A little daunted by the new job you are about to take on? Not quite sure you can get your head around the challenges confronting you? Worried about whether you can work with your new boss? Well, just to make you feel a little better, put yourself in the shoes of the Government's newly appointed Chief Scientist, John Beddington, who takes over in three weeks time from the present incumbent, Sir David King.

A swift riffle through his intray reveals the headaches in store: climate change is accelerating at such a rate that the Government's targets for controlling carbon emissions will almost certainly be missed, and only draconian — and deeply unpopular — measures to stem them will have any effect. Nuclear power is the only way of filling the energy gap, but almost half of our ageing stations are now regularly out of action, and new ones may not come on stream early enough to prevent the lights going out. The risk of animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth, BSE and bird flu is mounting rapidly, but the department dealing with them has lost most of its best experts, and is having to cut back further on its budget. Research on genetically modified plants must go ahead, despite widespread opposition, because they are an essential part of sustainable agriculture and for fighting disease. Oh yes, and Professor King was right about badgers; those delightful furry creatures will have to be culled, because they are guilty of spreading bovine TB.

I am not aware of Professor Beddington's track record in any of these areas; his expertise lies mainly in marine science. But if he is to have any impact on the Government's thinking, he will need to start bending the Prime Minister's ear on all of them. More than that, he must be capable of standing up to Gordon Brown if he tries to browbeat him into opting for safer, more politically acceptable advice. He must not hesitate to pass on to the public key messages about saving the environment or improving health. He should be able to translate complex scientific ideas into comprehensible language — both for the benefit of politicians and the public, which is, in general, scientifically illiterate. He will be required to “place science at the heart of government,” as Tony Blair once promised, while at the same time telling government things that it will simply not want to hear.

The days when scientists and prime ministers could converse on even terms have gone. It would be impossible to imagine today the kind of relationship that Winston Churchill enjoyed with his beloved Professor Lindemann, whom he described as “the scientific lobe of my brain”. Lindemann was a polymath, and also a risk-taker. He could, and did, hold forth on everthing from carpet-bombing cities to improving egg production. He once tested the theory of aircraft spin recovery by flying planes himself to the point of crashing them. He was opinionated, arrogant, and elitist, but then so was Churchill; the two enjoyed a combative but intimate relationship. In the postwar years, Professor Solly Zuckerman, who advised successive governments on defence, was equally wide-ranging. He was an anatomist, a zoologist, an expert on bomb blast, an advocate of nuclear disarmament and an adviser on everything scientific. He rarely hesitated to pass on his views.

Since then, however, science has grown increasingly specialised, more introverted, and far less accessible to the public or to politicians. In the latest issue of Prospect magazine, the veteran environmental scientist, Professor James Lovelock, bemoans the way that scientists have lost touch with the practical world around them. “A few good scientists bring us what Nasa calls ‘ground truth' — the solid facts we can rely on,” he writes. “Men and women like them grow rare, as those who manage science believe that research money is better spent on modelling and brainstorming sessions, than on messy and dangerous experiments and observations in some distant field. We are as tribally hierarchical as ever, but seem to have lost the checks and balances that were part of our earlier class-based society, one that scorned egalitarianism but welcomed merit.”

If Professor Beddington is to loosen the stranglehold of that tribal hierarchy, he must be prepared to widen his circle of advisers, to welcome and listen to those with practical experience of dealing with a vast range of subjects. He needs to bridge the gap between a Civil Service that has been drained of scientific expertise, but which has no ongoing dialogue with the private sector, where much of that expertise now resides. He must have impeccable scientific credentials himself, in order to win the respect of his peers, but he must also be able to translate their ideas into language that will be readily grasped by ministers. At the same time, if the outcome of some scientific experiment is doubtful or uncertain, he must be prepared to say so — even if it means having to admit that previous advice must now be changed. As Einstein once said: “Everything should be made as as simple as possible — but not simpler.”

Finally, working under a Prime Minister who is averse to risk, the Professor needs to be as bold and independent as his master is cautious. He should not be afraid to challenge head on the safe and the expedient. He should distrust the advice of those who draw their salaries from well-funded research projects, and be prepared to question received wisdom. The great innovations in science have usually stemmed from daring and radical experiments rather than the tried and the trusted.

In the end, of course, both he and the Government he serves will share the same objective — to further the public good; it's just that they may have to tread very different routes in getting there. As that great scientist Sir Peter Medawar once said: “If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.”

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