Paul Cunningham gained an honours degree in biological sciences at the University of East Anglia followed by a PhD inmarine ecology at UCNW Bangor. He joined PREST in 1985. Since then his work has covered a wide range of activities andhis research interests have diversified greatly from his original interest in new marine technologies. Particular (albeit broad)areas of personal research interest now include: studies of the development and application of evaluation methodologies,and R&D evaluation; investigations of HEI-industry collaboration mechanisms and the role of HEIs in regional economies;studies of quantitative measures of R&D performance and the development of science and technology indicators; nationaland regional level studies of innovation and the identification of innovation best practice; studies of transnational scientificcollaboration; and international science and technology policy.

Based on the issues or “signals” you identified in the2009 ERAWATCH report for the UK, can you think of awild card event, a low probability high impact one thatmight be a wild card for most people, but not for theexperts. What are the big impact events that may have a consequence?

This is difficult to answer in terms of signals, because they areendogenous policy signals rather than exogenous responses toexternal events. Policy is by definition planned, so how can youhave unforeseen events in policy? You can have unforeseen eventswhich influence policy. For example, as a result of the financial crisisthere might be such a weakening of the EU structures that one orseveral members leave the EU, which will have major implicationsfor funding from EU sources. There might be political signals, e.g.weak signals, such as civil unrest in Greece or the UK in the face ofsevere cutbacks, or there might be loss of significant parts of thepolicy infrastructure. In terms of UK policy, a potential weak signal isthe loss of the overseas student market and the collapse of a largenumber of UK universities. Already some are operating in debt ordeficit. There is potential impact from that.Another one is that less than half of UK engineering and physicalscience graduates go on to pursue science-based careers. There aremany students deferring university entry because there is perceivedhigher competition for university entrants places. A knock-on effectcould be a sudden downturn in UK student intake, leading to a dip interms of skilled graduates in the future.

What would be the wildcard there?

A major dip in the supply of UK human resources in science andtechnology. That would have significant impact on industry, whichwould exacerbate the effects that are already being picked up.They are not such weak signals – there are already low levels ofUK business participation in Framework, and low levels of R&Dspending, so that is going to have a knock-on effect. I don’t seesome of these weak signals causing a major level of concern. It isa political fact that the UK government is not committed to the EUBarcelona target, and several European countries are committed inrhetoric, but will never be successful in meeting it. So I don’t thinkthat has major implications in the long term. The proportion of ethnicminorities participating in higher education, again, is not somethingthat has any implications, as far as I can see.

Do you see ‘full privatization of public laboratories’ assomething that might develop?

It is already developed in a fairly extreme form in New Zealand,where the laboratories became crown agents and so areeffectively privatized anyway. The concern is that you no longer getindependent research. The laboratories were set up according tothe Haldane Principle.1 They were at arms length to governmentbut did government research. But if they are privately run, theyare even further removed from government, but they are nolonger necessarily concerned with public good research. They areclearly led by commercial concerns and will undertake activitiesthat are funded by external contractors. One of those contractorscould be government, but the issue becomes: who does strategicgovernment research? If this is done on a fees basis, then the senseof independence and lack of commercial interest is lost. If you aredoing research for the Home Office, there is going to be a concernto produce the types of results that you expect government to want.So it’s like medical research, where research supports the interestsof the large drug companies that fund it and the counterclaims ofother researchers tend to be not published, or brushed aside. Sothere is a concern that without public funded laboratories, whocarries out independent research for public good?

What would be the wild card of that scenario, wheremost laboratories are run privately?

The wildcard is that certain areas in research are no longer funded,there is not the broad brush, and research becomes very targetedon the big ticket issues. If something arises which is currently lowkey, not particularly sexy in the research sense, then you begin tohave a backlog, as you lack the research to deal with the threatwhen it arises. It is a wildcard that has already come and lingered:the idea of ‘zoonoses’ – animal-borne diseases that effect humans,e.g. Avian flu (Bird flu), Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), Bovinespongiform encephalopathy (BSE). They emerged suddenly andthere was very little underpinning research going on. Governmenthad to step up its research effort to understand them better.

