Science and Discovery Centres (Funding)

I am sure that the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) is more than capable of defending himself. I shall speak directly about the STEM agenda in a moment. Science centres are not the only means of engaging the population with science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Indeed, all three Departments have already made a significant investment, reaching many millions of children and adults as a result. The House will doubtless be aware that DIUS—and previously the DTI—has supported more than 18,000 science and engineering ambassadors, the BA crest awards, national science and engineering week, and the Sciencewise programme; those are just a few examples. We are also working closely with the DCMS and the Natural History museum in their Darwin200 celebrations. The Department for Children, Schools and Families is funding a wide range of activities to engage and inspire young people in science. Among them are science and engineering clubs. The DCMS is already funding 250 such clubs, and it will be setting up another 250 this autumn. It has also commissioned a programme of support and guidance aimed at increasing the number of young people continuing their study of STEM subjects post-16. Alongside that, the DCSF has begun a three-year STEM communications campaign to inform pupils, parents and others of the wide-ranging and exciting opportunities that are open to students when they study STEM subjects and achieve qualifications. A lot of work is involved in the STEM agenda. Due to sustained increases in Government funding for education, a far higher level of money per pupil is going to our schools. Schools have the capacity to take children on school visits as part of the curriculum. I am keen for science centres to promote themselves—for instance, so that schoolchildren in the midlands are encouraged to go to Thinktank or the National Space Centre rather than to Alton Towers or Legoland. That would be far better for them, but it is up to science centres to promote themselves to schools. Given the wide-ranging activities that are taking place on the STEM agenda, DIUS has committed itself to undertaking research into the effectiveness and impact of science centres, a commitment that we made in the Government response in January. I know that that is eagerly anticipated within the sector. It seemed right for Ecsite-uk to complete and publish its results, which it did last month. We are now in a position to build on that work and to develop the strongest possible evidence base on which to make future decisions. I know that some believe that we should have commissioned the research before, but our judgment was that we wanted to see the findings from Ecsite-uk's work before taking the next step. We are now ready to launch a call for proposals. We know from the recently completed Research Councils UK-DIUS survey of public attitudes to science and Ecsite-uk's figures that significant numbers visit science and discovery centres. That is not up for debate, but we need a measurable impact of their contributions, and a more in-depth understanding of that contribution relative to the many and varied initiatives and offerings that are already out there. That is something that the Select Committee pressed us to do and we will do it. On research, as we indicated in our response to the Committee, researchers will consider the relative contributions of our delivery partners to our science and society goals. We will want them to assess existing evidence, and to suggest the best way in which we can unravel the complexities of the contribution, value for money and effectiveness of the initiatives now in place. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough asked about timing. I hope that we will be able to commission that work within the next few weeks. I have been talking to officials about the time scale for the project. I would like a draft final report to be published in September, and a final report in October. My officials, however, advise me that that might be ““A little quick, Minister””, and that science centres might need more time to get the information to the consultants who are to be appointed to undertake that work. I shall ask my officials to talk to Ecsite-uk about establishing a reasonable time scale for the project. If the feeling of the science centre community is that it will not get the work done to the required level until December, I shall happily agree. However, like the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), I want to get on with it.