Because I spend insufficiently little time feeling as though I’m still an undergraduate, may I politely agitate for others to follow the advice of Chris Bertram:
Those of you working in higher education in the UK already know about the barbarous proposal to make future support for research depend on a government assessment of its “impact” – in other worlds whether there’s a tangible payoff in terms of economic growth or social policy.
My colleague James Ladyman has launched a petition on the No.10 website to tell Gordon Brown what we think of the idea. If you’re British, even if you don’t live in the UK any more, pop over and sign it.
Something similar has been mentioned by Andy, just in reference to the UK’s main science council. To pass broader comment, I am uncertain of the efficacy of these petitions. I hypothesise that the UK government acts only on those that are i) highly supported; and ii) of purely symbolic value. For instance, the recent public apology issued posthumously to Alan Turing is both terrifically sensible and completely uncourageous. I am unaware of an initiative requiring the expenditure of political captial that has seen fruition through these petitions, but I acknowledge that, if my hypothesis stems from cynicism, it could be that I have selectively ignored counterexamples. On the one hand, I hope that’s wrong, but on the other, it would be nice if it were true.
Letters to Nature 
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