Category Archives: Education, Health And Welfare
Where Are All The Physicists?
A new report says Physics is at risk of dying out in schools. However can this be, when Physics is one of the most intrguing and exciting stories on the block?
I have a real Thing about how invisible Science and Technology are. It’s everywhere around us; yet most people seem simply not to see it.
Hw do we transact our communications? How do we take ourselves from A to B? How do we keep our food fresh and our homes warm… You get the picture.
But there’s no Big Take on science. We imagine those who actually do it are ‘Boffins’ (whatever that may mean). And anyway it’s all too hard with too many sums, so who cares?
The Missing Physicists
In the light of this general view (correct me if it’s wrong), I’m hardly surprised to read today that there is a severe deficit of Physicists. Again, So what?, you may ask.
Well, it’s like this: Physicists and those in closely related disciplines are the people who lead much of the high-spend and high-impact knowledge economy. They take our understanding of the world and how it is made to places people in previous generations never even dreamt of; and with their engineering colleagues they also lead much of our industrial innovation.
Plus, they are the people who teach the next generation about the nature of what at the most fundamental levels makes the world go round. Taught properly, this is one of the most exciting things anyone can ever learn…. I studied A-level Physics many years ago, and although I shall never make a Physicist, it hooked me. You see things in a very different, and quite amazing, light when you begin to learn what sub-atomic particles are all (or even a bit) about!
Why aren’t there enough Physics teachers?
I’d guess there are a number of answers to the question of where all the Physics teachers have gone.
Firstly, good Physicists get snapped up in industry and finance, for large amounts of money. Not many others can manipulate and analyse figures like they can. Teachers’ salaries are no match for what the city and the biggest industrial companies can offer.
Then there’s the prospect of teaching itself. Teaching is difficult, it can be draining, a lot of children are – and always have been – resistant to the sort of complex studies required by well defined disciplines (in any academic field).
And finally, in my books, there’s the question of ‘relevance’. Because we hardly ‘see’ Science and Technology, we don’t understand why it’s relevant.. and you try teaching youngsters things which they believe have no relevance…
The excitement of Physics
But it’s not even just that there are now fewer Physics teachers than before. A news story this week also tells us that the number of Physics teachers who are actually well qualified has dropped dramatically.
Would it be reasonable to suggest that some of this is because Science, and especially the hard physical sciences, are so invisible that we don’t value it? If we did, of course, people would want to teach Physics, and even more importantly students would want to study it.
There’s a big challenge here for the scientists themselves: Tell people, loudly and clearly, why Physics excites you! Show them why it’s ‘relevant’… and even maybe tell them that the best Physicists earn lots of money….
In other words, please try to understand that even the most challenging and abstract ideas in disciplines such as Physics can become interesting, when people know these ideas exist and perceive them as integral to our society and how it is moving forward, in so many ways.
There’s a massive PR job to be done here. Investigating the very nature of matter is about as exciting as it gets. We all need to share in the excitement; but that can only happen when someone takes action to ensure we know about it.
Social Enterprise Day – Today!
Social Enterprise is a bit of a mystery to some people… so today is a chance to find out more.
Today is Social Enterprise Day. Perhaps you knew that already, or perhaps you didn’t; but it’s also Social Enterprise Week, focusing primarily on young people, so there is bound to be a bit of media activity.
So what is Social Enterprise?
The Government’s definition of it is ‘a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose inthe business or the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.’
In other words, social businesses are set up to ‘make a difference’ for society or the environment.
More of them than you think…
Recent research has shown that there are some 15,000 UK businesses which are social enterprises. That’s about £18 billion per year generated in the economy, and around 475,000 jobs. This includes activities as varied as Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant, Cafedirect, and the Eden Project, or Liverpool’s own Furniture Resource Centre.
You can find out more about all this from the Social Enterprise Coalition or from the Enterprise Week website.
The Tesco Effect
It may not be fashionable to say so, but maybe Tesco has a point when it says it can work to help develop local trading and communities. The evidence is not conclusive, but neither have all the arguments as yet been fully explored.
The debate about Tesco is all around us in Liverpool just now. There are strongly vocal groups, some of them just local people and traders, and some of them I suspect part of larger national campaigns, who are implacably opposed to any further development of Tesco anywhere near our patch.
Others, far more quietly, would actually rather like a bigger, brighter Tesco (or any other large supermarket) not far from home, where they can pop in, parking assured, 24 / 7.
It seems however that whilst one of Tesco’s applications, to the north of the city, has now been approved, there will be a big fight over the south city bid. Officers have recommended agreement, politicians mostly oppose it; so who knows what will happen when it all goes to appeal?
Reasons for unease
As far as I can gather, opposition to Tesco and other supermarkest falls into some four categories:
1. we live nearby, and shoppers will block our street parking, and maybe make a noise;
2. green space is at risk;
3. local traders will suffer;
4. we are opposed to any big business which may be getting the upper hand.
Reasons for quietly hoping plans will go ahead, however, tend simply to be that it’s convenient, open long hours and the range of merchandise is good.
Mixed messages
Maybe I’ve missed something, but it feels to me as if a number of mesages are coming over here, not very coherently.
Firstly, concerns about street parking are persuasive for local councillors dependent on electoral support – let the people park – but they are not otherwise very convincing. Mechanisms exist and are easily put in plaxce to prevent parking altogether, or allocate resients’ priority, etc; and in any case most Tesco stores have quite adequate parking facilities of their own, if they are permitted to establish these.
The concern about green space of course follows from this – more Tesco space, less green space; but Section 106 arrangements (which basically require developers to ‘give’ something to the local community in return for ‘taking’ a local footprint) can be brought to bear by Council Officers, so that alternative facilities will be part of the package. Perhaps not everyone from the Council for the Protection of Rural England will be happy with the end result; but, to be frank, cities are not rural.
The argument that local traders will suffer is more difficult; the jury is still out on this, because the evidence is generally unconclusive. Organisations such as the New Economics Foundation suggest that the effect on local traders may be damaging; this is therefore an issue to be taken seriously. It is probably however less clear that at least some of these local traders would have done well even if the lcaol supermarket had not been built.
And finally, the question of market share needs to be considered. Tesco, for instance, has about 30% of this in Britain, almost twice as much as its nearest competitor. But whether Tesco should be constrained is a matter in the hands of the Office of Fair Trading, not something which can be resolved at local level in a narrow context.
The counter-argument
The issues so far discussed are perhaps only part of the story.
Let us put aside matters of investment, when building large supermarkets, in local infrastructure and construction and so forth. These are usually acknowledged at least in part at some level.
But only rarely is it also noted that Tesco, like its main competitors, offers well-defined and nationally led staff training and development; the pay to start with is not especially good, but the opportunity to move up the ladder (or across to another one) is certainly there. In some communities, there are few other opportunities of this sort; but where these opportunities are on offer, specially in otherwise less advantaged areas, they are surely of value.
And, finally, we have to ask ourselves why local traders, if they really do want to keep going, are not forming liaisons at the professional as well as the protectionist level. Are they sharing responsibilities such as staff training, local environmental improvements and the like? What, if anything, is the collective deal, with or without the supermarket in their midst?
Maybe Tesco is right to carry on growing, or just maybe it should be restrained; but the basis of the debate so far does not explore all the issues at stake. If the simple demand to ‘stop!’ were replaced by a dialogue on how to develop, with or without large supermarkets, local people and politicians might discover that there are more ways forward than they think.
Why The Merseyside Economy Needs More SciTech Research & Development
A recent meeting of the North West Business Leadership Forum and The Mersey Partnership has focused minds on how to engage the Knowledge Economy at its highest levels. Reseach and Development are universally understood to enhance economies. The challenge now for Merseyside entrepreneurs and businesses is therefore to grasp the exciting opportunities emerging via our growing high-tech knowledge base.
On Thursday (10 November) this week I went to a joint North West Business Leadership Forum / Mersey Partnership forum in Liverpool. Attendance was high, this being the first opportunity for some of us to hear the views of Robert Crawford, the new Chief Executive of The Mersey Partnership.
Robert’s analysis of where Merseyside ‘is at’ was of course worth hearing. In just six weeks he has obviously seen and digested a great deal, and he shared some of his initial thoughts with us during his talk. What particularly encouraged me, however, was his emphasis on the Knowledge Economy at the highest levels: his questions around retention of post-grads as well as first degree graduates, and his challenge to our three local universities to increase ‘Reach In’ – the term used by States-side colleges for close alignment with local businesses, especially at a time when private corporates have to some extent reduced their own in-house research and development.
Nations don’t compete; businesses compete
Innovation, productivity and skills development, as MIT and other studies have told us, are globally the key to enterprise success. It follows therefore research and development are at least as important in Merseyside as anywhere else. Our sub-regional productivity is lower than elsewhere, but our higher education base is robust. The task is to bring the potential for R&D into play to increase productivity, as has happened dramatically in parts of China and elsewhere. Knowledge inevitably traverses continents freely, but it is up to businesses to engage it for their own use.
Places as far apart as Bangalore, North Carolina and Ireland have found ways to bolster their economies using very high skills. We in the North West of England now have the opportunity to do the same. Fortunately we have just secured a huge advantage via the new-found confidence in North West science at Daresbury and in Liverpool’s own university science base. It needs to be said, however, that this work is in every sense regional and (inter)national, as well as sub-regional. Merseyside will get nowhere in this vast emerging network of science and technology without collaboration with our erstwhile city-region competitors. None of us is big enough to do it on our own.
Moving forward
For the Merseyside economy and its people to flourish in this new context, as Robert Crawford said in his address, we need mechanisms in place to define our own sub-regional partnerships, and to identify and remove local impediments to progress. For this to happen we also need to map our baseline/s and to have confidence that public sector intervention will be carefully considered, timely and appropriate.
One part of this positive partnership development will be the increasing involvement of high-achieving people who have links with our city and sub-region; they may not all live here, but there are many other ways in which win-win synergies can be developed.
For me, such synergies clearly include the huge numbers of high-skills liaisons which occur virtually and person-to-person in the North West’s world-class science programmes. But whilst there can be huge benefits for Merseyside which arise from these endeavours, we must never escape forget that the science itself is funded internationally, and its potential impact is global. Only if Merseyside’s local entrepreneurs take the time to grasp the opportunities to hand will we benefit particularly. The next challenge is to persuade enough of them that such apparently esoteric activity actually has relevance for their bottom line.
The CCLRC – And Why We Really Should Want To Know About It
The CCLRC is the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils of the UK. Its 2005 Annual Meeting was an amazing showcase of research at every level from the very tiniest scale imaginable (if indeed you can), to the most enormous. Here were world-class scientists and technologists, telling us what they do and why they are so incredibly enthusiastic about it.
The CCLRC is not an organisation which often hits the front page of the papers; but, as we all know, some of the best things in life are the least paraded. So I want to spend a few minutes right now saying why I think it’s a really exciting prospect.
First, though, the basics: the CCLRC is the UK’s Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils. In other words, it’s the top body in charge of (very) Big Science in the UK; and yesterday, 4 November, I was lucky enough to attend their national Annual Conference, at the Lowry Centre in Salford. I’m still buzzing!
The science budget is massive
Consider this: the CCLRC budget last year was nudging half a billion pounds, and it has oversight of some of the most prestigious and influential laboratories in the world, including the Daresbury and the Rutherford Appleton facilities in Warrington and Oxfordshire respectively.
Scientists and technologists in these laboratories, working alongside colleagues in numbers of our great universities, are exploring almost everything you can imagine about our world and our universe.
At the tiniest, nano, level these scientists are looking at how ‘engines’ at the atomic scale are ‘driving’ muscles; and they have developed a ‘molecular flashgun’ – the brightest beam of light ever created anywhere.
At the other extreme of size, CCLRC supported research is attempting to model global climate changes, and look at planets and space.
Science at the cutting edge
Much of this we were told about at the meeting yesterday, with fascinating presentations bringing together simple models and amazingly enthusiastic speakers, world authorities in their subjects.
And in between all this there are the pieces of work which will bring about cures for illnesses, new ways to produce manufactured goods, and greater understanding of genetics…
Then we were invited to look also into the future. Where will science and technology be taking us?
Futurology
This question is importantly about ‘futurology’, that informed guessing which tells us that exciting things, challenging things and sometimes really difficult to grasp things are about to emerge, all as a consequence of the extraordinary work which is being carried out in scientific communities around the world. To read about some of these anticipated developments, clearly explained and illustarted, just turn to the CCLRC’s own website.
As is quite apparent when one looks at these fascinating developments, no laboratory or university can now undertake Big Science in a vacuum from others. Collaboration is always the name of the game, across regions, nations and continents. And this brings us to another reason why the CCLRC and its huge expertise is so vital, to the UK as a nation and to the geographical areas in which it has a major presence.
Big money and big ideas
Investment at the level of the CCLRC is hard to secure. It doesn’t think small. It brings the most able and influential scientists and technologists with it wherever it decides to blossom; and this, in turn, brings forth industrial and commercial investment, and employment opportunities at the highest level – in other words, it enables the sort of synergies between economic development and knowledge for which any area of the UK yearns.
Do not suppose for one moment that, because most of us would be very hard put even to explain what Einstein discovered about particle motion a century ago, this Big Science has nothing to do with us.
Big Science brings opportunities (and, indeed, challenges) of the highest order, it brings amazing collaborations between people of many regions and nations, and it brings as yet barely touched scope for economic synergies and development.
A pretty phenomenal return on investment of less than half a billion pounds, when you see it like that.
Liverpool School Of Tropical Medicine Teams Up With Bill Gates
The Bill and Melinda Gates award to the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is testimony to the excellence of that institution; and it is also a huge endorsement of investment in the future of science in the North of England and beyond.
Congratulations to Professor Janet Hemingway and her team on their award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation!
As a Member (and previously a Trustee) of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine I have watched over the past three or four years as the School’s ambitious plans have progressed from the drawing board to the Gates Foundation Boardroom. Everyone has been very focused on success, and building the ‘package’ which has brought this about was painstaking work. It has involved careful co-ordination between governmental funders, national and local politicians, academics at the highest level, and many others.
People like Bill Gates don’t give their money unless they are convinced it will be well matched by other funds, and will be extremely well spent.
This is extremely good news not only for the LSTM and the University of Liverpool, but also for the city and the Northwest of England – not to mention for the prestige of British science itself. The research is of the highest standard and the outcome, in terms of impact on people at risk of malaria, will be massive.
Regional synergies
Slowly but surely the connections between science institutions in the North of England are being made. The synergies of collaboration are beginning to be visible beyond the largely ignored ivory towers.
If these new developments are genuinely welcomed and nurtured by our city and regional leaders for what they can bring, the impact on parts of the UK could be almost as significant, in their own way, as the impact of the research in the locations where the medical risks being studied are to be found.
Managing Change And Programmes: Beginning A New Adventure
Social policy implementation ‘on the ground’ is challenging – though it may also be exciting and certainly well worthwhile. We can all learn from comparing our expectations with the reality which follows……
I start a new assignment today. It involves working with a public service multi-disciplinary team in a socio-economically ‘challenged’ environment, as they take forward a programme of services to meet local need. And, whilst they do this, the team have been told they must adapt and develop the nature of the programme itself so that, in accordance with new government policy, it becomes a more integrated and seamless provision.
That’s the way with nationally led programmes these days; and probably all for the better. But it does give rise to questions:
* How much development against how much change?
* How much adaptation of actual practice against just presentational adjustment to ensure that the service is used more effectively?
* How well equipped and resourced (professionally and materially) are those who must take forward the change?
* And…. will the intended recipients of the new, developed service find it helpful? How will we know if we’re providing the best we can?
I’m really looking forward to joining the team. They’re experienced and committed and will I know do everything they can to help me settle in and make progress. Agreeing what ‘making progress’ really means will I hope be an adventure in which we can all move forward together.
I shall in all probabality return on this website to specific policy issues at some point in the future, but for now I will make a few very cautious predictions about how I will learn from (and hopefully contribute to) the work in hand……
The first element of joining a team is the mapping – I’ll spend a while finding out in a bit more detail who’s who and what they do. Usually this begins to happen quite naturally in the course of actually finding out where things (the various venues? a desk? a phone?) are located. The practicals seem to take one also to the people.
Then there’s the analysis phase; are we all agreed that we have what we need? Who or what can plug the gaps – and to what extent? I know the team manager has already sorted the programme as it stands in considerable detail, but it will be interesting to swap notes with him and our colleagues about outstanding requirements for the anticipated changes ahead.
I’d guess the next stage after this will be consulting with others outside the immediate team; local authority decision-makers, other service providers, and of course with those who will be at the receiving end of the service. This is all so inter-related that it’s very difficult to predict how it will end up. But the main thing is to be clear about agreed objectives. Problems can usually be overcome if people know and are comfortable with what they’re aiming at.
And finally there’s implementation. At the moment details of what will be required of us all are still very outline; hopefully the government will give us rather more specific information and guidelines very shortly. It’s difficult for colleagues when they aren’t sure what’s expected, so that needs to be sorted a.s.a.p. (I’m never really certain those at the very top appreciate how difficult uncertainty can be for workers at the delivery face. Challenge is fine; destabilisation and all that follows from it may not be, from anyone’s persepctive.)
So there we go. A few predictions and comments for starters. I will of course steer quite clear of talking about details – that’s just for us as a team – but I’ll maybe return some time to say whether my expectations of process were on the ball….. Change is the order of the day, but it’s a relatively uncharted course in the practical sense for many who have to adapt to, and indeed deliver, it.
One of the best ways to learn is to test reality and the art of the possible against the expectational theory.
But whatever the shape of what we eventually come up with, I know that everyone on the project I’m joining for a while wants the best; and that’s a very good start.
Is Art Good For Your Health?
Why is commissioned art in hospitals such a problem for some? The evidence suggests that, just as much as in other public and work places, art can help people to be comfortable and positive.
There they are, the arbiters of ‘value’, getting very upset about money which has been spent in one or two hospitals on ‘art’. It’s a waste, they declare. We could be buying more drugs or equipment, but we’re squandering the readies on something that you just…. look at!
Well, perhaps these joyless folk haven’t grasped the concept of added value. Perhaps the evidence, from a variety of sources, that being happy (or at least, happier than before) helps you to get better has passed them by. If you can see green vistas, or pleasant pictures and images, you will relax more easily, and you may even be able to leave hospital a day or so earlier than if you’re stuck in a grey and souless place.
There are not that many ways in which service providers can actually save on overall budget and, at the same time, increase effectiveness and make people happier – but this is indeed one of them!
No-one seems to be saying that art is going to replace medical treatments. Proper consideration of clinical diagnosis and treatment must always be absolutely paramount. Medicine will however always be an art as well as a science.
If people in hospital have pleasant things to see and think about, if they can look at artefacts which help them to feel they are still connected with their wider comminuties and interests, if there are nice things to talk about with fellow patients, that makes a difference.
But ‘nice things to look at’ don’t just appear; they have to be created. I remember Adrian Henri, who painted murals for the operating theatre suite at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, recounting how much research he was obliged to do before he so much as lifted a brush. He had to ensure his images gave no unwitting offence or alarm to patients from many different faiths and cultures as they entered a place none of volunters to visit.
Perhaps those who choose to take such a high-handed and cold view of what’s appropriate for people in hospitals should remember that the evidence also points compellingly to the idea that pleasant workplaces are good… and that applies whether you work in a commercial office or a medical context. We all benefit from environments which make us comfortable and positive. And the evidence is there to show this benefit can be measured in outcomes even accountants would acknowledge.
Within sensible reason, let’s agree that there’s always a place, when were thinking about real people, for soul as well as science. Who knows when any of us might be in hospital and glad of a little visual cheer?
Facilitation & Leadership
Leaders offer direction; Facilitors generally should not. But how fluid is this distinction, and to what effect?
Do Leaders emerge or are they made? Are some Facilitators also Leaders? Or is the role of a Faciltator to bring about change through the agency of others – perhaps those who already have the mantle of Leadership, or perhaps others who will come to the fore via the process being facilitated?
