Decision to cut ties with CaSE is an embarrassment to Imperial

Imperial College London does not train its students to paint. It does not teach its students the philosophical differences between Hegel and Nietzsche. In fact it doesn’t teach anything except science, engineering, and medicine – the Business School aside. These things will not be revelations to any of you, we would hope, but the reason for stating them so plainly is to demonstrate the perversity of the following sentence. Imperial College London no longer supports the UK’s most high-profile science lobby group, the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE).

Our institution, the only solely science-focussed university in the country, has decided that our affiliation with CaSE no longer “adds value to the College’s activities”. We think that this is nonsense and that Imperial has a duty to support the science community in the UK; a community in which CaSE is a influential and valued member.

Let’s first consider the cost of our affiliation: £3,000 according to some reports. (CaSE declined to confirm this figure but said, “it wasn’t far off.”) Last year Imperial reported a surplus (or profit, in everyday terms) of £41.3 million. It should be patently clear that our subscription to CaSE was not breaking the bank. Imperial can easily afford it.

But we should not simply be wasting money, no matter how small the sum. Some kind of cost-benefit analysis is in order. So is it worth spending around £3,000 per year to support CaSE. The lobbying and campaigning of CaSE arguably influenced two extremely important government decisions this year. Research funding got off comparatively lightly during the government’s round of spending cuts and important concessions to scientists were made in the government’s immigration strategy. The financial benefit to Imperial of these successes is difficult to calculate, but the idea that in helping to protect Imperial from harsher government cuts that CaSE has not added value to the College’s activities is laughable.

Obviously Imperial will benefit from CaSE’s lobbying efforts regardless of whether we support them financially or not. But CaSE increasingly speaks for the community that Imperial is supposed to be at the heart of. Read reports about the debate over science funding and it is obvious that Imran Khan, the Director of CaSE and an Imperial alumnus, is an extremely effective spokesperson for the science community. Imperial’s decision suggests that we don’t value CaSE’s efforts; it suggests that we don’t support its campaigns; and it suggests that the most coherent and influential voice in support of scientific research in the UK doesn’t speak for Imperial College London. This decision is frankly embarrassing and should be reversed immediately.