Its main means of operation was through defining, developing, seeking funding, and managing research programmes, bringing together scholars from a variety of institutions and disciplines, initially across the UK but later at European level.
Themes included Defence Technology Management and Dual Use (co-funded by the MoD – leading to a European defence technology network), Academic Industry Relations (leading to the Triple Helix theory of innovation and the stream of activity organised by the Triple Helix Association[2] ), understanding the European Context for UK Science Policy, and Public Understanding of Science, including the original specification of the ESRC Science in Society Programme[3] and evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Science & Technology's enquiry on this theme (2000).
[4] SPSG also organised a London-based science policy lunch club, and a series of thematic international conferences including the influential 1989 NATO advanced studies institute which led to the book The Research System in Transition[5] about the wide range of consequences of science budget cuts and of new approaches to the evaluation and management of the scientific enterprise.
By 1989, SPSG had become a non-profit company, registered as a charity, by taking over the shell of the Technical Change Centre, an earlier cross-Research Council initiative.
A review in 1999 concluded that SPSG had been responsible for much of the work which underpinned the 1993 S&T white paper Realising our Potential,[6] but SPSG never lost a controversial reputation with science funders for producing uncomfortable knowledge, and this ultimately cost it its core funding.