Save British Science is urging ministers to pump more money into universities and research centres.

Dr Peter Cotgreave: We need to look to the future

According to the group's statistics, the government now spends about £50 per head of population per year on science and research. This is about 20% less than when Prime Minister Tony Blair first became a member of parliament in 1983.

It says the UK is less competitive in comparison to other countries like the US , France, Germany and Japan. To become just ''average'' on a global scale would require investment of an extra £700m a year in university research.

National science strategy

The call came on the day a 10-minute rule Bill was tabled in the House of Commons calling for new National Science Strategy. The bill was tabled by Labour MP Dr Ian Gibson but had no hope of becoming law.

Support for the Bill came from Institute of Physics, the Institute of Biology and the Royal Society of Chemistry, as well as leading individual scientists such as the Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees.

Professor Peter Caligari, chairman of the Institute of Biology's science policy board, said: "If Britain wants to be part of the technology revolution that is moving forward at such a terrific pace, we have got to have a science strategy."

The National Science Strategy envisaged by Dr Gibson would involve setting up a council to consult with more than 100 scientific and technical organisations and help shape the future of British science.

Nobel Prizes

Dr Peter Cotgreave, the Director of Save British Science, said the evidence of the UK's decline was clear for all to see.

"Between 1940 and 1980, we won one Nobel Prize a year in science and now in the last 10 years we have won only three. We are clearly falling behind other countries," he told the BBC.

Sir Robert May discusses the current state of science

"There seems to be a short-term view in governments of all political persuasions and what we need is a long-term view. If you win a Nobel Prize it is probably based on 20 year's worth of research."

In a separate BBC interview on Tuesday, the government's chief scientific advisor, Sir Robert May, denied that UK science was in the parlous state that some were suggesting. And he argued that in Europe as a whole, the research base was strong.

"If you count the volume of output of scientific papers in the last few years, Europe, cumulatively, has just passed the US."