We live in a changing world where knowledge can provide opportunities and threats. At present, a large amount of the knowledge produced is funded by the public purse through research at our Universities and Research Institutes. In Scotland, this amounts to many millions of pounds per annum so we need to ask what the return on this funding is.

Scotland is No. 1 in the world in terms of research impact per GDP. We excel in life sciences, energy research, informatics, physics, agricultural sciences and many other areas and the knowledge generated helps us to understand our environment, to improve quality of life for our population and to contribute to the economy.

For Scotland to compete in the world, we need to provide the right environment to foster and attract the brightest people in the world to come here, to generate cutting edge ideas and technology to improve not only our quality of life but to make a significant contribution to solving global problems. I think that is a goal worthy of public funding.

Professor Anne Glover was appointed Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland in 2006. Her role is to further enhance Scotland's reputation as a science nation.

Professor Glover holds a Personal Chair of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Aberdeen, and has honorary positions at the Rowett and Macaulay Institutes. Professor Glover holds a Personal Chair of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Aberdeen, She is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a member of the Natural Environment Research Council, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Most of her academic career has been spent at the University of Aberdeen where she has an active research group pursuing a variety of areas from microbial diversity to the development and application of whole cell biosensors (biological sensors) for environmental monitoring and investigating how organisms respond to stress at a cellular level.