Sir

The United Kingdom's research base has seen unprecedented increases in public investment in recent years, mostly predicated on the long-term benefits to society expected to arise from that investment. It is the research councils' responsibility, as the major public funders of UK research, to provide compelling evidence that these expectations are being met. Your Editorial 'Innovation versus science?' (Nature 448, 839; doi:10.1038/448839a 2007) concludes that efforts to document this herald a shift away from our support for basic research. As a research council chief executive, leading our efforts to increase our economic impact, I can say that is not the case.

The UK Research Councils have just published a report, Excellence with Impact (http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/innovation/impact) that looks across research councils' investments. Each of 18 case studies shows actual and/or potential impact, ranging from biotech spin-outs and skilled engineers to climate-change policy. Probably the most reassuring finding was the extent to which some demonstrated multiple types of impact. Furthermore, many of the impacts were not necessarily part of the original rationale for the specific investment, suggesting that serendipity and opportunism are important factors for the research councils. Investment in DNA technologies, for example, did not anticipate the forensic power of DNA fingerprinting, and polymer research was not funded with the anticipation that it would create a new market in flexible displays.

These results demonstrate the wisdom of the research councils' commitment to funding excellent basic research. Rather than weaken that commitment, our approach is to embed economic-impact considerations in our organizations, thus shifting the central focus of the research councils to excellent research with high economic impact. So it is about what basic research we should fund, rather than if we should fund it.