DSIT: Will the UK’s new science and tech department achieve anything?

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, headed by Michelle Donnellan, said it aims to show the UK government is serious about these areas, but that a makeover is no substitute for clear planning. Kieron Flanagan says

To Kieron Flanagan

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has created a new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) that appears to have put these areas at the center of UK government policy for the first time in decades. The move has been widely welcomed by those who have called for a greater focus on science and technology in government, but will it really make a difference?

A dedicated department was certainly long overdue. Back in 1964, then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson created the Department of Technology…