Voice of British science fights for the future of British research

Venki Ramakrishnan reacted with disbelief to the two most important phone calls of her working life. In October 2009, he refused for several minutes to believe that his interlocutor was indeed the secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, informing him that he had won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, rather than a joker with a Scandinavian accent.

Then in early 2015 Sir Venki (who was knighted in 2012) received a call from a vice president of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of sciences, asking him if he would consider becoming one. the president, the most prestigious scientific position in the country.

“Initially I thought he was contacting me for other people’s suggestions,” recalls Sir Venki. He soon realized that he had been probed for the best job, but still objected to his appointment, for technical and personal reasons, as the caller became increasingly irritated. “I didn’t think I was particularly suited for this job,” he says.

Eventually Sir Venki – a molecular biologist known for his endearing modesty – came up with the idea and was appointed PRS, as the presidency is known in scientific circles, for a five-year term ending Monday.

The Royal Society is one of the world’s oldest and most influential scientific bodies, housed in a large building overlooking St James’s Park in central London. It is a self-governing scholarship, which spends £ 130 million annually on a mission that dates back to its founding in 1660: “Recognize, promote and support excellence in science and encourage the development and use of science for the benefit of humanity. ” In addition to 210 employees, the Royal Society can mobilize hundreds of volunteers from its 1,700 foreign colleagues and members.

Sir Venki, 68, started in 2015 with a series of issues he wanted to pursue as PRS: “improving international relations, public engagement – and I was particularly passionate about education reform.” But two unexpected developments got in the way. Brexit – and how to protect research from its negative effects – has been a “total distraction” for more than four years. And Covid-19 has dominated this year. “I’ll be called president from B to C rather than A to Z”, he jokes, “because I was only able to move from Brexit to Covid.”

Sir Venki’s background as a world scientist, rather than as a member of the great and successful British scientific institute, was one of the reasons he was surprised to be chosen for the role of PRS, but he used it effectively to support the maintenance of maximum contacts. for British science after Brexit.

“I arrived in Britain relatively late, in my forties,” he says. “I had no net here. I didn’t know a wide range of people. I certainly didn’t know anyone outside of science. “

Sir Venki grew up in a middle-class family in South India – both parents were scientists – and moved to the United States after graduation, working at various American universities before becoming a parent company at the famous “award factory.” Nobel Prize “from Cambridge, the MRC laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1999.

One of the reasons he accepted the PRS position, he says, is that “it would be a good symbol for someone from outside the UK, in old age, to be accepted enough to lead the voice of British science. I thought he sent a good message about opening up Britain. “

Following the referendum result, Sir Venki mobilized the Royal Society and other scientific organizations to fend off potential damage to research from the impression that Brexit has given the UK a less welcoming and more xenophobic society. But it had to operate in compliance with the rules set by the Charity Commission. “Even if we can’t take a stand on a political issue, we can affirm the possible consequences of something that happens,” he says.

The campaign was partially successful, according to Sir Venki, in two respects: guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens to remain in Britain; and persuade the government to introduce a visa program that makes it “relatively easy” to recruit researchers not only from Europe but from anywhere in the world.

It continues to fight for its third goal – maintaining the UK’s involvement with major EU research programs after Brexit – which is still in the air. “Three weeks ago I wrote to the prime minister urging him to get an agreement on the British association with Horizon Europe, because this is so important for the future of British science,” he says.

When reports of Covid-19 arrived from China in January, followed by the first cases in the UK in February and the start of a large-scale outbreak in March, ministers were “hugely distracted” by Brexit and its consequences, says Sir Venki. This contributed to the government’s slow response and failure to impose a life-saving early lockdown, he adds.

In early March he attended a meeting of the Science and Technology Council at 10 Downing Street “with the prime minister actually spending time with us,” he says. “Everything revolved around these moonshine for future global Britain and becoming a scientific superpower, and there was hardly any hint of the pandemic. . . I think Brexit and the transition could not have come at a worse time in terms of a pandemic. “

Under the leadership of Sir Venki, the Royal Society quickly established a series of expert groups to advise on various aspects of the Covid-19 response, such as data analysis.

“For example, we looked at the mask debate early on, when reputable scientists were very skeptical about the effectiveness of face coverings,” he says. While there were no rigorous clinical trial results to show they reduced coronavirus transmission, the Royal Society found good evidence from physical and observational studies to support the advice to wear them. After appearing on radio and television to advocate wearing masks in public, “I have received many hate letters from crazy people who think of masks as somehow a violation of their civil liberties.”

The new PRS is distinguished statistician Adrian Smith, who is CEO of the Alan Turing Institute, the national center for data science and artificial intelligence. Unlike Sir Venki five years ago, Sir Adrian is a person at the heart of the UK’s scientific establishment.

The selection procedure this time was less opaque and more systematic than when Sir Venki appeared unexpectedly from the fog. “There was a shortlist, there was actually an interview process,” he says. “But the election itself is what I call a North Korean election because the council decides on a name and the vote goes to all comrades who only have that name.”

While chairing the Royal Society, Sir Venki went on to run a laboratory at the LMB, investigating the biochemical processes that translate genes into proteins. Now he can spend more time on this research, as he writes a second book to track success Gene Machine: the race to decipher the secrets of the ribosome, who described the work that led to his Nobel Prize.

“I enjoy public engagement and I enjoy writing,” he says. “The next book will talk about aging and death. It’s an interesting biological problem, but I’m also motivated by the fact that anti-aging has become a multibillion dollar industry and I feel there is something wrong with it. “

Three questions for Venki Ramakrishnan

Who is your leadership hero?

Lawrence Bragg. Still the youngest person to win a Nobel Prize in Science at the age of 25, he went on to feed generations of great scientists with his encouraging and empathetic ways and his refusal to take credit for the work of his juniors. His vision helped launch two fantastic fields outside his field of crystallography: molecular biology and radio astronomy.

What was the first leadership lesson you learned?

Having ambitious goals and not being seduced by what is easy but banal. Try to surround yourself with people as bright as you are, give them independence and a sense of ownership of their work, and never be afraid to show ignorance or ask for help.

What would you do if you weren’t a science leader?

If I had had talent, creativity and courage, I would have liked to have been a writer or a musician. They put so much of themselves into their work and then risk exposing everything to the merciless judgment of the public.