It’s an utterly incredible feat of engineering, a huge coup for science and an awe-inspiring marvel of human achievement…but how much did it cost?
We have you covered, with a graphic to put the programme into context. Click to enlarge:
You can check out the data and calculations behind the numbers if you’re interested, and many of them are owed to The Planetary Society, whose detailed spreadsheet of investments in planetary exploration is an incredible resource!
]]>Coronavirus is causing global chaos. Governments around the world are locking down their citizens in the hope of getting the virus under control. In the absence of any treatment or vaccine, the only measures available are archaic: handwashing, and keeping people physically apart to prevent the virus’s spread.
The best hope for now is that countries can lock down and get it under control, and then implement some of the ideas from countries like South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan that have (so far) managed to control the disease without totally shutting down their economies. However, the only long-term, permanent solution is medical treatment for the virus, and a vaccine to stop it spreading further.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, is spearheading the global effort to develop a vaccine. Just under two weeks ago they issued a call asking for $2 billion to fund this ongoing effort. According to CEPI’s Rachel Grant in The Times today, their initial seed money runs out at the end of this month. ‘If we don’t get more, none of our vaccines get beyond phase one. There were mentions of CEPI at G7, but nothing specific.’ Basically, they’re still waiting.
This compares to the $3.1 trillion which has already been committed by governments around the world for coronavirus bailouts—economic stimulus measures to pay people and businesses which could otherwise go bankrupt as severe physical distancing measures mean we can no longer go about our everyday lives, earning and spending money as we normally would.
That means that CEPI has asked for less than 0.1% of what has already been committed by governments to fight the economic effects of the virus—to develop medicine which would eradicate both the economic and human cost of coronavirus if successful.
Economists are nearly unanimous—not a sentence you will often read—that the most important thing for the economy is to defeat the virus. Stimulus measures are vital to help vulnerable people on jobs paid by the hour, and to stop businesses going under in the short term. But the ultimate cure for our economic problems is a vaccine or cure for the literal disease causing them.
If the UK were to go it alone and fund CEPI’s full requested budget, it would cost us less than £30 per person. Even without any detailed calculations, it’s a fair guess that the economic benefit of developing a vaccine would be substantially more than £30 per UK resident.
If the US were to fund CEPI solo, it would cost just $6 per American. (Also, $2bn is only twice what Donald Trump allegedly offered a single German company for exclusive access to its experimental vaccine.) If we clubbed together as high-income countries, it would cost us just $1.65 each—a drop in the ocean compared to the economic impacts that coronavirus has already had.
We need more funding for vaccines and treatments now. Governments, businesses and philanthropists need to step up. The sooner we get coronavirus under control, the more likely it is that the economic disruption and number of deaths will be minimised.
Once we’ve managed that, we need to have a discussion about how much funding we’re putting into research to prepare us for the next pandemic. If there’s a tiny silver lining to coronavirus, it’s that making the case for much more investment in infectious disease research should be easier in a post-covid world. Watch this space for our analysis of that.
]]>As you’ll see in our infographic, Cassini has been orbiting Saturn for the last 13 years. Its final act was to place itself on a collision course with the planet which has been its home for over a decade. The mission will end with Cassini streaking through the Saturnian sky, a tumbling, white-hot interplanetary firework, in order to protect Saturn’s pristine moons from potential future contamination.
Cassini has generated enough data to keep scientists busy for years to come, measuring everything from chemistry to magnetic fields of Saturn and its entourage of icy moons. Not least amongst its instruments are two cameras, whose spectacular imagery has frequently left us earthlings gasping at the beauty of our cosmic backyard.
One of the key unquantifiable spin-outs of many kinds of research is pure wonder, and this mission has had it in spades: from icy geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, to this jaw-dropping backlit image of Saturn with Earth a sparkling speck in the background, Cassini has been an inspiration to scientists, non-scientists and future scientists alike. NASA also make all of their raw data freely available to anyone, with spectacular results: this picture of Saturn (which you may recognise from our infographic above!) was made by an amateur, whilst this unofficial video of raw data from Cassini’s cameras is eerily beautiful.
