Government Science & Engineering e-Newsletter
Wednesday, 1 August 2012 GSE Newsletter July/ August 2012
Dear Colleague
Welcome to the belated July e-newsletter for Government Science & Engineering (GSE). We hope that whether you are looking a new job or ways to develop your career there is something in this month's newsletter for you.
Over 1,500 of you have responded to our survey and the emerging results present real food for thought. If you have not yet responded, click here to fill in the survey and have your say: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8FWXGJ6
Responses so far appear to confirm that there is considerable spread of different science and engineering disciplines in GSE, with people performing a diversity of roles across all spheres of civil service work. While we expected many of you would be topic specialists for your organisation, we also appear to have a significant proportion of programme and project managers in our community, nearly twice as many as people working in a policy function. We are hearing some really interesting views about career prospects, how influential you feel in your current role and what you would like from your head of profession. Thank you to everyone who has responded. We will be exploring these themes over the next couple of months in focus groups.
If you would like to register an interest in participating in a focus group, please email us: GSE@bis.gov.uk
Contents
Articles
Develop your career through lifelong learning
The Lifelong Learning Account (LLA) is a free, on-line place to store and use such tools as a Skills Health Check, Learning Record, CVs, Action Plans, search for jobs, courses or apprenticeships, as well as check Government funding eligibility and sources. It has clear information and advice on skills, careers and financial support all in one place. While the scheme is primarily aimed at young adults (19+) to help them get improved access to jobs and career development opportunities, the advice and support tools are designed to support people throughout their working life. It is envisaged that the LLA resource will increase the numbers going into learning and over time, create a national culture of lifelong learning.
The LLA is accessible online, via phone and is supported by the National Careers Service, such as the face to face professional careers advisors on direct.gov.uk at: https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx. It complies with the Data Protection Act, and users need to register and create their individual LLA (which they can use throughout their careers and life long learning).
A new way to record your CPD activity
The Civil Service Reform Plan outlined the need for civil servants to undertake 5 days of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) each year. Civil Service World is offering an online CPD account. It is a free, flexible and practical way for you to plan, track, and record everything that enhances your professional development. It allows civil servants, and those working with government, to earn hours in a whole range of ways.
CPD hours can be registered online in three quick and easy steps:
1) Log in to the Civil Service Live Network with your username and password. If you are not a member, please register first.
2) Click on the “CPD” logo at the top of the page
3) Complete the simple “Add Hours” form and, once confirmed, they will be added to your CPD dashboard.
Attendance at conferences and exhibitions, leadership development, private study, reading, qualifications and other CPD activity can all be recorded
Dstl launch Head of Science and Engineering Profession
In July, Jonathan Lyle, Chief Executive at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), launched his role as Head of Science and Engineering Professions at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, bringing together 75 leading science and engineering professionals from across MOD to consider how best to develop and champion science and technology skills and careers.
Delegates included representatives from Dstl, Defence Equipment and Support, Land Warfare Centre, Navy Command, Defence Intelligence, and the Defence Analytical Services Agency.
Recognising the opportunity to help set standards and influence the direction of science and engineering in MOD through the role of Head of Science and Engineering Professions, the event focused on how best to build and sustain a strong, confident MOD science and engineering profession.
Jonathon Lyle said: “to do this successfully we must increase our effectiveness in engaging with policy makers and other professionals in the allied communities, and work closely with our partners across government and outside it.”
Taking into account the wide range of scientists and engineers employed across MOD, delegates considered effective workforce planning, addressing best practice in recruitment and development activities to ensure the right people are ready to take on work at the right time to tackle future challenges.
The need for a widely accessible career development framework that would demonstrate the range of career options available across government and industry was also addressed. Greater availability and support for interchanges and secondments was highlighted as a key opportunity to enable and develop career paths, share ideas and achieve greater visibility of our activities.
Improved communication of the considerable contribution science and engineering makes to defence policy and military capability was also raised as a key issue, crucial to ensuring greater recognition by decision makers and external recognition of our professional standing.
More information will be available on the Defence Intranet on the Head of Science and Engineering Profession role, providing examples of real career paths in MOD and acting as a hub for the community to share ideas.
£60 million investment for climate research
Last month DECC launched a new 3-year Climate Programme, founded on the MOHC’s world-leading climate research and modelling and in partnership and close collaboration with research centres in the UK and across the world. Funding will be £50 million over 3 years (73% from DECC and 27% from Defra).
