Prime Minister Gordon Brown is visiting Oxford University today and is set to announce ambitious targets to increase the numbers of pupils studying sciences and maths in state schools.

Mr Brown is expected to visit a bio-chemistry facility in South Parks Road and see the new cancer centre at the Churchill Hospital.

Mr Brown will argue that investment in science is key to Britain's future competitiveness and will signal his ambition to shift the UK economy away from its over-dependence on financial services and towards science and technology.

He will promise not to let science become "a victim of the recession", vowing to protect funding for science from competing demands for Government support during the downturn.