专业副总裁在担任政府核心职位6年后，结束了运输科学顾问的角色

他是众多专业研究员和前任总统之一，在政府中承担了这些角色. Here, he provides some highlights of his time at the heart of Government.

通知决策

I’m very proud of my time at the DfT, during which there were highs and lows, 但我和我的团队确保了科学和工程证据被用来指导政策思考, as well as ensuring the best science, 工程, 为了我们所有人的利益，技术知识被用来迎接今天的挑战和应对这些事件.

Most UK Government departments have Chief Scientific Advisers. Their role is to provide advice to ministers, 促进干细胞政策, identify and share good practice, including the use of scientific advice in policymaking, and facilitate communication on particular high-profile issues.

此外，随着科学在政府中扮演更重要的角色，到2024年，2.4% of GDP was to be invested in R&研发与创新(RD&为了使英国成为“科学超级大国”，将科学和工程置于政策制定和产业战略的核心位置是一个明显的机会.

应对紧急情况

Not long into the role, the vehicle emissions scandal broke. This was a real opportunity for us to highlight the need for a robust science team.

在回应, I pulled together a cross-Government team, whose remit was to provide all the science that went to Ministers to deal with the scandal, amend the vehicle emissions testing regime and lead to policies such as Clean Air Zones.

这次活动确实有助于在政府内部嵌入科学和首席科学顾问网络.

大流行的

Since January 2020, there were lots of meetings around what we came to know as Covid-19. 在早期, 我们试图了解这是否构成国际威胁，以及我们应该如何应对.

晚些时候, 这门科学被用来介绍封锁措施，以及交通数据在证明封锁和保持社交距离的有效性方面的作用.

2020年5月, 这在很大程度上是为了让运输部门在第一次封锁后安全重启，并确保科学可以告诉人们重启运输的安全做法，同时将风险降到最低，并确保遵守社交距离.

令人惊讶的是(在某种程度上仍然是)，我们缺乏真正了解不同环境下的传播和风险量化的能力，我们采取了任何缓解措施，以使交通至少有一定的载客量.

这使我筋疲力尽，但非常重要，我的角色使我成为政府决策的核心.

When coronavirus caused the world to lockdown early in 2020, I attended many of the 90+ Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meetings.

We had a pre-SAGE meeting in January 2020 before anyone had heard of coronavirus, although we were aware of an issue in 中国. We certainly didn’t imagine that the world would still be affected to the extent that it is now.

I believe that SAGE had the right people in charge. 帕特里克•瓦兰斯爵士(Sir Patrick Vallance)和克里斯•惠蒂教授(professor Chris Whitty)带来了巨大的专业知识，他们使用简单方法的方式给我留下了深刻印象, clear language to provide clarity when engaging with the public (and politicians), 用简单的语言来表达，这样没有医学或科学背景的人就不会感到被排斥.

我们的工作是展示科学，而部长们的工作是根据科学做出政策决定. 我认为，工程和技术在降低病毒传播风险方面发挥了巨大作用.

It’s also hugely helped us to understand ventilation systems on our transport networks. Engineering solutions have made many sectors more resilient.

来自专业的帮助

During the first few weeks of lockdown, there were many requests going into the 专业 for help. We set up a triage system at the DfT to look at these.

专业 members assisted in many areas, including intelligent transport systems, challenging the industry to help with data, 以及将闭路电视摄像机用于测量人与人之间的距离，以检查人们是否在社交上保持距离.

This helped us collect robust data to understand if people were following the new rules, 由于模型假定了一定的最低遵从级别，我们需要确保在现实世界中，我们高于最低遵从级别.

每日简报

The other was car use and public transport data, which was published as the first slide in the daily 5 O'Clock briefings. It showed patronage on buses and trains.

What was astonishing though was how little data the DfT had. 我们不得不乞求, 借, and steal from the rail and bus companies, most of them in the private sector, to get them to share their (commercially sensitive) data.

We then had to aggregate it so that any commercially sensitive information was not obvious. There were some great innovations in doing so.

Transport for London didn’t then know how many people were travelling on the Tube. 然后, one of their engineers came up with the idea that, 因为每辆列车的车轴上都有应变仪，用于维护和性能数据, 这可以用来对车厢进行测量，然后判断车上的乘客人数.

This greatly helped us to innovate on data.

创新数据

由于大多数公共交通服务是由私营公司运营的，这些数据具有商业敏感性，因此运营商通常不会分享公共交通服务的惠顾数据.

然而, with very low patronage during the lockdown, the DfT effectively renationalised bus and rail which then meant it was easier to collect data. 每个人都意识到这是一个国家的紧急情况，每个人都试图以任何方式提供帮助.

But it took a while to get going. 这表明人们真的想以最小的可能的方式提供帮助，我们现在仍然看到在疫苗接种中心的志愿者.

Thinking of other key achievements, I was very fortunate to launch the Transport 研究 Innovation Board, 把政府研究资助者聚集在一起，让我们清楚地确定政府研究和创新的优先次序.

在兰开斯特宫举行的一场由时任交通部长参加的启动活动之后，这一观点被纳入了政府, 杰西诺曼议员.

挑战

Other challenging situations that we had to respond to included Zika virus, 这种病毒主要由蚊子传播，但我们需要做很多研究来了解我们是否应该对返回英国的飞机和船只进行常规喷洒.

索尔兹伯里的诺维乔克中毒事件意味着我们必须迅速了解毒药是否会扩散到我们的运输网络. 我们不同的交通网络也存在天气紧急情况和恢复能力问题.

与工程师

I had a small team that looked after all science, making sure it was included in all spending review bids, joining up across both the Department, 以及跨政府的bet8网址是多少和与专业工程机构的合作, 比如专业, 和其他利益相关者.

There was an awful lot to do. 在这段时间, 我鼓励借调, and we were delighted to welcome Sahar Danesh, previously of the 专业 Policy & 了解团队.

These secondments were so valuable for both sides; giving the 专业 direct access to Government, 对于我们, the 工程 expertise we gained was crucial.

Obviously key to transport and the spending review, 是为了确保证据, 计划, 每一种运输模式的脱碳路径都嵌入在DfT的DNA中, all underpinned to the best science and 工程 expertise.

提高专业素质

帮助ing to upskill and professionalise engineers at the DfT was a priority. 而在文章, I ensured that DfT became a corporate partner of the 专业, which continues to help staff keep up to date with their 工程 professionalism.

Now that my time at the DfT has come to an end, I continue as Vice President of the 专业 and I’m still at Newcastle University. I have the ambition to create a regional mobility institute in the northeast, 在大学举办.

其目的将是帮助该地区解决一些运输问题，如脱碳, 升级, and how they can better use understanding of data to improve the situation.

专业的支持

The 专业 helped me significantly during my time at the DfT. 我召集了bet8网址是多少数据的会议, 网络安全, 氢, 以及一系列完全不同的元素，专业成员的集体知识对我们帮助很大.

The 专业 also helped to challenge government through responses to consultations, which I think is absolutely the right thing to do.

在这六年中，这个角色全天候工作，让你真正了解政府每天处理的挑战和任务和政策的规模.

It was a real privilege to do the job for six years, 与这个国家最优秀的一些人一起工作，我认为我离开DfT的科学和工程，在一个比我在2015年6月加入时更好和更具前瞻性的地方.

Exciting times ahead for the science team and my successor!