This is part of a £60 million investment in the Met Office Hadley Centre’s Climate Programme, announced in April 2012, aimed at maintaining the UK’s place as a global leader in climate research and modelling.
Other investment includes more than £11 million for High Performance Computing to help the MOHC run more sophisticated climate models. Hardware delivered and installed in March 2012 comprised:
• eight ‘supernodes’ (32 drawers) of IBM Power775 supercomputer servers.
• data archive storage appropriate to the extra HPC hardware, comprising 5760 media tapes, 33 Petabytes of storage, three servers and two tape frames.
The investment follows a review led by Sir John Beddington into the government’s needs for climate science evidence and policy advice, which concluded that the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC) provides essential services to government and is a critical national capability. Sir John’s report asked sponsoring departments to continue to fund Met Office Hadley Centre science. It also asked for increased funding for supercomputing, essential for delivering further model improvements.
The planned Hadley Centre research will significantly enhance the climate science evidence available to government, supporting both mitigation and adaptation actions. For example, it will deliver new evidence in support of international mitigation actions, transitioning to a low carbon economy, understanding future renewable resource availability and will provide information to help decision-makers to take a risk-based approach to uncertainty.
For more information on DECC’s Climate Research Programme, please visit: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/about/science/activities/climate_change/climate_change.aspx
“Building Evidence in New Ways” - the 2012 Heads of Analysis Conference
On 31 May 2012, the Civil Service Heads of Analysis held their fifth annual conference. The title of this year’s conference was designed to highlight current initiatives that require us to think differently about our role as analysts, and also to show how the analytical professions in government have made strides in the key areas that were identified at the 2011 conference – working more closely with the academic community, making the most of our resources, and building strong relationships across professions and departments.
Key themes to emerge were:
• The changing role of analysts in light of key policies including localism, transparency and behavioural insights
• Using the evidence base to identify what does (and does not) work
• Getting to grips with Transparency, access and open data
• Having a key role in feeding evidence, ideas and judgements into policy-making and the next Spending Review
• Being innovative and confidently contributing new ideas
For further information please contact GSE@bis.gov.uk
What are the policy gaps or opportunities where fresh thinking is needed?
The Oxford Martin School is a unique, interdisciplinary research community of over 300 scholars working to address the most pressing global challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. From the governance of geoengineering and the possibilities of quantum physics, to the future of food and the implications of our ageing population, we support over 40 individual research teams from across the University of Oxford to consider some of the biggest questions that concern our future.
The School is starting a new initiative, the Oxford Martin Policy Papers, as part of our ambition to become a leading source of policy-relevant research. Through these papers, we are seeking to identify critical policy gaps where our interdisciplinary and innovative research might add best value, through providing timely and accessible policy advice of an extremely high quality. We have a steering group of leading academics guiding this new initiative, and we are also looking to our network of scholars to suggest critical topics for these policy paper. Equally, we would welcome ideas and feedback from the policy community as to where the School might be best place to add value. Given our focus on the challenges of the 21st century, what are the key policy gaps or opportunities where fresh ideas and thinking would be welcome?
All policy papers will be publicly available and are expected to be around 4,000-10,000 words. Final decisions on commissioned papers are the responsibility of the Oxford Martin Policy Steering Group, but we would welcome suggestions. For further information or to discuss potential topics in more detail, please contact Natalie Day, Head of Policy at the Oxford Martin School on Natalie.day@oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk or on 07825 933 761. For more information about the Oxford Martin School visit: www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk
London 2012 Design Festival – September 2012
GSE members are invited participate in the 2012 London Design Festival. To celebrate design in engineering, the Royal Academy of Engineering has put together an exciting programme; aside from two excellent and topical lectures, a team of designers will be in residence from the London studio of the centre of excellence in design at Northumbria University.
Wednesday 19 to Friday 21 September 2012 10am to 5pm
Future ways of living
Northumbria University’s newly established P3i Studio will become Designers in Residence at the Royal Academy of Engineering, where visitors will be introduced to a ‘future socio-enviro-techno integrated world’.
6pm, Wednesday 19 September 2012
Formula One car design - What role for the regulator?
Tony Purnell, Visiting Professor in Engineering Design, University of Cambridge and former Technical Advisor, Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA)
6pm, Thursday 20 September 2012
Design for optimal life (material efficiency)
Dr Julian Allwood, Leader, Low Carbon Materials
Processing Group, University of Cambridge
The finale of the programme will be the Innovation Hothouse Final on Friday 21 September, where engineering graduate finalists present their engineering design projects to a panel of business angels who will offer advice and potentially funding to develop their projects into commercially viable products.
