News

Risking accusations of riding a hobby horse, I return to the subject of the importance of scientists, engineers, and technologists in industry and the need to elevate their status to equal that of salesmen and marketers.

Such a matter must be urgently confronted as the nation strives to compete in a global knowledge economy. Furthermore the printing industry is heavily reliant on technology in its ceaseless quest for improved efficiency and productivity. Capital intensity in the printing processes demands an equivalent level of intellectual capital to marshal, direct, and manage the resources.

Scientists and technologists are the lifeblood of an industry, a statement that applies axiomatically to the suppliers of machinery and systems, but similarly to technical management in larger printing companies as the processes become more automated, computerised, and integrated.

If anybody doubts the scale and importance of research to the industry, I refer them to some statistics reported by PrintWeek some time ago, in late 2006. The article cites an £8bn expenditure on research and development by printing equipment manufacturers.

Research and development activity of this scale requires a sustained scientific infrastructure, but the portents in the UK are discouraging. Evidence shows that swelling numbers of students elect to pursue the arts and humanities in preference to the sciences that are perceived as tougher. It is reckoned that a third of university physics faculties have closed in the last decade.

Applications for teacher training in science have diminished. Also the proportion of GDP spent on research in the UK lags behind that of the USA and some European neighbours. Clearly the country needs to stir from its torpor and without delay.