Four years ago, Tony Blair became the first prime minister to address the Royal Society, Britain's senior scientific body. He promised to make the country "one of the best places in the world to do science". Today, when he returns to this theme in a speech in Oxford, he can claim with some justification to have delivered.

Science budgets have more than doubled since 1997. Britain is home to three of the world's top 10 universities for scientific research. With just one per cent of the world's population, Britain produces nine per cent of all scientific papers and receives 12 per cent of citations.