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.
33/176 page 29
![intensity beams for neutrinos, muon storage rings, e+ or e- for B-factories and so 119 on. 76. Important decisions will shortly have to be made about the allocation of relatively scarce resources for accelerator R&D over the next four years. These decisions will determine whether the UK has a significant part to play in this field for decades to come. Given the widespread applications and benefits of this area of science, the STFC must ensure it makes these decisions on the basis of a long-term, scientifically- informed, strategic vision that ensures the UK stays at the forefront of activities in developing new technologies. STFC’s “in-house” focus 77. The STFC delivery plan includes a proposal to “focus the capabilities of STFC’s in- house researchers, especially in astronomy, particle physics and nuclear physics, on technology, instrumentation and detector development, allowing university scientists to concentrate on research”.'”? This proposal was the subject of conflicting interpretations during our inquiry. A number of submissions understood this to be a reduction in support to university R&D which would impact upon the UK’s ability to develop and lead in the field of innovative new technologies. The Institute of Physics said that within the field of particle physics, especially in relation to the Large Hadron Collider experiments, much of the recent technology, instrumentation and detector development had been led by university groups: Detectors in particle physics (and astronomy) can only be built successfully in close contact with those who use the data and understand the nature of the technical challenges and the reasons for the demanding technical requirements; this is how the rest of the world operates. Any attempt to make unilateral changes to this method of working would undermine UK leadership and innovation in detector technology, and may make it harder for UK industry to compete successfully for contracts.'”! 78. The STFC challenged the suggestion that the proposal in the STFC delivery plan represented a move away from the current method of working. Professor Mason said to us that: What we are trying to say there is, essentially, a re-statement of our existing position and the existing mission of our national laboratories, which is that they are there to support the scientific communities, and in particular in these capital intensive areas of building large detectors—not doing the detector R and D but building large instrumentation. What we were trying to capture there was not so much that we were going to prevent the universities from doing technology development, but we were going to encourage our in-house researchers not to compete with the universities in terms of scientific research and to concentrate on their core mission, which is to support the university communities in their endeavours. [I] would re- 119 Q 100 120 STFC, Delivery Plan 2010/11 to 2014/15, December 2010, para 4.1.3 21 Ey 46, para 8](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3222204x_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
