Comprehensive Spending Review: our response, built on your input
Invest in UK research and innovation, support a brilliant science education and protect our environment. That’s the message from the Royal Society of Chemistry to the Chancellor ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
The Comprehensive Spending Review sets out the UK Government’s spending priorities for the next three years and will be presented by the Chancellor on 27 October. Ahead of the announcement we have been setting out the Royal Society Chemistry’s priorities and telling the Treasury why the chemical sciences need to be at the forefront of the economic recovery.
Writing to the Treasury, we said that the Comprehensive Spending Review must set out how the UK Government can continue to support and develop Research & Development and the chemical sciences sector at this crucial moment – through providing long-term certainty on research funding, supporting excellent chemistry education, enabling deep-tech chemistry SMEs to solve a range of problems, and investing to improve our environment.
Our response goes on to highlight the importance of the chemical sciences and chemistry skills to many different areas of the economy and adds that a future talent pipeline of skilled chemists will be needed to achieve net zero ambitions and tackle other challenges, for example in health.
Throughout the pandemic we have looked to science to provide the answers, and time and time again science has delivered. From vaccine development and testing to innovating new technologies. And the chemical sciences are well placed to continue to deliver as we look to the economic recovery and tackling the big issues like sustainability and the climate emergency.
It’s time for the Government to back the sciences and provide a clear roadmap on its ambitions to cement the UKs position as a science superpower.
The Chancellor needs to outline how he will support today’s researchers and tomorrow’s innovators through the Government’s funding decisions. He needs to show he understands the value of our chemistry departments at higher education institutions and their role in creating a resilient UK and protecting the talent pipeline. He needs to show he supports our teachers and educators through subject specific CPD and helping them make up for training time lost due to the pandemic. And he needs to understand the role the chemical sciences will play in tackling the climate emergency
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We are asking supporters to get involved by writing to their MP highlighting the RSC submission – you can support the campaign by adding your details here.
Read our CSR submission
The full submission from the RSC to HM treasury can be found here.