For hard-hearted cynics there have been plenty of more tangible spin-outs from Cassini as well. Slingshotting probes billions of miles across space with pinpoint accuracy often results in accidental technical innovation. And this was one hardy little piece of engineering: originally planned to last just four years in orbit, it’s basically fully functional after over three times that. There was even an unexpected economics spin-out: the internal market developed for the ‘Cassini Resource Exchange’, used to keep the spacecraft’s instrument development teams on budget, has since been used for trading pollution permits down here on Earth.
Finally, that money wasn’t just fired into space: it’s employed thousands of scientists and engineers, bolstering high-tech manufacturing in the US and Europe, and sending smart PhDs out into the workforce.
For inspiration value alone, Cassini could well be worth a handful of dollars per American and European, especially considering this spending was spread over three decades. The real tragedy of its epic demise isn’t the end of this amazing probe’s mission; it’s that, judging by the amounts we invest, humanity seems utterly unexcited about exploring the planets. For a few pounds, euros or dollar each, we can take our first steps into the vast cosmos, understand our origins, and lay the foundations for a spacefaring future. Instead, once Cassini signs off, there is no mission approaching this audacious even on the launchpad.
As we say goodbye to Cassini, it’s more important than ever that we explain how much missions like this matter.
]]>Here’s our infographic:
This is definitely good news for UK science: a cross-party commitment to increased investment in research is something that groups like CaSE, Science is Vital, the Royal Society, the CBI, and indeed Parliament’s own Science and Technology Committee, have been calling for for some time.
Of course, the main uncertainty here is always that manifesto pledges can fall by the wayside once a party is in government. There’s also uncertainty about the trajectory of that funding. If investment is hurriedly increased later on rather than gradually ramped up, money is likely to be spent less efficiently, and there’s also less of it when considered overall. We’ve assumed that all the parties would aim to increase funding as a fraction of GDP linearly but, given projections we made after the Autumn Statement last year which showed government science funding flatlining as a fraction of GDP, that may be a big assumption.
The final caveat is the classic Scienceogram refrain. Cancer kills a third of us, and yet we currently spend less than £3 per person per year on public-funded cancer research. Even the Lib Dems’ promise to double overall R&D funding would, if current funding proportions stay the same, only see government spending of around £6 per person per year. To us, that still doesn’t sound like enough for a disease which is responsible for 30% of deaths. Perhaps we should be assessing science funding based on the scale of the potential benefits, rather than as a fraction of GDP.
So, take heart from these commitments, but it may be premature to declare ‘Mission Accomplished’. We need to carry on championing UK science to make sure that these promises materialise, and to push for science funding to be set in line with the scale of the problems that science is trying to solve.
]]>The simplest way we could think to express it was to look at how this new money is going to affect overall levels of public-funded R&D between 2010 and 2020. We’ve drawn a graph looking at this in two different ways: in ‘real terms’, correcting for the effects of inflation; and as a percentage of GDP, expressing the amount we invest in research as a fraction of the overall size of the economy. The graph is based on actual government data until 2014, and our projections out to 2020 under both the old regime, and under plans announced last Wednesday with the extra cash included.
This graph comes with a some significant caveats (and for the data geeks we’ve gone into those below) but, nonetheless, two things are clear: firstly, this boost is very welcome but, secondly, there is plenty more still to do.
Firstly, this is finally some good news in real terms. The Science Budget was frozen in cash terms back in 2010, which means its buying power has been slowly dwindling since. The new investment is slowly ramped up to £2bn per year by 2020, and should more than cancel out the effects of inflation. This means that there should be more public-funded R&D being done in the UK in 2020 than 2010.
However, looking at this as a fraction of GDP, the story is more one of stabilisation. In spite of this budgetary bonus, UK R&D will still be around 10% lower in 2020 than 2010 when seen as a fraction of the whole economy. That said, this is significantly better than the alternative—a reasonable reading of the government’s previous plans would’ve put R&D more than 25% down by 2020 as a fraction of GDP.
