Back to the future
Cambridge & Great Eastern Regional Group Event review: Foresight
 In the mid-1990s, the UK's Office
of Science and Technology published
a series of recommendations about
the future of British science and
technology. The idea was to identify
and implement a focus for activities
that would keep the country competitive,
not only in its science but
also in its wealth creation. Expert
panels from fifteen business sectors
produced recommendations and
identified futuristic scenarios for
life in 2015.
Peter Lillford was the chairman
of the Food and Drink Sector panel.
But having invested so much effort
in this initiative, he wondered why
nobody in government was tracking
its success and learning from its
mistakes. So he undertook his own
review and on 17 May 2007 he addressed
an audience in the Pfizer Lecture
Theatre of the department of chemistry
at Cambridge University, UK.
During the lecture, he recalled
highlights of what some of the expert
panels said might, or should,
happen. Some now appear to be
cringe-making sci-fi fantasy, but
some were close to the truth. At that
time, there was great confidence in
the fossil fuel industry, nobody was
sure whether climate change was
real, and there were few genetically
modified plants.
Explaining the ‘sectoral drivers’ used in the original analysis, he
examined agriculture and the environment,
the industrial sectors
of energy, chemicals, and food and
drink, and the service sectors of
retailing and financial services.
Even then, signs of the continuing
shift of the UK from manufacturing
industry to a tertiary sector economy
were already evident.
The key question posed at the
end of the lecture, and which continued
in the discussion afterwards,
was how can lessons be learned from
this review? Can this study be used
to help clarify current science and
technology priorities, in order to
meet future global economic and
environmental challenges? It definitely
seems a good place to start.
John Wilkins
Cambridge and Great
Eastern Regional Group
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