The Scottish Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) held a Workshop on 31 May 2006 to inform the ongoing work of the SSAC in relation to its concept of Centres of Scientific Excellence (CoSE) in Scotland. The SSAC believes that Scotland can enhance its research capability through multidisciplinary research centres that will promote Scotland’s research excellence to the rest of the world. During the Workshop, delegates heard views on:

• Centres of Scientific Excellence (Professor Wilson Sibbett)
• International perspective and Energy Futures (Professor David Marks, MIT)
• Energy Opportunities and Exploiting Research Outcomes (Professor Nick Jenkins, Director, Joule Centre for Energy Research)
• UK perspective and Research Challenges (Professor Tim Green, Energy Futures Lab, Imperial College)
• Scottish perspective (Professor Jim McDonald, Director of the Institute for Energy and Environment, University of Strathclyde)
• Scientists and Technologists for the 21st Century (Alf Roberts, CEO, Institution of Engineering and Technology)

Part of the Workshop involved a series of breakout groups that addressed the following three questions:

• Can key “research grand challenges” be identified? What problems might these seek to address in respect of energy production/transmission/ utilisation and related policy drivers?
• Does Scotland have relevant and significant research activities that map on to these grand challenge aspirations? Are there major gaps in Scotland's research capability/capacity, and how do we engage most effectively in international collaborations in these areas?
• If a Centre of Scientific Excellence in Energy is to be established, how might this be configured? How might it enable Scotland to create a conjoined research critical mass in an appropriately comprehensive range of energy-related activities that build upon scientific excellence?

The summary presentations from each of the breakout groups: Breakout Group One; Breakout Group Two; Breakout Group Three; Breakout Group Four. During the subsequent discussion, other issues surrounding a Centre of Scientific Excellence for energy were raised, including:

• The need for such a centre to be multidisciplinary, covering the full range of energy supply and demand sectors;
• The need for a further examination of the research challenges that a CoSE might address, and what shape and role it might take.
• Recognition of the importance of excellent people and excellent facilities

The SSAC would welcome further views on these issues and now invites the delegates and other stakeholders to feed in their views to the SSAC by 31st July, 2006 to Dr Marc Rands (mrands@scottishscience.org.uk).

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