The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)

In addition, every Government will have some key national strategic priorities such as addressing the challenges of an ageing population, energy supply or climate change. The research base has an important role to play in addressing such priorities and the research councils, with the support of independent advice, have proposed research programmes to tackle them. It is also appropriate for Ministers to ask research councils to consider how best they can contribute to these priorities, without crowding out other areas of their missions. But it is for the research councils to decide on the specific projects and people to fund within these priorities, free from Ministerial interference.

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