Science as a whole and medical research in particular are extraordinary British success stories. The record of this country in securing Nobel prizes among other prestigious accolades stands vastly out of proportion to our size as a nation. Despite the real challenge of increased competition from East and South Asia, there is every reason to believe that the United Kingdom will remain a major player in this field in the years to come. But whether it has as large an impact as might properly be hoped will depend on science policy.

This Government has funded scientific and medical research more generously than its predecessor. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have instinctively defended science and scientists when they become embroiled in controversy. It would not be enough, however, for ministers to provide money but have no interest in how it is spent. There has long been the concern that, put a little crudely, British scientists have been superb at the initial intellectual innovation in the laboratory but weaker at bringing those discoveries into the clinic or hospital and to commercial application. The British invent it, the adage runs, the Americans will then market it (and make the money).

In response to this, Mr Brown, while Chancellor, commissioned Sir David Cooksey, a venture capitalist with his roots in the world of ideas, to make recommendations that would affect the Medical Research Council among other bodies. Sir David did indeed place weight on improving “translational research” – the means by which intriguing ideas are translated into new medical outcomes – but he rightly pointed out that without “blue skies” or seemingly abstract scientific research, there would be nothing to “translate” at a later date. The classic example of this is the work of a British team who won the Nobel prize for sequencing the genetic code of nematode worms. This had absolutely no medical application at the time but it proved invaluable to the mapping of the human genome itself.

The Cooksey analysis was accepted and hailed. Theory and practice, though, can be strangers. As we report today, the MRC, a body that spends more than £224 million on medical research and training in universities and hospitals and almost £238 million in its own institutes, has become the frontline in the shift towards a translational agenda. Sir John Chisholm, appointed its chairman last October, has brought his experience as an engineer and as the individual who oversaw the privatisation of Qinetiq, formerly the Ministry of Defence research agency, and vigorously championed the business side of science. This has won him few friends within the council itself, among those who fear that pure science will be marginalised, or with MPs sitting on the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee who assailed him last month.

Sir John could (and should) have been more diplomatic in some of his statements but those who pioneer and personify cultural change rarely find themselves showered with rose petals. Yet when he emphasises his respect for pure research, he is disbelieved more upon the basis of his background than any evidence that he would deny funds to science to experiment for its own sake. If he were eased out of his berth, this would send the message that ministers and the scientific community at large were content to pay lip service to the Cooksey conclusions but not adopt changes in funding arrangements in response to them. British science should be more confident about its future. It has much to be confident about.