June 27, 2014, by Andrew Gibson

Research and policy making: Professor Brian Collins

The below video features the opening keynote speech from Professor Brian Collins, Director of the Centre for Engineering Policy at UCL and former Chief Scientific Advisor to two government departments (Transport 2006-11; Business Innovation and Skills 2009-11).

Professor Collins covered a wide range of issues, including the Haldane principle (the idea that research funding should be independent of political interference), introduced a case study about how government and scientists responded to the 2010 volcanic ash/civil aviation events, and fielded questions from the audience, including one about the difficulties of regulating controversial research at the international level.

What do you think? Please use the comment section below to pick up on any points… 

Brian Collins on research and policy making

Click the image for video

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

——————————————————

  • A note on etiquette. First comments need to be ‘authorised’ by the blog owners as a way to register you onto the site. Please use your real name, unless there is a good reason not to. From then on, comments will not be moderated, except in the case of offensive or uncivilised comments/tone.
  • If you want write a guest post for this site, please send the text for uploading to Andrew Gibson or Cornelia Lawson.
  • Background information, including abstracts, profiles and posts on other blog sites, can be found on the conference website.
Posted in Research and policy making