Stephen J. Watson

ON 18 September, the people of Scotland have a precious chance to vote for independence. There are many reasons to vote yes: I believe the health of Scottish science is one of them.

For now, Scotland’s science and technology funding is delivered primarily by UK national departments. But , Scotland receives about 17 per cent less of such UK expenditure than its share of the UK population would warrant. Furthermore, Scotland’s gross expenditure on R&D is just 1.3 per cent of its GDP, less than the UK’s 1.7 per cent and woefully below the EU average of about 2 per cent.

This comes against a backdrop of cuts in the UK science budget. According to the , by 2016 the annual budget will have been eroded by ÂŁ1.1 billion since 2010, about 20 per cent of the total. This erosion is not consistent with high-quality, curiosity-driven research that drives economic success. An independent Scotland would have the ability to provide a fresh approach.

Scotland has an enviable scientific history, and Scottish science is still very strong. An independent Scotland will be better placed economically to further support it. In an analysis of Scotland’s potential, the Financial Times concluded Scotland would be one of the world’s top 20 richest countries. Credit-ratings agency Standard & Poor’s calculates that Scotland would have a higher GDP per capita than Germany and the UK.

Independence will permit Scotland to further advance its existing strengths, such as in biomedical sciences. It will also open up opportunities in sustainability science to support a “blue economy” based on the 421,000 square kilometres of sea around Scotland, which contain incredible fish stocks, oil and gas reserves and vast renewable-energy potential.

Voting yes to independence would provide a constitutional blank slate on which science can be written into the heart of government. Furthermore, there is good evidence emerging through the grassroots yes movement that the creative skills of the Scots would be unleashed by self-determination.

“There is good evidence that the creative skills of the Scots would be unleashed by self-determination”

Reaching out to those who harbour some anxieties about the effect on research, Michael Atiyah, former president of both the UK Royal Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, wrote in The Times in July: “
with mutual goodwill there will be solutions to a host of technical problems.”

I urge those who care about the future of Scottish science to follow Atiyah’s lead and say: “I intend to vote ‘yes’ to independence for Scotland.”

Andrew Miller

AS PART of the UK, Scotland is a global leader in research. This success is based on substantial UK funding and unhindered collaboration within the most efficient research system in the world. As active and influential members of the UK research community, scientists in Scotland enjoy an enviably fertile and productive environment. Separation would break this up and create barriers to collaboration and quality-enhancing competition.

The environment we currently share produces 14 per cent of the world’s most highly cited papers. The intense competition and easy flow of researchers among leading UK universities and laboratories drives up standards, while the UK’s global reach allows us to maintain facilities anywhere from Antarctica to West Africa.

Scotland’s crucial contribution to the world’s sixth-biggest economy allows us to build major facilities such as the synchrotron near Oxford and the in Edinburgh, while playing a leading role in international collaborations such as CERN and the European Space Agency.

Talented and creative Scots are influential in UK research, benefiting both the UK and Scotland. Separation would harm this synergy. It would be crazy to pull out of this community in which resources and personnel are shared cooperatively. Of course small countries can succeed, but the full-spectrum of UK capabilities would be lost.

The yes campaign makes some incredible claims – that research would somehow be improved by negotiating to keep what we already enjoy. The legal and practical realities mean that a yes vote is a vote to walk away from the UK research councils. In addition, major UK science charities such as the Wellcome Trust and the Association of Medical Research Charities have concerns that medical research would be particularly at risk.

The Scottish National Party asserts that somehow everything will continue, even though no precedent exists for such a cross-border system. The experts and the evidence are making it apparent that this is wishful thinking. Concerns have been expressed by Nobel laureate Paul Nurse, 16 leading medical researchers in Scotland, nine former principals of Scottish universities and a former chief medical officer of Scotland.

Uncosted promises have been made and researchers assured that funding will not fall – despite there being no clarity on what currency an independent Scotland would adopt. How clinical trials could work if split across multiple jurisdictions, ethical bodies and populations has also not been addressed.

To settle for less than being a global leader in science is to sell Scotland short. Scottish research is thriving as part of the UK, and its future is brightest as part of it. For these reasons I will be saying “no thanks” to this ill-judged proposal for separation.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Scotland’s science future”

Claud Nofre and Jean-Marie Tinti, of the Claude Bernard University in
Lyon, discovered the new sweeteners as part of their research on modelling
the sweetness receptor on the tongue. In 1982, they found that a hybrid
between aspartame and another sweetener, suosan, turned out to be 50 000
times as sweet as sugar. Aspartame itself is only 200 times as sweet as
sugar.

Now, in collaboration with Nutrasweet, the two Frenchmen have created
a series of sweet compounds that fall into two related classes: aryl ureas
and trisubstituted guanidines. Nutrasweet is developing several of these
and hopes to launch the best candidate on the market around 1993, provided
it passes safety tests.

Although the number and structure of sweetness receptors involved in
the human response to a sweet taste have yet to be fully understood, the
French team now believe that there is only one type of receptor involved
in the mechanism. The new compounds, they think, have reached the limit
where only one molecule of sweetener is needed to activate each receptor.
Nofre and Tinti will present details of their research at next month’s meeting
of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

The great advantage of the ‘second-generation’ sweeteners will be their
economy: the compounds are so strong that far smaller quantities of them
are needed to sweeten a given volume of liquid. If approved, they are likely
to displace aspartame from uses such as low-calorie carbonated drinks. Last
year, Nutrasweet’s aspartame had worldwide sales worth $869 million – or
about 1.25 per cent of the world sweetener market, including sugar.

Given the limits of human sweetness receptors, Nofre believes it unlikely
that anyone will ever develop anything sweeter than the new compound.

He and Tinti have developed a model of the site on the tongue’s sweetness
receptors to which the molecules of the compounds bind. They based their
model on the way the receptors react to the new compounds. By comparing
how variations in the compound’s structures affect their activity with the
receptors, the researchers were able to isolate the compounds which showed
the greatest activity, and hence sweetness.

For Nutrasweet, the success of a new sweetener is important. Aspartame,
which is now a common ingredient in many low-calorie foods and beverages,
has reached the end of its patent in Europe and will do so in 1992 in the
US. Whichever of the candidates finally emerges from development, it will
be considerably cheaper than anything else on the market.