If you combine climate change with animal-borne diseases, andthe long-term effects of changes in biodistribution and biodiversity,then there are the makings of a perfect storm. Certain conditionscould come together to cause a major health epidemic or somethingthat affects a significant sector of the agricultural business, oragricultural dependency, e.g. a wheat disease that wipes out wheatcrops. That is the long-term effect. You could link it back to the lackof public labs, where research in those areas is no longer supportedbecause research has become more commercially led.

Which areas of public research do you think willbe mostly affected by such a big cut in research orprivatization of labs?

You could argue that social research might be, because there havebeen major social changes in the way people live, the breakup of thenuclear family, the rise in communications, different entertainmentperspectives. Maybe the whole idea of understanding social orhuman behaviour is lagging behind the current need for updatedsocial studies. It is a case of trying to identify the whole thing, whatis possibly out there, from a range of tiny things that already exist.

Can you think of existing signals that might bepointing to that dramatic scenario different to the oneswe have?


You have things like the emergence of road rage, so frustrationsbecause it is an instant society, and people expect things to happenmore quickly. People expect instant answers, better quality, betterchoice immediately. People’s expectations are growing and whentechnology does not deliver as quickly, or deliver what they expect,then they become frustrated. Also, you have more of a benefitculture now, where people expect instant support from society,whereas when economic conditions break down, the funding isremoved.It is difficult to say whether things are becoming more prevalent, butthings like cases of child abuse are outpacing the ability of socialservices to cope. Instances of multiple killings, recently in the UK.There has also been a rash of them in China, as social conditionschange there, Some have blamed the changes in social conditionsand the move to a more consumer-led society, as people moveaway from the agricultural base to get jobs in the cities, where theyexperience poor working conditions. People randomly going intoChinese schools and killing children, is not your normal image of Chinese society as a whole.

What is your most important wildcard from the onesyou have mentioned?

The agriculture and health.

if you were given money for a research project toaddress these issues or the signals associated to that particular scenario, which one would you research further?

Because of my background I would go for agriculture and diseaserelated. I am talking about agriculture very broadly, includingfisheries. It does not relate to the policy side, it relates more to thehuman-induced and the long-term natural changes. It is all theexogenous factors: overfishing, pollution of the environment, andoverlaying that is climate change, and then a combination of thesefactors which can lead to sudden declines in certain species oroutbreaks of certain diseases.

Would that be EU-level type research or carried outindividually by national member states?

It is too big to be done at national level and also it is a concernof most or all EU states. We can imply effects on just about anycountry. What are the most pressing emerging issues/problemsEurope is facing?

In no particular order: integration/immigration; environmental;economic; and identity in terms of the regional or super nationaltension that is going on, with the drive for greater centralization for asuper Europe opposed to the greater regional demand for autonomy.

Do you see the UK in the same box if you think nationally? Do you think immigration is a problem and the economy?

PC: Yes, immigration and the economy are major problems; not somuch national identity.If you had large-scale joint programming researchto tackle these problems, would the UK be happy tocontribute?I would think so. There is already a lot of social inclusion/integration type research going on in the UK. In fact I think there are alreadyERA-NETs.2

If you think about these problems, what can youforesee in the next 20 years – which of these two types: type A – a very negative wildcard, becausethe problem is getting bigger – or type B – there is apositive wildcard solution to the problem in the next20 years?

I can see integration getting worse. I can see economics gettingworse and then getting better, but that is the nature of economiccycles. I have no idea which way cohesion and the politicaldimension could go. Environmental is likely to get worse and if you bring energy security into that, that will also get worse.

Is one of your solutions there, in terms of new energiesand technologies in the next 20 years, makingEuropean energy self-sufficient?

The only thing you could do is if you had some integrated intelligentenergy networks, but I can’t see that as a near-term solution. I thinkenergy supply will still be a major issue. There have been major EUinitiatives in things like biofuels, and whilst progress has been made,it brings as many problems as it does solutions.

Do you think the UK can bring any major science and technology breakthrough or major radical new policies – a positive wildcard?

