Politicians need help to transcend shouty idealism about hitting targets

It is a little noticed outcome of research that it causes new domains of policy to open up. This January, scientists at MIT announced their discovery of the reason that you can still visit the concrete structures of Ancient Rome, while the tower blocks of the 1970s are crumbling. The particular mix and technique that the Romans used enabled the concrete to heal itself: small cracks expose tiny crystals of lime that react with moisture to form calcium carbonate and re-seal the crack. Centuries later, as the rain falls on the columns of Ephesus, it heals them.

It is unlikely, following this discovery, that the big building corporations of the world will spontaneously adopt the materials and mixing technique that served Roman civil engineering so well. It would be expensive for one thing. But although the built landscape won’t change any time soon, the policy landscape changes at once with this knowledge. Self-healing concrete becomes an option. Should government subsidise its further investigation and incentivise its production? Mandate its use in public buildings? Review quality standards for the industry?

The need to research the evidence gaps in policymaking is well understood, and over recent years interactions with researchers have grown. But it is harder for politicians to keep track of the way that research is opening up policy arenas.

It is important that they do. Large-scale production of hydrogen, shrinking the size of batteries in major infrastructure such as solar panels, reliable medical tests, aerodynamic advances: these are all altering what policy can proscribe, prescribe and aim for. Researchers from Imperial College London showed MPs at last year’s Evidence Week in the UK Parliament, for example, that capitalising on the last of these could reduce carbon emissions by as much as all current fuel reduction policies. MPs who gathered around their simulations were asking why policies aren’t being developed to reflect this.

This year’s Evidence Week, which takes place next week, emphasises these kinds of discoveries. MPs can check in on the insights that might be changing the targets and policies they scrutinise.

This is particularly important given the shouty idealism that seems to be creeping into policymaking. It’s politically tempting to imagine that getting all new cars to be electric by 2030 is just a matter of how forcefully the aim is stated. Or that regional innovation will follow a call for just that, and that talking about decarbonising will make things decarbonise.

This belief has its touchstone in the moon landings, credited to Kennedy’s political will. People forget that Kennedy’s bid for the moon was, in fact, the result of understanding, from scientists and engineers, that it was indeed possible and that a leadership leap was needed. But the success was not repeated in Nixon’s “war on cancer” because, with all the will in the world, the science was not able to bring it forward.

Spotting the moment, seeing the potential to drive a change, understanding the implications of new insights and capabilities, questioning assumptions of current approaches and keeping up to date about what knowledge or implementation problems attach to, for example, making hydrogen or batteries – that is what inspired and grounded politicians do. Parliament is the early warning system for flagging government policies that might not work or that are needed.

But it is not reasonable to expect MPs to know where the latest research findings might emerge. Parliament has top-notch research services, but the budget is meagre for the task and it doesn’t extend to providing a shopfront of new insights. That’s why Evidence Week, organised by Sense about Science, the Commons and Lords’ libraries and the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (Post), pulls in researchers from all over the UK to give rapid-fire briefings on questions from MPs and voters.

More generally, politicians need input on what new evidence should cause them to look again at the goals the UK is working to. Policy outreach across academia should become focused on helping politicians review their scope for action, rather than, as often happens, providing a show-and-tell of research projects in a quest for impact points.

A good example of what is needed is a three-minute briefing about a “track the economy” tool prepared by researchers at the University of Nottingham for this year’s Evidence Week. It takes as its starting point the position MPs are in right now: asked to support the government’s national and regional interventions for economic growth, while also assessing their local area’s position and the scope for that to change. The real-time data enables MPs to speak to the latest information. Similarly, material prepared by the Wales Innovation Network takes head on the question “how can we create 950,000 tonnes of hydrogen?” because that challenge is the implication of targets just announced. Do the targets match the realities of science and engineering? MPs need to know.

What these briefings don’t do is vie for MPs’ attention for its own sake, nor expect them to read a 30-page report to figure out whether it might be relevant. Instead, they are an enabling presentation of research. The demands of large goals in energy, emissions, regional development and social deprivation make such genuine assistance to MPs urgent.

Tracey Brown is director of Sense about Science, an independent charity that promotes the public interest in evidence.