Science and innovation policy for hard times: an overview of the

Data: Eurostat (GBARD) After the end of the Cold War, one of the ways in which the UK cashed in the “peace dividend” was by reducing the amount of R&D devoted to defence. [...] One objective of a life sciences strategy is to do the research needed to improve the way healthcare is delivered to the UK’s population, and to address the broader determinants of the health of the public. [...] In the UK economy, with the notable and important exceptions of the health service and the armed forces, that puts the emphasis on the private sector. [...] The weapons programme was split from the civil nuclear energy programme in 1973; with the privatisation of energy in the 1980s and the completion of the last new nuclear power stations in the early 1990s, UKAEA was split up; responsibility for the decommissioning of its old sites was given to the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, much of the R&D expertise was privatised as AEA Ltd, a contract R&D or. [...] The principle that the government should be involved in science had been established in the late 19th century, through reports such as that of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruction in 1870, and the establishment of institutions such as the National Physical Laboratory and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist.