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Science Strategy

Defra's Response to the OSI Review of Defra Science

Defra has published its official response (pdf icon 71Kb) to the OSI Review of Defra Science. The outcome of the review was an extremely positive achievement for Defra. It is by far the most complimentary review to date of any Government Department, reflecting the commitment of our colleagues across the Department and in the Defra family. The review, published December 2006, praised the quality and excellence of Defra science, demonstrating that Defra shows exemplary practice in important respects, such as Science Quality Assurance and Horizon Scanning.

The review explored the ways in which Defra can maintain and improve the quality and use of its science and made a number of recommendations as to how this could be done. Defra's positive response to the review sets out how we will seek to meet the recommendations and continue to improve our use and management of science.

Our Approach to Evidence & Innovation

Update : October 2006 - Defra publishes "Our Approach to E&I" (pdf icon 186Kb). This document, developed through our Evidence & Innovation Strategy (E&IS) presents a corporate overview of how Defra manages evidence and innovation, and outlines the future actions that the department plans to take in this area.

Details of the development of individual plans to meet the E&I needs of each of Defra's Strategic Outcomes are also described here.

Vision

The main aim of the Evidence and Innovation Strategy (E&IS) project was to provide a current assessment of Defra's evidence and innovation (E&I) needs, and drive improvement in Defra's understanding of how evidence and innovation can best support delivery of the department's Strategic Outcomes (as defined in Defra's Five Year Strategy). This set out Defra's overall objectives and priorities, identifying the strategic outcomes that provided a base from which Our Approach to E&I (pdf icon 186Kb) was developed. This work built upon our "Science and Innovation Strategy 2003-06" published in 2003 and "Delivering the Evidence: Defra's needs from the sciences over the next ten years" (pdf icon 1.7Mb) published in 2004.

Stakeholder inputs to the E&IS

A public consultation on the E&IS closed in January 2006. The aim of the consultation exercise was to receive feedback on:

  • whether Defra has identified the right priorities for the evidence and innovation activities required to deliver our Strategic Outcomes and policy goals;
  • on the approach taken to produce the final document; and
  • how Defra should work with other organisations to deliver evidence and innovation needs in support of policy goals.

We received input from a wide variety of stakeholders and Science Strategy Team has worked closely with colleagues across Defra to produce the 'Our Approach to Evidence and Innovation' document and plans for meeting the evidence and innovation needs associated with each strategic outcome.

We feel that the consultation process has improved our engagement with stakeholders, including key suppliers and potential partners, about how the E&IS can be delivered with their support and collaboration.

Defra is keen to maintain engagement with our stakeholders in order to ensure that we continue to identify the right evidence and innovation priorities in the future. The Science Strategy Team is happy to receive comments on Defra's overall approach to evidence and innovation and is also happy to direct any input relating to any of the Strategic Outcomes.

Developing our future approach

Science Strategy Team held a scoping workshop in June 2006 as part of a series of activities designed to review the approach taken through the Evidence and Innovation Strategy (E&IS), and open up discussion on how Defra's approach to E&I can be taken forward in the future. The event was held in conjunction with the National School for Government and IBM, and was attended by Defra policy officials and specialists, and science strategy and policy experts from other organisations and academia. Presentations and background papers made at the event are available here:

The final outputs of this workshop has now been produced following consultation with workshop attendees and is available here (pdf icon 114KB).

Related work

In June 2005 Defra commissioned the University of Cambridge to explore the extent to which engineering as a discipline could provide thinking, tools and specific techniques to contribute to the formulation of sustainable development policy. The results of this rapid review are available here (pdf icon 129Kb).

In March 2005 the Science Strategy Team launched the External Funders Mapping project, a sub-project of the E&IS 2005-08. This project was set up to deliver a database of high-level mapping of the UK and international public-funded science activities that are relevant to Defra.

Contact

For further information, please contact: research.policy@defra.gsi.gov.uk

Page last modified: 12 February 2007
Page published: 12 February 2007

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