Role of the DfT Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA)

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The role of the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA)

The CSA's role is to ensure that the Department's scientific activities are well directed and that policy development is soundly based on good science. This is achieved by challenging the scientific content and quality of the Department's policies at a strategic level and working with heads of profession and research programme managers to ensure high quality and fitness for purpose of the science and research funded by DfT including its agencies.

Professor Brian Collins CPhys CEng CITP, succeeded Professor Frank Kelly as CSA on 2 October 2006. The CSA reports to the Permanent Secretary and has direct access to the Secretary of State. Ministers or senior officials may seek his opinion on any topic where a scientific or engineering viewpoint is needed. Similarly, he has the opportunity to question or contradict any statement of scientific fact or opinion. Within the Department he is supported by the Chief Scientific Adviser's Unit (CSAU).

Professor Collins also joined the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) on 12 May 2008 as the new Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA). His role is to provide scientific advice to the Secretary of State, Ministers and the Management Board, ensuring the use of sound scientific, engineering and technological evidence across the Department. He also acts as Head of Profession for the Department’s scientists, engineers and technologists, and works closely with Vicky Pryce, BERR’s Chief Economic Adviser.

Professor Collins brings an excellent academic record and extensive experience advising Government and other agencies. He is also advises the Home Office and other agencies on Intelligence and Counter Terrorism matters. He is also Professor of Information Systems at the Defence College of Management and Technology (DCMT), Cranfield University. Previously, he has held senior positions at Clifford Chance, the Wellcome Trust, and was Chief Scientist and Technical Director at GCHQ and Deputy Director at Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (Professor Collins is a graduate of Oxford University, where he read physics and also obtained his doctorate in astrophysics. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET), the British Computer Society (BCS), the Institute of Physics (IOP) and the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

What does this involve?

  • Encouraging the Department to consider science issues, as they affect policy, at an appropriately senior level by meeting regularly with the Board and Ministers.
  • Assisting the Department's Units with the development, presentation and implementation of the scientific and technical aspects of their policies.
  • Working with the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, other Government research advisers and departmental CSAs to ensure the overall quality of science and research in government.
  • Working with staff in advising Ministers, the Board and senior officials on the scope for enhancing the evidence base through science and research when major policy reviews and public consultations on policy development are considered.
  • Helping ensure that the Department uses properly the research it commissions and has the right balance and quality of internal expertise by advising on the training, development and deployment of science and research professional staff.
  • Ensuring that the Department has effective horizon scanning arrangements so that issues involving science or issues where science could be of benefit, are identified in advance.
  • Assisting the Department in publicly explaining the science and research evidence base of policies.
  • Helping develop the Department's scientific links with the outside world.