We should celebrate this windfall for science—but we should also continue to make the case for funding of research, and keep an eye on what’s to come.
The major short-term risk for UK science is our relationship with the EU. The exchange rate shock following the referendum result is already increasing the cost of doing research in the UK and, if British scientists lose access to EU research funds, that could come close to cancelling out this £2bn: total EU funding of UK R&D is estimated at around £1.5bn per year.
In the bigger picture, it looks like UK R&D funding will stay at the back of the pack internationally. With investment at less than 0.5% of GDP, we’re in last place the G8, far below countries like the US and Germany, and even below average for the EU taken as a whole. If our projections are broadly correct, this fraction won’t have changed much by 2020.
Finally, of course, the classic Scienceogram observations still apply: even with a 20% boost, we’ll still only be spending pennies researching deadly diseases and vital energy technologies.
This new cash is definitely a step in the right direction for science, and we should celebrate the government backing up its warm words about science with actual investment. Perhaps, if we keep making the case for research, we can turn this small step into a giant leap.
]]>Please share!
The Human Genome Project was a huge international effort, mainly funded by the US, to read every single letter of the three-billion letter ‘human genome’—the DNA instruction manual inside each and every one of us. It concluded in 2001, but the story continued: it’s been followed by much more research, including an exponential reduction in the cost of sequencing genomes. Where the original Human Genome Project sequence cost $5.4bn to acquire (in 2012 dollars), the cost per genome is now around the $1000 mark: a ludicrous five million times cheaper, in just 15 years.
The result of all this research has been a lot of economic activity. Genomics has applications from finding out more about your family tree to developing new drugs, all made possible by the blue-skies science which uncovered the sequence in the first place.
The figures in our infographic come from a 2013 report by US nonprofit Battelle, which tots up the investment in the original Human Genome Project and follow-up public funding of genomics, then compares this to an estimate of the amount of economic activity generated in the US. In spite of what sounds like an eye-watering initial $5bn investment, and follow-up spending of $9bn in other genomic research, the calculated return is sixty-five times. That means that, for every dollar invested, there has been $65 of economic activity since.
Obviously the process of finding out these figures is error-prone, so this number comes with a healthy uncertainty attached. However, unless this report is wildly wrong, reading the human genome was a seriously good investment. This is the economic argument for why we want the government to follow suit tomorrow, and invest in science.
]]>Here’s the first one:
This graphic pits returns from investment in science against returns from two other common investments—cash and shares—and shows that research really does knock it out of the park in terms of financial savvy.
The cash and shares figures come from the latest edition of the Barclays Equity Gilt Study, which tracks returns on investment in government bonds (gilts) and shares (equity) since 1900.
Though it’s not usually the same as the interest rate you’ll get on your savings account at any given point in the last 100 years, so-called Treasury bills are often used as a proxy for long-term investment in cash. By this measure, the ‘real’ return on cash savings—after correcting for the effect of inflation— is a somewhat paltry 1p per year on a pound saved.
Shares fare somewhat better, and typically return 5p per pound per year, though obviously they come with increased risks: as the cliché goes, ‘investments can go down as well as up’. This 5% is thus a (very) long-term average, but it provides a benchmark for what an investor can reasonably hope to make in the long run, assuming they’re comfortable with uncertainty.
So, what about science? It’s harder to estimate the returns on research because they’re not neatly tallied up in a century of stock exchange records. This means that economists have to do it the hard way. They tallied up the total amount spent on research in three areas: cardiovascular disease and mental health (in a 2008 paper entitled ‘Medical research: What’s it worth?’), and cancer (in a 2015 sequel). They then looked at treatments developed, and estimated the money and years of healthy life saved by them, as well as the returns to the wider economy. The return on £1 invested was equivalent to 39p for cardiovascular disease, 37p for mental health, and 40p for cancer research, every following year.