The answer is probably that both these models apply in different circumstances.
A professional Facilitator (whether paid or not) is someone whose task is to bring forward responses from a group which has already asked for this to happen, maybe via an already established Leader.
On the other hand an informal Facilitator (usually a volunteer) may be someone who wants to get a group or interest established as an entity in itself. Such a person may well emerge from that group as a Leader.
And why are these distinctions important?
Again, the answers vary. Sometimes for instance informal facilitation is a route to significant developments which can be harnessed by, say, regeneration or other ‘official’ bodies to bring forward spokespeople for given interests. Conversely, on occasion it has been known for formal Facilitators to take upon themselves a leadership role acceptable by those who engaged them, but perhaps not by those whom they are facilitating.
The more the variables are considered, the more likely it is that the role claimed, Facilitator or Leader?, is that which is in fact being enacted.
Why Change Management can’t be perfect (as if you didn’t know)
Different communities and groups frequently have different understandings of why ‘change’ occurs and how ‘progress’ is achieved. Leadership and initiatives in such circumstances can be very challenging. Nobody’s interested in Policy Pilots. They want Results.
It’s always puzzled me, and the more I think about it, the more so…..
We all know that
(a) we live in times of rapid change,
(b) the variables in the changes are uncountable, and
(c) to whatever extent, change has to be eternally managed.
In other words, we are solidly aware that the whole process is unpredictable and subject to serendipity at every stage of the game. Plus, there’s never an end. Change is a dialectic as compelling as Time itself.
Why is ‘change’ a worry?
So why do so many people spend so much time criticising ‘Change’, and apparently so little time in general public discourse considering ‘Since Something Is Going To Happen Anyway, What Shall We All Do To Make It A Bit Better?’
Clearly, the myriad of forces which impel change as such also apply to the motivators and causal factors behind any individual’s reaction to that change. There are psychological ones, socio-political ones, geo-economic ones… The list could go on.
There is also however a general cultural factor which probably applies diffierently at different times and in different places, whether we are thinking about huge historical eras or micro-contexts like single workplaces.
Here are some possible scenarios to which one might be able to apply specific examples.. just fill in with your own!
The cultural backdrop
In some cultural understandings – and again these may be micro as well as macro – there is a sense simply that Things Happen. This probably includes amongst other ‘Things’ people who are outside the group, who are perceived with whatever degree of acceptance or resistance to be the agents of the change…. No good communicating with them, because ‘We’ won’t make any impact, so just wait and see, and then judge the outcome.
Then there are other cultural understandings which may suggest that, whilst ‘We’ are aware of what’s going on, the option of complaint later is preferable to taking early responsibility for what arises. The Comfort Zone is visible, but is safer than expending the time and energy which a pro-active response would require.
And finally there are cultural understandings which just fail to appreciate the fluid nature of the process of developing ideas. In this case, people do know how to interrogate proposals and they may well have strong views, but they see every decision and outcome as cast in stone.
This last is a particularly difficult position to address, but one familiar to many of us who attempt to initiate Managed Change.
Vague ideas which leave things hanging…
You perhaps go into a situation with a remit to support constructive developments, and you ask those concerned what they think. Their response is, ‘Well, what do you want?’……
But you know that, come the time when plans crystallise into actions, there will be plenty of advice on What You Should Have Done.
The dialectic of such development is challenging. Not everyone sees any difference between Change and ‘Consensual Progress’; nor does everyone want to. If you as an initiator emphasise the plasticity of outcomes, you are accused of not knowing your stuff; but if you offer directional leadership (is there any other sort?) you are of course autocratic.
It’s all a matter of perspective, as any politician or organisational head attempting to pilot his or her favourite policy will tell you.
Empowerment
Empowering people and communities to believe that things can usually change consensually for the better – that only very rarely is there no space for adjustment – is one of the most difficult aspects of community leadership, whatever the ‘community’.
Perhaps one of the first steps in this direction is the acknowledgement that we all, You, Me, Them, make mistakes; and that it IS possible to learn from and act on these, positively.
Dreaming Realist 