The Taylor report called for the establishment of 2-3 nanotechnology centres, situated in association with existing centres of academic nanotechnology strength, funded at a level of £25m /year, together with a number of other sensible measures. As Tom suggests, this is not what happened – a smaller amount of money was spread very much more thinly, and was made to cover microtechnology as well as nanotechnology.

I don’t know why the MNT program as implemented turned out to be so different from the recommendations of the Taylor report. This was in the days of the DTI, before the formation of the Technology Strategy Board.

It also saddens me that great scientific breakthroughs from the UK end up being commercially exploited elsewhere. The UK led the Industrial Revolution, and scientifically was a leader for Nuclear as well as micro electronics – nanotechnology would have been a great time to learn from past mistakes and the country taken a lead again.

I agree with Richard, Tim and Nick.

Your comments about the political interface are interesting. Before Govt can listen it needs to hear. In the Science Matters debate any significant voice of industry or those who care about commercial viability was drowned out by the cacophony from the Science Community, which is a well organised and vociferous community especially when it comes to protecting their interests.

At the time the response from industry, as ever, was apparently mooted. This was taken as tacit support for public money into University research. What Govt did not realise is that they did not hear from industry, and so therefore could not listen, not because of tacit support but because the patient was dead.

There is no UK industrial community of any scale to justify the investment. But the amazing thing is that has been the position in the UK for almost 30 years, what is happening in nanotech is not that new I’m afraid.

It is beginning to dawn on various communities that the symbiosis I have been banging on about for 20 years is almost impossible to create overnight and requires building on legacy capabilities. These are the very same legacy capabilities that we, as a country, have happily thrown away over a generation. So sadly UK Science should matter to the UK but it doesn’t.

I agree with Tim’s assessment.

i think your last point hits the nail on the head. Countries such as Germany, Japan and the US have large technology hungry industries who are eager to assist and advise on translational research. The UK economy is more service based, and banks and coffee shops don’t gain any competitive advantage from nanotechnologies (or at least not in a direct visible bottom line manner).

What worries me most is the increasing gap between academic excellence in the UK and the economic applications of this creativity. If the purpose of the UKs universities is merely to provide gainful employment for a small number of academics while churning out graduates who then become business analysts we have lost sight of something very important.

Another worry is that the UK government reaction to the criticism of nanotechnology seems to have been to give up because it is ‘hard’ – a very different attitude to most other economies.