Transparency data

Council for Science and Technology: meeting summary, June 2025

Published 16 September 2025

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Attendees

  • Angela McLean (Chair)
  • John Browne (Chair, Day one)
  • Julia Black (Day one)
  • Mark Enzer
  • Lynn Gladden
  • Jim Hall (Day one)
  • Saul Klein (Day one)
  • Avid Larizadeh Duggan (Day two)
  • John Lazar
  • Ottoline Leyser
  • Nick McKeown
  • Andrew Morris
  • Brooke Rogers
  • Nigel Shadbolt
  • Richard Slater (Day one)
  • Adrian Smith (Day two)
  • Dave Smith
  • Paul Taylor

Apologies

  • Priya Lakhani

Guests

  • Lord David Willetts, Chair, Regulatory Innovation Office
  • Jim Foudy, Deputy Director, Regulatory Innovation Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

Day One:

  1. CST members discussed the following current projects and future topics of advice for government:
  • CST wrote to the Prime Minister on primary prevention in healthcare on 12 May. Members thanked King’s Health Partners for providing evidence to support recommendations. Members agreed to follow up with government officials to support implementation.
  • Members reflected on CST advice over the past four years on access to scale up finance. Members agreed to conclude advice on access to finance, giving government time to act on CST’s previous recommendations.
  • Members agreed to continue to advise on the government’s digital and data agenda, including on the National Data Library, Industrial Strategy delivery, and semantic interoperability.
  • Members agreed to provide advice on UK priorities for semiconductors and AI chip design.
  • Members agreed to scope advice on the future UK R&D landscape, and climate, energy security and resilience.

Day Two:

  1. Members welcomed the establishment of Regulation Innovation Office (RIO) and discussed the following themes:
  • Continue to centre innovators in RIO’s approach and lead a shift to place more onus on the regulators to create a system that works for innovators, particularly small companies.
  • Develop a ‘one-stop-shop’ and/or clearer pathways for innovators who currently struggle to work across several regulators.
  • Going forward, RIO could work to join-up sandboxes and follow through to ensure lessons learnt from sandboxes lead to changes in regulatory approaches.
  • The UK could learn from innovative regulatory approaches in other countries, including digital governance in Estonia, regulatory labs in Denmark and the Netherlands, regulatory roadmaps in Canada, and testing approaches in Finland and South Korea.
  • There needs to be a mindset shift at senior levels of regulators, to support openness around data, and ensure the UK can share and use data to provide public services, whilst not being held back by regulation and risk aversion.
  • There is an opportunity to safely improve data access and data sharing between regulators.
  • The National Academies could play an important role, for example Regulatory Fellowships by the Royal Academy of Engineering or convening by the Academy of Medical Sciences.
  • CST members offered further engagement opportunities for RIO to use their range of established networks which was welcomed by the RIO chair and will be pursued.
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