Astronomy and particle physics : report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Science and Technology
- Date:
- 2011
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Astronomy and particle physics : report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![forward within the next couple of months”.!!? We welcome the Government's announcement in the 2011 Budget to invest an additional £100 million in 2011/12 in capital development for scientific facilities.’ This will mean an additional £20 million in capital funding for the STFC’s Daresbury and Harwell sites. 73. More widely, concerns have been raised about the UK’s role in the future development of particle accelerators for the post-Large Hadron Collider era (i.e., beyond the next 15-20 years).'!> The STFC decided at the time of the last spending review in 2007 to withdraw UK funding from the International Linear Collider project,''° and during our visit to CERN in February we learned that overall funding for the Compact Linear Collider, a study for a future electron-positron collider, was being reduced. 74. Professor Andrei Seryi, Director of the John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science, considered that the capital settlement would have an impact on the UK’s involvement in the next generation of particle accelerators: From the point of view of accelerator science [we] are trying to develop various methods of how to make future accelerators and colliders better, smaller and less expensive. For this, we need research developments for attracting students and capital funds to make small test facilities. All these are essential components. I really worry about our ability to contribute significantly to these future projects which are aimed at discovery science, like high energy physics [but] also I worry about our ability to contribute noticeably to applications of accelerators which are beyond discovery science, which are applications for energy security, nuclear energy security, health, engineering and to developing all the facilities which will be needed everywhere in addition to discovery science.'’” 75. During our visit to CERN we were struck by the wide-range of applications and benefits this area of science generates, particularly in the fields of medicine and engineering.'!* However, it was notable that the scientists and officials we met could not yet determine where the future of such colliders lay. Professor Allport said there were lots of directions in which future accelerator science could go: There are directions which go in terms of the Linear Collider. There are directions which go in terms of the ep [Electron Positron] collider. There are directions in terms of trying [to] double the energy of the LHC in the current ring. Then there are a large number of other facilities around the world which tend to concentrate on doing very high statistics experiments and, therefore, require extremely high Oso 3 HM Treasury, Budget 2011, March 2011, HC 836, para 1.93 4 “More than £20M capital funding for STFC science announced by Chancellor”, STFC Press Release, 23 March 2011 ® See, for example: Ev 45, para 3 [Institute of Physics]. @ STFC, Delivery Plan 2008-2011, para 2.1 7 Q 100 8 For example, the application of Hadron therapy in the field of cancer treatment](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3222204x_0032.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
