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A Labor government would pursue a more collaborative science policy than the Conservatives and seek to bridge damaging differences with the sector, promised Chi Onwurah, shadow science minister.
Labor plans to increase investment in areas such as life sciences, while showing more respect than the current administration for the political independence of research funding bodies, Onwurah said.
The Conservatives are aiming to make Britain a “scientific superpower” by 2030, but tensions with institutions have risen in areas ranging from immigration rates for foreign researchers to Science Secretary Michelle Donelan’s attacks on “ slow advance of wokeism.”
In March, the government paid £15,000 to settle a legal complaint brought by an investigator from an equality and diversity committee affiliated with UK Research and Investment, whom Donelan falsely accused of supporting or sympathizing with Hamas.
“My message to UKRI and scientists and researchers is that a Labor government would like to work constructively and collaboratively with them and defend the sector,” Onwurah said in an interview.
“So we’re not talking so much about being a ‘scientific superpower,’” we’re not talking about driving the ‘woke’ out of science – and we’re certainly not accusing leading scientists of supporting Hamas.”
Onwurah added that he did not understand the term “awakening”, which he described as Donelan’s “specialised subject”.
Science and technology would be “at the heart” of the Labor Party’s ambition for the UK to achieve the highest rate of sustained economic growth among the G7, Onwurah said.
“We think science is a great opportunity for the country,” she said. “I want to make sure that innovation works for everyone and benefits everyone and that’s what Labor values are.”
The Labor Party has stated that it will aim for at least 3 percent of GDP to be invested in research and development in the public and private sectors, which is approximately the level of investment made today. A Labor government would seek to boost life sciences by increasing spending on research and development by £10 billion a year, Onwurah said.
A Labor administration would set strategic priorities but support the so-called Haldane principles that research organizations would be best placed to make individual funding decisions, she added.
Labor would engage more substantively with emerging technologies, Onwurah signaled. She compared the party’s pledge to regulate the biggest artificial intelligence companies to what she characterized as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s laissez-faire approach.
Sunak promised to be “in no rush” to set rules for the fast-evolving technology, but the Financial Times reported last month that the government had quietly begun drafting legislation. “He focused his AI while saying there is nothing to be done,” Onwurah said.
Onwurah, who describes herself as a “technology evangelist”, studied electrical engineering before working on UK businesses and international projects, including the rollout of Nigeria’s mobile phone network. She later worked for Ofcom, the communications regulator, before becoming MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central in 2010.
Onwurah expressed support for efforts to increase diversity in science. She spoke about the “horrible” racism and misogyny she faced while studying at Imperial College London during the 1980s.
Although there have been improvements in addressing gender discrimination in science, many more women researchers than men “decide that research is not for them at the end of their degree,” she said.
“That says something about the environment in which they are studying,” she said. “I can tell within 90 seconds of walking into a university department whether diversity [efforts are] a selection exercise or a real, living part of their culture.”
