A Science Officer In London

At the end of September our Vancouver-based Science Officer, (the delightful) Paolo Marcazzan, headed to London for a week of training and meetings. These kinds of trips are essential to the work of the Science & Innovation team; keeping up to the minute with UK science policy developments is much easier when you sit down for a chat with the people making or advising on those policies. Trips are also important for project work – all of our bilateral science projects have partner organisations in Canada and in the UK, and meeting researchers at UK universities helps move the collaboration agenda forward.

This all sounds a bit dry when I explain it, but Paolo’s account of his week is far more whimsical and entertaining…

You know you’re in London when you fight the jet-lag for the first three full days you spend with thirteen colleagues from consulates and embassies the world over, tucked in the attic room of 1 Compton House Terrace, at the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, or IM³ as people here familiarly name it, learning the intricacies of energy policies.  Speakers are brought in over three days to brief you on the UK’s energy strategy for the next decades, to discuss the science and policy-making aspects of Climate Change, the implications of the Stern review, and the UK’s carbon reduction policies. Adam Sanbrook of the FCO reminds you that CC remains central to the foreign policy approach of the new administration, and other speakers illustrate the risk and vulnerability nodes of a highly interconnected transnational energy production and distribution infrastructure. The UK’s target of 30% of the energy supply from renewables by 2020 extends the discussion to the cutting-edge technological capabilities that the UK has developed, and niche markets for UK expertise. Inside-trade bit: the recognised way to pronounce IPCCC within the Climate Change parlour is never by spelling out the “C, C, C” final sequence, but by compacting it into a triple C.

You know you’re in London when you find yourself sitting around the reception of the Foreign Office, on the last sunny but cold morning of September, waiting for Dr. David Clary, the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Foreign Secretary. And then he arrives, an affable gentleman, and declares open a fifteen-minute window before he has to dash off again, during which he walks you around the majestic Italianate architecture and buys you coffee. Throughout, the two of you discuss the strengths of science in Britain, its prominence in medical research and advanced technologies, and the importance of the new priorities of the Foreign Commonwealth Office – a message to all S&I officers across sectors: keep commercial interests in mind. You bring him up to speed on the recent expansion of the Canada Science and Innovation team, which has now extended its reach and scope across the country with the acquisition of three new officers – yourself included – and on the number of UK-Canada bilateral initiatives that the team is pushing forward, spanning HIV research, science policy,  photonics, and cyber-security. Crossing the inside court on the way out, he points you to the arch that looks straight onto 10 Downing as he sees you off.

You know you’re in London when you set out from County Hall, where your hotel sits just behind The Eye, under the mist of a gray morning and into October already, to walk across the Jubilee Bridge – it makes you think of Calatrava’s architecture– and all the way up Tottenham Court Rd. until you get to the bohemian flavour of Bloomsbury – Charles Dickens’ grave rests somewhere in the neighborhood– to discuss in person a couple of UK-Canada science collaboration initiatives you’ve thus far chased from afar. You put faces to the names of the brilliant researchers from two groups at University College London who are keen to connect with your geographically remote base – the Canadian West Coast – and establish collaborative links in medical (HIV/AIDS) and crime security research with the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, two prominent institutions that share and complement their expertise and excellence in these fields.

You know you’re in London because, and in spite of the Big Ben being less imposing than you had thought, it is only in London that you can find and visit places like the British Museum, or the National Gallery – for free.

You know, I was in London.