’ quality-of-service requirements.

4. Associated ICT skills

Science increasingly depends on "information" and "computation"; and the technologies (ICT) of storing, communicating and manipulating information. Indeed, all academic disciplines, industrial sectors, and walks of life in the modern "e-" world increasingly depend on this. If Wales, its economy and its people are to play a leading role on the rapidly changing World stage, both in Science and other fields, it is important that the future workforce is trained and equipped with the necessary skills. This implies a workforce with high levels of skills in "Informatics" (or "Information Science") to drive forward the Welsh knowledge-based economy.

The mathematical techniques underpinning computation, combined with discipline-specific training, are of enormous importance in, for example, designing simulations of engineering structures, in understanding the properties and behaviours of materials (solid, liquid, gaseous) and in understanding biological processes. There is a dramatic shortage of graduates possessing these "computational science" skills.

The availability of both sets of skills is also essential for delivering other governmental agendas such as modernising social and healthcare delivery, a sustainable low-carbon economy, and future public services through collaboration across organisational boundaries.

WeSC strongly recommends that in formulating its Science Policy the Welsh Assembly Government incorporates support (both policy and financial) for strengthening and broadening the ICT skills of science graduates in Wales.

In this context, we note that the recently published Action Plan for Wales under the Sector Skills Agreement for IT could be extended to cover the specific areas mentioned above.

5. Conclusion

ICT is key to the future development of a strong science and engineering technology base. As such, it is crucial for Governments to provide sustained financial support of a scale and over a period of time sufficient to ensure the proper development and embedding of such technologies within the economy and society. In this respect, we draw the Committee's attention to the substantial support provided for e-Science in Scotland. We are aware of similar support measures in other regions also.

We suggest that European structural funding for the period 2007 - 2013, the programme documents for which we understand are presently being prepared, represents an ideal context within which to consider strategic themes based on the ideas outlined above. WeSC staff would be more than happy to assist with the formulation of such themes.

We commend consideration of the aspects outlined above for priority support and actions within any new policy arising out of the Science Policy review, with a view to sustaining on a long-term basis the achievements of WeSC so far.