The UK already contributes, in terms of having good policy. Governments and projects we have worked in have shown that a lot of the UK practice could be more widely disseminated in Europe. In terms of scientific breakthroughs or contributions, historically the UK has always been good. The anecdote is that the UK makes lots of scientific breakthroughs and fails to capitalize on them. You don’t have to capitalize in commercial terms, you can capitalize in social terms. Just because something does not bring commercial or economic benefit does not mean it is not bringing social benefit to a broader audience. The UK has a very good reputation for good quality science, which leads to a lot of developments. I do not see why that should end, unless there is this tearback in support for innovation which is envisaged. 

If the Eurozone collapses, given the UK is not in the Eurozone what do you think will be the impact for the UK? 

I think there will be a political vacuum at the centre of Europe. Whilst everyone is supposed to have equal rights around the European table, certain partners like France and Germany might seek to dominate European policies if you removed the breaking system of the European Union or Council of Ministers – but that is an extreme scenario. If the Eurozone broke, I don’t know what the economic implications are. 

What are your views about the European Research Area Agenda? You have been asked to interview the Euro dimensions to the Erawatch. 

I think the idea of increasing the effective critical mass of Europe through better collaboration, better mechanisms for integration, is good. The problem with ERA is that there is a lot of rhetoric that surrounds it, and in reality it is driven by quite reasonable grassroots needs, e.g. sharing of major facilities. If it can be a mechanism whereby that type of sharing and interchange of researchers is better organized, then that is good. But with a lot of EU initiatives, the initiative tends to overtake the initial objectives of actually setting it up. It becomes a politicized entity in its own right, and the politicized process tends to move away from its own objectives. So if you are looking at potential weakening of the EU because of the financial crisis, that might be a useful brake on political aspirations and bring about a return to the valid economic rationales for better integration, so it could do ERA more good. If there are fewer resources going into the new member states’ research budgets, then they need to pool and develop critical mass and partnerships and collaboration would be heightened. 

What do you think is the national impact of the Erawatch reports? 

They are useful from an academic point of view and maybe they serve some use to policy makers who want an immediate source of information on the research system in the UK. But I would not say it has a major impact. It is basically collection of information. In a lot of cases the Commission collects information because it likes to and has no idea how to organize it and use it fully.

If your Erawatch activities were to become extremely successful in the UK, what would be the main extreme positive wildcard of major success, what can the government see there?

The policy mix under the Erawatch is useful. It analyses what is there and looks at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the policy mix. If that fed into policy making, that would be an extreme example which would be very useful. There is a synthesis report for Erawatch, which looks at everything and trends in policies or commonalities in policies. If the Erawatch reports prompted debate and discussion at a higher political level in the UK, that would be quite an achievement. The analysis and what is being done with the analysis is the issue. You have to collect before you analyse, but the collection phase becomes overemphasized and the analysis is lost. We have figures for numbers of scientist per thousand in all these countries and we want them for X more countries and we want to look at the gender ratio in them. You wonder what is the policy question underlying all this?

Have you used this knowledge of wild cards in the past or in developments?

We have not called them wild cards as such, and it is not in the Erawatch context. We did some work for DEFRA3 on a Horizon Scanning4 series of workshops, looking at different areas and picking out possible threats. The animal-borne diseases were identified in that. They are not really wild cards, because as a concept it has already happened. It is trying to identify what the next specific example might be, what the wild card is, it could be a disease of fish, amphibians or wheat, it could affect humans or human food.

Are you happy with the definition of wild cards and weak signals, or do you prefer to use another alternative?

They are straightforward enough. If the Commission asked you to identify a few weak signals coming from the research systems of the members of Erawatch, where would you look for signals, what type of signals would you look for? You could look for new government policies, like application of foresights, new approaches to evaluation, in terms of research maybe new policy mechanisms, new ways of developing synergies between different policy measures. The weak signals that could be detected already are these system reviews that, say, Austria has carried out into its research and funding infrastructure to assess it as a whole entity, rather than in various pieces focusing on research councils or funding councils or government funds.

