Why the Science Budget Should be Ringfenced

My friend Gavin Wallis and I have done a lot of work trying to measure the impact of the Goverment's spending on the Science Budget.  This is spending on public sector R&D, which is grants to Research Councils (which then go to universities), plus direct spending on Civil and Defence R&D by governments. Our data indicates very substantial payoffs to Research Council spending, which of course is determined by competitive bidding by academics in competition with each other (another reason why competition is good). The paper is here and my debut on You Tube is here (you gotta wait 38 seconds but you also get to see the excellent Romesh Vaitilingham and Ammon Salter).