#With the benefit of hindsight driver

The argument that pure scientific research is the best means of producing new and unexpected technologies dates back to the 19th century and has been corralled into support for increased state funding of science ever since. These include challenging the perceived economic and technological significance of publicly funded research, and cherished notions of researcher autonomy such as the 'Haldane Principle'.Īlthough Edgerton has shown that the so-called 'linear model' of innovation is a recent academic construct, created as a foil to better models, there is frequent recourse, both by science lobbyists and austerity-juggling politicians, to economic arguments for science funding that sound suspiciously similar. One example is the work of David Edgerton, who has highlighted a number of areas in which common assumptions in science policy are shown to be problematic. Historians are good at judging the interests that lie behind differing interpretations of the past, as well as exploring their validity. History of science can provide insights that may have general agreement within the discipline but sharper divergence from more popular accounts. Dispelling myths and challenging assumptions His timing was deliberate: with momentum building around the use of evidence in policy and new initiatives such as the Cabinet Office's network of 'what works' centres, historians feel they are in danger of being undervalued as an asset to the policy process.

#With the benefit of hindsight driver

'Those who take major policy decisions in ignorance of relevant history,' he wrote, 'are like a driver who commits to some manoeuvre in the road without looking into the rear mirror.' Last month, the case for historical advisers in government departments received a high-profile endorsement from Lord Butler, the former cabinet secretary. However, there is a role for broader input from the history of science and allied disciplines, if a mechanism can be found to bring this evidence into the policymaking process. Similarly, there was interest in historian Abigail Wood's work on foot and mouth disease, in the immediate aftermath of the crisis of 2001.

One example is Catherine Haddon who, having produced a thesis on Whitehall and cold war defence, is now a research fellow at the Institute for Government.

Historians have occasionally found a role within policymaking through research focused on topics of recent history and obvious relevance. Initiatives like History and Policy are focused on encouraging historians to see the potential relevance of their work and, through policy-friendly reports, aim to show that 'historians can shed light on the causes of current problems and even suggest innovative solutions'. Historians, naturally, aim to mediate the history used in the public sphere, ensuring that is not completely divorced from their research, most of which is publicly funded. As Virgina Berridge notes in her study of history in health policy, there can be a 'totemic role' for historians, where historical messages are 'misunderstood or used for particular policy purposes'. In science policy, history often plays a role as example or justification, based on assumptions about how science is done or how innovation occurs that misrepresent our knowledge of the past. Finding a place for history in science policy We suggest that one way he could signal his commitment to the value of historical methods and insights in science policy would be to pilot a 'hindsight project' within the government's existing Foresight Programme. Given Sir Mark Walport's support for the medical humanities and the history of science during his decade as director of the Wellcome Trust, we hope this is an agenda where he will want to demonstrate some leadership during his tenure as government chief scientific adviser. Here we want to focus on history, and call for the evidence and expertise of historians to be taken more seriously in policy – particularly science policy – alongside evidence from the natural and social sciences.

The potential contribution of a number of 'marginalised' disciplines merits discussion. Some progress has been made, but as the historian Roger Kain put it in his October 2011 oral evidence to the House of Lords inquiry into chief scientific advisers (speaking on behalf of the British Academy): 'The term science and engineering seems at the moment to not exclude but marginalise the humanities and social science in relation to advice and expertise: culture, history, language, psychology, and political science'.