Offline: Celebrating the Francis Crick Institute, with questions

摘要

Sitting over lunch with a scientist who serves on the governing body of a well-known UK research funder, together with the former Dean of a British medical school (and now one his university's senior administrators), the conversation turned to the Francis Crick Institute. The "Crick" is expected to become a jewel in the crown of global medical research. Initially founded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, and University College London (and more recently joined by Imperial College and King's College), the Francis Crick Institute says of itself that it "will play a key role in creating the foundation of knowledge on which this century's improvements in health will be based". That is a big and ambitious claim. With 1250 scientists working together in a single centre, a start-up investment of ￡650 million, and an annual operating budget of ￡100 million, the possibilities for discovery science are certainly great. But if one talks to medical scientists outside London, admiration for the Crick is sometimes only skin deep. Some senior researchers privately express concern that the Crick will draw talent out of provincial research-intensive universities, leaving the Crick stronger but non-London centres weaker. My two lunch companions went further. The Crick will draw talent out of London institutions too, they said. If you are in the capital but not at the Crick, you may well be seen to be at a second-class institution. Also, they continued, there is no scientific strategy for the Crick. The hope seems to be that putting together extraordinary people into an extraordinary environment will somehow create a scientific alchemy of phenomenally productive proportions. That is not going to work, I was told. The Crick needs a strategy. It needs a clear set of goals.