Culture isn't just about music, drama and dance, art and sculpture, poetry and prose. Nor is it simply sport. Culture is all around us. Many things contribute to our cultural environment - not least science and technology, which have such a powerful influence on our everyday lives.

Bradford has a long and noble history in these areas. It was old-style science and technology which sustained the mills and the engineering factories, just as it is the new-style high-tech industries which now bring jobs and wealth to Bradford. We also have a university with a reputation based largely on technological expertise.

So Bradford is an ideal place to stage next week's Two Cultures event which will look at how science contributes to the life of a city and how it is as much a part of culture as the arts and sport.

A key aim of the conference is to look at ways of catching the public's imagination and getting away from the image of science as a dull subject. That is particularly important if young people, many of whom tend to shy away from science when it comes to further education, are to be encouraged to take up subjects which will best meet the needs of the industries of the future.

The fact that this prestigious international conference is taking place in this city and is backed by the National Endowment for Science and the Arts, which has Bradford champion Lord Puttnam as its chairman, can only help our bid to be named as European Capital of Culture 2008.