What other subjects areas are Strategically important ?

One thing that has brought out into clear focus with the extra 10,000 places is the key role that STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), has to play on a strategic level for the future economic health of the country, indeed this extra funding is to support the governments Policy Statement on “Building Britain’s Future – New Industry, New Jobs”. As the press release says this is to “identifies key areas where Government action can have most impact, investing in growth to speed recovery and building manufacturing and services essential to ensure British people and businesses can compete successfully for the jobs of the future.” You can read it in full here http://www.dius.gov.uk/~/media/publications/N/new_industry_new_jobs. Whilst this is all good stuff there are shades of gray within the range of STEM subjects anyway, for example do we really need to increase the number of students studying Forensic Science at University beyond the numbers already heading into this subject ? My other concern is that many people I speak with seem unaware that STEM is not the only game in town when it comes to strategically important subjects. Briefly the other ones are Area Studies and Related languages (covering the Arab World, China, Japan, Eastern Europe inc Russia), Quantitative social science and finally Modern Foreign Languages. Should these areas also benefit from more places or greater promotion ? If you want to explore these in more depth it is worth checking them out at this report, which also gives some Labour Market Information on the salary you can expect in these fields http://www.hefce.ac.uk/aboutus/sis/SIVS_glossy.pdf