The Conservative Science & Technology Forum is a United Kingdom think tank and policy advisory body that consults industry, academia and other key figures on important (often emerging) technological and societal issues and puts these into mainstream political context.
During this time it was the source of policies such as Telecoms Liberalisation and Privatisation, the Micros in Schools Programme and IT Year.
Its main publication to date is "Computerising the Chinese Army" (on the state of computing in the NHS), using expertise from both ICT and Health Care industries.
The current focus is on generating ideas and material for the Conservative Manifesto for 2015, on helping the Forum's parliamentary members to get re-elected and on providing expert speakers, bloggers and other inputs to advance and inform political debate.
That entails putting technology issues, such as broadband, successful systems delivery, professionalism and skills, smart metering, smart grid, privacy and surveillance, into mainstream political context, including industry and economic policy.