COVID tsar Patrick Vallance appointed UK science minister

 The scientific adviser who graced UK televisions with nightly updates during the COVID-19 pandemic has been appointed as the country’s science minister. The appointment is one of many made by new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who began naming his cabinet after his Labour Party won a landslide in the election on 4 July.

Patrick Vallance, a clinical researcher and former head of research and development at drug firm GlaxoSmithKline, takes up the role in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. The science ministry saw several reorganizations and ministers during the Conservative Party’s 14-year rule.

Vallance’s appointment, as a scientist who is not a Member of Parliament (MP) and who has no ministerial experience, seems to be a first for the science ministry. He was the government’s chief scientific adviser under the Conservatives from 2018 to 2023, and helped to shape the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vallance’s hiring is “a reassuring signal to the wider research community, that they’ve actually got somebody who understands what they do and the constraints”, says Jill Rutter, a former civil servant and researcher at the Institute for Government, a think tank in London. There is some precedent for having a non-politician in the role, says Rutter, noting that business leader David Sainsbury held the post from 1998 to 2006, during Tony Blair’s Labour government, although he was not a scientist....<<<Read More>>>...