Blow to Science

[Nanfeishen]

Major funding cuts in UK science arena

STFC slashes funding for astronomy and physics

Effort to plug £40 million hole will involve cuts in studentships, fellowships and grants. Zoë Corbyn reports

Deep cuts have been announced in funding for astronomy and physics research as the Science and Technology Facilities Council faces up to a major budget deficit.

Departments across the UK will be affected as the council attempts to plug a £40 million hole in its current budget and put itself on a more sustainable footing for the future.

Physicists and astronomers should expect a 25 per cent cut in studentships and fellowships and a 10 per cent cut in grants from next year.

The measures announced on 16 December also include the UK’s “managed withdrawal” from a wide range of internationally important projects.

But the effects of the funding crisis will be felt by other researchers too, after other research councils agreed a last-minute bailout package for the STFC worth £14 million.

The STFC, which will receive the money in 2010-11, also intends to make £11 million in internal savings.

The list of 24 projects that the STFC will withdraw from, marking a £115 million reduction over five years, cover astronomy, particle physics, nuclear physics and space projects.

Flagship projects include:

* The ALICE collaboration, which is working to exploit the benefits of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern in Geneva

* The Cassini Huygens mission studying Saturn – a joint mission between the European Space Agency and Nasa

The UK will also withdraw from facilities, ending its participation in the European X-Ray Laser Project based in Hamburg and the twin Gemini telescopes, which it plans to exit in 2012.

Plans to build a fourth-generation light source – a potentially revolutionary facility to study molecules and chemical reactions – have also been shelved.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409658

“We are deeply concerned about the impact of STFC’s decision to cut 25% of its studentships and fellowships, to reduce funding for particle physics and astronomy research in UK universities, and to withdraw from a number of international projects and facilities.

http://www.russellgroup.ac.uk/russell-group-latest-news/112-2009/4036-stfc-funding-cuts/

The Royal Astronomical Society pointed out that an increasingly squeezed funding budget meant that the council had also withdrawn from some existing research projects.

It said that, by 2012, facilities including the UK Infrared Telescope in Hawaii, and the Gemini observatory would have "lost all UK support".

"The result of this is the loss of all UK funding for ground-based optical observatories in the northern hemisphere," said the society, "which will leave British scientists without direct access to a large part of the sky."

http://news.bbc.co.uk.news-channel.org/go/click/rss/1.0/-/1/hi/sci/tech/8417365.stm

The chairs of five of the council’s panels have expressed concerns over plans to axe more than 40 scientific projects.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=409987&c=1

2 excellent articles:
January 11, 2010
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/thesword/2010/01/uk-facilities-crisis-cock-up-o.html

January 12, 2010
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/thesword/2010/01/uk-facilities-crisis-the-fallo.html

 

[hyperian]

During bad economic times, it's the savers and scientists that get shafted.

 

[SlinkyMike]

It is very disturbing.

This also comes around the time that there is a very unsettling spike in the instances of parents and institutions pushing the teaching of creationism in classrooms instead of evolution as opposed to alongside.

 

[BCO]

It is very disturbing.

This also comes around the time that there is a very unsettling spike in the instances of parents and institutions pushing the teaching of creationism in classrooms instead of evolution as opposed to [-]alongside[/-] not at all.

Fixed it for ya

 

[Morgoth]

It is very disturbing.

This also comes around the time that there is a very unsettling spike in the instances of parents and institutions pushing the teaching of creationism in classrooms instead of evolution as opposed to alongside.

well at least in SA they teach evolution in class!

 

[SlinkyMike]

Fixed it for ya

Ta.