Culling badgers, building nuclear power stations or a Severn barrage, planting GM crops: we face these difficult decisions. As we try to find a way forward we call in the experts – scientists whose views we think of as impartial and unbiased. Publicly funded scientific research is inevitably influenced by Government priorities and scientific research continually raises questions about the viability of current policy. Meanwhile, funding bodies are increasingly committed to leading and directing research in the sciences, framing its questions and targeting funds at ‘key areas’. This panel brings together eminent academics, scientific advisers, and those involved in policy-making to share insights into how science and scientists respond to – or remain detached from – the public policy that surrounds their work. The panel will include: Professor Herbert Huppert (IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor and Professor in the Department for Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge) Dr Claire Craig (Deputy Head, Government Office for Science) Professor Dame Janet Finch (Professor in the School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester) Dr Helen Lambert (Reader in Medical Anthropology, University of Bristol) If you have any access requirements, please contact Nicola Fry; tel: (0117) 928 8515, or email: nicola.fry@bristol.ac.uk [1] For more information, please contact ias-wun-intern@bris.ac.uk [2].