Business Secretary Vince Cable, whose department is not protected, is arguing that it would be wrong to put at risk measures to help industry, improve skills and boost science.
European politicians have paid lip service to boosting science education and research as part of an economic recovery they say will be based on brain rather than brawn.
The Station completed its 10th year of boosting science literacy through a plant science program for the Geneva City School District's third and fourth graders.
Sir John O'Reilly, Cranfield's vice chancellor, says the ideas of boosting science and tapping business potential are good, but that Willetts's proposals are different from both the Cornell and Cranfield models because they carry no government cash.
But while scientists were – or should be – "grateful" for that decision, it was now time to boost science funding to a level comparable with that of the UK's closest G8 competitors such as Germany and the US.
2001: A Space Odyssey 6.30pm, 2.40am, TCM (Stanley Kubrick, 1968) Kubrick's brilliantly imaginative space saga boosted science fiction into a new orbit: the state-of-the-art special effects set the standard for the Star Wars generation.
"The government should address this by cementing recent positive policy steps to boost science and innovation by ensuring support joins up at every stage, from basic research through to commercialisation.
[April1, 9 17 a.m. | Update | An excellent summary has been posted on the Green blog.] But the prime focus, refreshingly, was on boosting science education and interdisciplinary inquiry and maintaining investments in systems and agencies devoted to comprehending environmental change.
The Chancellor also presented the Conservatives as the party which can "get the fundamentals right" to ensure prosperity - things such as economic stability; safe banks; excellent schools; competitive taxes; boosting science and sound money.
Third, while boosting science education remains a good idea, and not only because of the expected economic benefit, the humanities matter too – even if their contribution is less easily measured in our instrumentalist age.