Of course, this isn’t directly comparable to returns on cash or shares. For a start, as an individual, you can’t directly invest in ‘research’ and reap the benefits. Those gains are recouped by society at large, not any one person or company. There’s also huge uncertainty on numbers like these, and the economists acknowledge this, whilst checking that changes in the underlying assumptions don’t drastically alter their conclusions. However, it’s obvious that, even if this 40p estimate is wildly inaccurate, it’s still a stonking return on investment. This figure would have to be out by a factor of ten for shares to be a better bet.
According to the Equity Gilt Study, the government can expect to borrow money in the long term for around 1.2% interest. (At the moment, rates are significantly lower than the historical average, meaning that the UK government can borrow even more cheaply than that.)
If you, as an individual or the owner of a business, could borrow money at 1% interest and make a 40% return, it would be a no-brainer. This, in a nutshell, is the economic case for government funding of science.
It’s important to remember that the economic argument isn’t the only one when it comes to funding research, from hard science to the arts and humanities. Whether it’s saving lives or the abstract joy of discovery, there are plenty of other good reasons to invest. We also shouldn’t see this as a call to invest only in research whose commercial upside is immediately obvious. Much of the research included when calculating the 40p return was so-called ‘basic’ or ‘blue-skies’ research, which has no immediate application but often underpins research which does. It’s impossible to know in advance which projects will be the useful ones but, even in the absence of that knowledge, the return on research overall remains compelling.
So, if Philip Hammond is serious about ‘taking careful, considered and targeted decisions around very high value infrastructure investment opportunities’ and ‘taking advantage of low borrowing costs, and our ability to borrow long term’, science should be on his shortlist next week.
]]>We need to make the case for science loud and clear. Here’s how you can help.
Scienceogram and our friends at Science is Vital need you! We’re looking for volunteers, from general jobs like getting the word out to specific technical skills like helping us improve our websites, there’s a list of things we’re after over on the Science is Vital blog. If you haven’t got time to volunteer, sign up for the Science is Vital mailing list so we can keep in touch.
Any extra pairs of hands will make it easier for us to make the strongest possible case for UK research. Please get involved if you can.
The Science is Vital Annual General Meeting is coming up at the start of next month. We’ll be bringing together volunteers and making plans for the year ahead. If you can make it along to Charles Darwin House in London on Tuesday 13th September, sign up for a ticket here. If not, the event will be live-streamed: register your interest on the Facebook event for details.
Please take two minutes to sign this petition calling for continued UK access to EU research programmes. The EU not only provides around 10% of UK public funding of R&D, but it’s also an essential part of the UK’s ability to collaborate and compete on the international scientific stage. At the time of writing, it has over 35,000 signatures. If it gets to 100,000, it will be considered for a debate in Parliament. Get signing!
Scientists for EU worked tirelessly before the referendum to make the scientific case for EU membership, and after the results came in their efforts have only increased. If you’re not doing so already, please follow @Scientists4EUon Twitter and like them on Facebook.
They’re also collating examples of the effects of Brexit on UK research. As we discovered last week, the effects are already being felt: UK scientists are being dropped from collaborations due to uncertainty over future funding. If you have a story, please respond to their survey.
]]>Whether through reduced access to EU funding or a knock to economic growth, it’s likely that there would be less money available for science if the UK votes to leave the EU on June 23rd.
Research is a significant component of the EU Budget, and this EU research funding also forms a significant component of the UK research landscape. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, UK scientists are very good at winning EU funding: we pay in around £12 per person per year, but we receive £15 per capita in grants. As well as being an endorsement for UK science, this is a net win from EU membership.
Secondly though, the UK invests far less in science than many other countries. This means that extra EU money forms a larger and more important part of the UK’s research portfolio than it does elsewhere.
Whether we would lose access to this money entirely is not certain, and would depend on the terms of our relationship with the remaining EU member states. Non-EU countries such as Switzerland, Norway and Israel do participate in EU research funding schemes, but the exact terms of their relationship depend on adherence to EU principles such as freedom of movement. Depending on UK policies and the outcome of negotiations, a post-Brexit UK may not be able to collaborate under the terms we currently enjoy.
