Vallance: ‘stay in your tramlines’ for science advice and policy

Chief scientific adviser says science advice often gets “muddled up” with policymaking and delivery

Scientists working with policymakers should “stay in their tramlines” and avoid straying into policy development, the government’s top scientist has said.

Speaking at the launch of the University of Oxford’s Pandemic Sciences Institute, chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said there was a “fundamental and important separation between science advice, policy generation and operational delivery”.