All events are free to attend but will require tickets which are available directly from Ian Bowbrick at the Royal Academy of Engineering ian.bowbrick@raeng.org.uk or by calling 020 7766 0604
For more information, please go to: www.raeng.org.uk/education/ldf_2012.htm
JOB OPPORTUNITY - Higher Scientific Officer, Greenhouse gas inventory, DECC
Closing date 12 August 2012
The UK’s greenhouse gas inventory is the primary source of UK emissions data, and is used to monitor and report the UK’s progress in reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.
DECC are looking for an enthusiastic person with good scientific and analytical skills to support the management of the inventory contract. This will involve getting to grips with the scientific basis for estimating emissions, as well the international framework for emissions reporting. The post holder will need to work closely with those responsible for compiling the inventory, ensuring that deliverables are of high quality, and that effective systems and records are maintained. They will also be need to ensure that good progress is made against the research programme for inventory improvements.
The post-holder will report to the Senior Scientific Officer who leads on inventory management, and will need to work closely with scientific, analyst and policy colleagues within DECC, across Government, the Devolved Administrations and external experts. The work will be challenging, but this post offers a genuine opportunity to influence key decisions being made on UK climate change policy.
For further information on this post, please contact Helen Champion on 0300 068 5569 or email Helen.champion@decc.gsi.gov.uk
JOB OPPORTUNITY - Senior Executive Officer, Design Assurance, Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, Home Office
Closing date 14 August
Working within the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) element of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT), these three new posts are to be primarily responsible for the design and pragmatic development of Technical Solutions (IP and Telephony based network design and development) that the Home Office require its suppliers to deliver, to ensure that Capability can be provided to its stakeholders. These posts will work closely with the Programme / Project Architects to ensure that solutions are consistent with the strategy and overall goals of the Programme.
The Home Office are looking for a self-starter who can manage his/her own time effectively as well as making timely contribution to the Assurance and Design activities in train. Primarily responsible for the design and pragmatic development of Technical Solutions (IP and Telephony based) that the Home Office require its suppliers to deliver, to ensure that enduring Capability can be provided to Home Office stakeholders. The post holder(s) will work closely with the Programme and Project Architects to ensure that solutions are consistent with the strategy and overall goals of the Programme. However the successful candidate will also have to ensure that they consider the end-to-end system design, human factors and current maturity of operation as well as the system design. For complete success, it will be necessary to develop and maintain relationships across multiple stakeholders.
An ability to add to policy discussions on IT Communications security and to review current approaches and ways of working used to deliver Capability would also be useful
For further information on this post, please contact Rachel Leitch-Devlin on 020 7147 4474
JOB OPPORTUNITY - Senior Executive Officer, Technical Assurance Delivery Manager, Office for Security and Counter Terrorism, Home Office
Closing date 14 August 2012
Working within the Communications Capabilities Directorate (CCD) element of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT), these two new posts will be primarily responsible for the delivery of Technical Assurance services to the CCD programme via the use of external organisations that can be contracted via a Commercial Framework agreement. This will require the design and management of Technical Assurance assessment criteria, placement of work (commercial skills) and the monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of the delivery of the Assurance (project management skills).
The Home Office is looking for a self-starter who can manage his or her own time effectively as well as the Assurance activities in train. The post holder should possess sufficient grounding in Project and Commercial management to confidently monitor and manage the delivery of effective Technical Assurance to the organisation via the use of organisations which support the Home Office through a Commercial Framework Agreement. He or she should be willing to improve the effectiveness of Technical Assurance through innovative approaches, and be able to quickly establish credibility with other areas of the Home Office to improve the process of engaging stakeholders, including the commercial team. The post holder will need to be able to develop and apply workflow to process. An understanding of XML is useful. An ability to add to policy discussions on IT communications security, and review current approaches would also be welcomed.
For further information on this post, please contact Rachel Leitch-Devlin on 020 7147 4474
About the GSE e-Newsletter
The GSE e-Newsletter is produced by the Government Office for Science (GO-Science). It is circulated on a monthly basis and highlights areas of interest to the profession, including news updates, highlights of departmental activities, and details of events. The newsletter is for all civil servants with a science and/or engineering background or those with a strong interest in matters relating to the profession.
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