Sir

James A. Smith and Gemma E. Carey, in Correspondence (Nature 447, 638–639 doi:10.1038/447638a 2007), address the need for supportive environments if interdisciplinary research goals are to be achieved. Among other points, they mention that assessments of such research quality are made in single-subject committees in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

I, and I am sure others, made similar points to a UK Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee general research review in 1999 (see http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect /cmsctech/196/196ap02.htm).

Several useful developments occurred as a result. Generic funding initiatives were set up in genomics, e-science and information technology, where inter-disciplinary investigators and teams could apply to tackle broad research objectives. Discipline-hopping awards were established to encourage researchers to be mobile in their research interests. The UK Research Councils took a unified 'road show' around universities and institutes to take input from the research community. Articles were published in UK Research Councils newsletters, describing research-interface developments. Input was added to research assessments, to flag across-the-disciplines relevance.

These efforts did not succeed in achieving a unified science and engineering research council, with a single charter and unified management structure. However, I believe that the government made efforts to respond to criticisms and, as a result, put the United Kingdom in a more flexible position.

There remains another big issue on the block, as Philip Strange has pointed out in Correspondence (Nature 448, 22; doi:10.1038/448022a 2007): that the ratio of grant proposals made to those funded can be between three and five to one. This is a very arbitrary measure of research quality. Seeing excellent proposals, agreed by referees and my own experience, finally get rejected, shows all too clearly that the 'unfunded ratio' is deeply flawed as a metric, at least at this level of underfunding. Perhaps interdisciplinary research could be the latest big idea for bringing new money into the United Kingdom's national research enterprise?