Would you look at particular emerging areas of research?

There is a TNO Techno polis for research groups investigating the impact of the FET Programme,5 looking at two areas: ICT and quantum computing. They are trying to develop indicators to look at those areas of research. But in sense, it is almost self-fulfilling prophecies, because they have been identified as emerging areas and have received funding, so there is a lot of activity. In research there is nothing new, it is not a huge leap, it is all incremental. The major leaps are where you have findings in one research field which are applied suddenly in another research field. What people are trying to publish and what areas people are applying in – those are the areas I would look at for emerging areas in research. Journal editors would have a feel for what people are publishing in new areas. They might come across areas where peer reviewers were less comfortable about reviewing the material they were being sent. Perhaps they would also be more aware of research papers that fell between two domains, cross-over types of research. In a research council, you would not look at what was being funded, but at what applications were coming in, as that is where the leading edge is. 

What sort of wild cards would you include in your Erawatch country profiles? Wild cards having an impact on the system, the country or on ERA or all of these together?

In Erawatch we don’t usually look for wild cards as such. Some of them tend to do a SWAT analysis, so I guess you look at the threats, but they are usually clearly signalled threats. We don’t tend to look at the fringe possibilities.

If you were asked to look for wild cards, what type of wild cards would you ask your national correspondents to look for?

Wild cards that would lead to a destabilization of the innovation system, or have potential major impact on the innovation system. As an example, I would go back to the destabilization of the economy and losing funding. Society and the economy destabilize the innovation system. In Greece, for example, I imagine many Greek researchers will no longer look for research jobs in Greece, but will look abroad.

So I would be asking national correspondents to look at the broader social and economic horizon, to see what sorts of changes there are that might impact the national innovation system in a negative way. I can’t think of any that would impact in a positive way, except some serendipitous discovery of a new energy source. 

What sort of measures would you have for wild card? Would you scan papers or look at proposals for wild cards? How would you generate those?

You could talk to policy analysts. Serious journalists, who write for publications like the Economist or the Financial Times, might also be a good source. They get a chance to speculate and look at what the long-term implications might be of some of the changes they are reporting on. Also specialist journalists, who write for energy or health magazines. Policy makers in international organizations, like health organizations, the UN FAO,6 or the International Energy Agency7 – people who see the international perspective and broader issue.

How would you use this information? What would you do with that list of surprises, the wild cards, the signals?

In the Erawatch context, I would report it. I don’t know how you would use them further: you could report it and publish it in general articles. We are trying to use them further by creating an imaginary call for research. We are trying to suggest to the Commission ‘recommended research’ that they can pursue or promote, not on the wild cards, but on issues which may be related and based on what needs to be done before the wild card happens, even if it will never happen. So not a technology research focus, but exploratory, socioeconomic. We also have calls for interdisciplinary research, such as health with nano technology. That makes sense, because of the extent to which these issues overlap. Nano tech depends on the technologies and the science, but has implications for health and the way society takes it up. It makes sense to do a rounded research programme which covers all the various issues. You have one on energy security as well, so diversification of energy sources?

You are talking about alternative energies?

Yes. It does not have to be a disease either. There are more subtle wild cards. For example, a version of GM wheat starts producing a chemical which alters brain function, but is not detectable until it becomes widespread in the population. This is possible, as common food products have important effects on health and wellbeing, so a major proportion of the population could be affected. This a difficult project. There are so many weak signals, rather than strong ones. It is not the black-and-white issue where wheat does not grow any more, it is where wheat or another foodstuff, or a new processing technique has a major effect on consumers. A good example is the Chorley Wood process. Bread made in the old way used to take four or five hours, but through the addition of flour improvers and enzymes, bread can be produced in a few minutes. But now there is an upsurge in wheat intolerance diseases, e.g. Celiac disease, and people who require gluten-free food. The argument is that before the advent of highly processed wheat products, people did not suffer from this, their digestive systems could cope. But now the market for gluten-free products is huge. Something must have caused a shift in how people react to wheat. You could argue it is the Chorley Wood process.