However, even in the worst-case scenario of a total withdrawal from EU schemes, £15 is clearly less than our £90 per capita net contribution to the EU. Were we to leave the EU, it looks as though the government could make up the missing research money from this saving.
The first question is whether this would actually happen. Whilst EU funding for science is rapidly increasing, the UK government has presided over a Science Budget which has fallen by every measure since 2010, and research in many government departments has also seen substantial reductions. Furthermore, science is just one of a string of areas which Vote Leave has suggested could be recipients of the cash.
The second issue is the overall state of the economy. The majority of economists predict that leaving the EU would cause an immediate period of uncertainty, followed by a longer-term reduction in economic growth due to reduced trade and freedom of movement, though this too depends on the details of our post-EU settlement.
Predictions for the impact of leaving are almost uniformly negative, with most organisations forecasting a loss of several percent of GDP. Without committing to a particular estimate, we can provide a frame of reference for these figures: 1% of GDP is around £290 per person per year. That’s twice the UK’s net contribution to the EU, and twice our total public funding of R&D, so even an unexpectedly modest shock could have serious implications for science, as well as many other areas of government spending and the wider economy.
Finally, this very reduction in funding for UK research and innovation caused by leaving the EU could itself have negative economic effects, leaving us less able to make inroads in the current productivity crisis, encourage private companies to invest in R&D in the UK or tackle social and environmental challenges through research.
Research funding post-Brexit would therefore be at the mercy of UK government policy, deals struck in negotiations, and conditions in the wider economy, and none of these gives cause for optimism. So, if you’re concerned about science, a vote to remain is very likely to be the safer option.
]]>Around half of public-funded research and development in the UK is funded by departments across government, from Education to International Development, to gather evidence to inform their policy decisions. For example, if the Department for Work and Pensions wants to know if a particular programme helps people back into work, it might commission some academics or consultants to oversee a pilot project and write a report.
This is vital for the good functioning of government, because what sounds good on paper or in Parliament may not work in practice, and we need good evidence on which to base difficult and complex decisions. However, as the Sense about Science report notes,
Although the Office for National Statistics’ Science, Engineering and Technology figures tell us that approximately £5bn is spent annually on government research, there is no reliable breakdown of what that money is spent on or what happens to the studies. Government does not collect this information centrally.
Not only do the Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) Statistics provide no breakdown, but they are several years out of date by the time they are published. The latest release, published in 2015, reports departmental spending on research as it was in 2013. This means those of us trying to scrutinise government research policy are always years behind the times, and in no position to critique or praise current plans.
Deciphering what’s really going on beneath the top-line figures can also be very tricky. For example, when the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) took over the UK Space Agency’s budget in 2011, it looked like the BIS budget had increased, when really the money had simply been moved from elsewhere. It took some digging to find out that the important figure, our investment in space R&D, remained unchanged.
It’s also vital to keep an eye on the trajectory of research funding, and ask if we’re investing enough in rigorously checking whether government policy works. Research seems to be an easy target when trying to slim down departmental budgets: few will miss the Department for Transport’s drily entitled ‘Econometric analysis of long time-series rail passenger demand aggregates’ while there are potholes to be filled. (A topic on which, unlike research funding, the government has made data freely available, in an easily understood, interactive format.)
As we uncovered back in 2013, there have been some scandalous, disproportionate cuts in departmental research budgets. In 2011–12, the four worst offenders cut research by between 30% and 60% in a single financial year, whilst their overall budgets were squeezed by just a few percent. In the case of the Department for Education, the budget plummeted by 54% whilst the department experienced no overall funding cut. The graph from our blog post at the time is reproduced below.
Tracking down the facts on public-funded research is critical to holding the government to account. A thorough audit of what is spent by which departments is integral to this. The top recommendation made by the Sense about Science report is for ‘a standardised central register of all externally commissioned government research’. We couldn’t agree more.
]]>