He welcomed the extra funding for science and promised to continue his push for year-on-year investment. A total of £1.9 billion extra funding has now been announced since the Comprehensive Spending Review 2010.
Julian said: “This is excellent news. Scientific research drives economic growth, innovation and improved wellbeing - particularly here in Cambridge - but in the past it has been underfunded and undervalued in the UK.
“Our government is showing a real commitment to science which supports our research programme; making sure that we stay at the cutting edge and retain our global standing. This brings huge benefits driving innovation and in turn economic growth.
“But the Lib Dems will continue to fight for a 15-year annual increase in our science budget to make sure that we can attract the brightest minds in science and research and push forward with our ground breaking research.”
Notes
1. The Campaign for Science and Engineering have calculated that £1.1bn of new spending on science has been announced by Government since the 2010 spending review, with an additional £200m going towards projects run by the Technology Strategy Board.
2. Julian Huppert’s Liberal Democrat Party Conference policy motion on Science can be found here http://www.libdems.org.uk/siteFiles/resources/docs/conference/2012-Autumn/F21.pdf and the full paper at http://tinyurl.com/scipol
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