I thought the following interviews might be of general interest.  Both are with recently appointed science leaders.  Both, among other things, major on the need for greater collaboration in research.

Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES) interviews the new President of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Sir John Tooke.

Sir John chaired the discussion panel I was on last week about the health research environment.  I found him very engaged and interested in the discussion around patient and public priorities for research, more than his interview suggests; a sound successor to Sir John Bell in my view.

Also the new EU Chief Scientist, Anne Glover, is interviewed by PublicServiceEurope.com.  She covers an awful lot of ground and there’s a lot about evidence-based policy-making, championing science etc etc.

On the good side it is refreshing to hear from a science leader who seems genuinely interested in the issue of diversity and equality.  I was also interested in her take on GM foods that ’emotion’ had got the better of ‘evidence’ in the debate.  I wouldn’t disagree with that.  But I would hazard a suggestion that this points to the need for a different strategy completely by science than simply ‘parking the evidence’ again as she puts it.

‘Evidence-led emotion perhaps?’