ABSTRACT
The year 1992 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Rothschild Report, which set out the customer/contractor principle on which United Kingdom (UK) policy for expenditure on applied R&D is based. This requires a clear customer to commission research and development (R&D) from a contractor, so for applied R&D there are as many ministers responsible as there are customer departments: energy, agriculture, and the rest. In a White Paper, published in July 1987, the British Government announced a number of changes to strengthen the central machinery for dealing with science and technology policy. It stated that particular emphasis would be given to the determination of priorities for science and technology across government. This would be done, each year, as part of the Public Expenditure Survey process. To examine the specific area of fundamental science, it should be explained that the UK Science Budget is administered by the Department of Eduation and Science.
