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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![UK Executive Group and Chief Executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, stated that he was “optimistic” that there would be an opportunity for these indicative allocations “to go up in the future”.'”° 83. While in the short-term the impact of capital reductions on existing facilities may be manageable, the STFC must ensure that, if opportunities for increased capital investment arise during the next four years and beyond, it prioritises maintaining the cutting-edge capabilities of the UK’s existing scientific infrastructure. To enable the STFC to plan properly for the next four years, we urge the Government to make clear its allocations to Research Councils for capital spending beyond 2011/12 as soon as possible. Concentration of funding 84. An issue that emerged during oral evidence was the apparent shift by the STFC in recent years towards narrowing its financial support in fewer areas and projects. As noted in paragraph 75, in the case of particle physics, scientists are unclear about the future scientific direction. Professor Bell Burnell said that: the narrowing of the programme [that] is going to happen, or is planned to happen, as a consequence of the cuts means that we have only a single focus. It is very dangerous to have all your eggs in one basket, and that is effectively what we are going to be doing. It does not [provide] a healthy diversity that will allow for future developments.’” 85. The figures appear to bear out the concentration of resources. In 2010/11 the STFC’s main CERN subscription accounted for over 60% of the £158 million spent on particle physics. On astronomy, there has been a shift by the STFC towards focusing its resources through the ESO. Professor Allport suggested that problems in concentration resulted from the way decisions were taken following the STFC’s 2009 prioritisation exercise, with an apparent correlation between those projects that were of high cost being given high priority, and those of low cost assigned low priority.’*° He said that there was, however, scope for a more nuanced approach to be taken: If one were to take a budget and say, “How do I best fit a programme into it?”, then one could do the high priority, high cost, but also try and get the Alpha 2s and 3s— Alpha 2 or Alpha 3 means that this is excellent international science—and try and get those low cost projects into the envelope so that you have a wider portfolio. This requires a different style of managing the science within each science area. It is more subtle than taking a priority listing and then saying, “Everything less than Alpha 3 gets cut.” There is room, even within a constrained budget, for trying to broaden the programme, but it requires some different methodology to achieve that. 28 Transcript of oral evidence, Spending Review 2010, 19 January 2011, HC618-ii, Q 90 129 Q 55 39Q 104 '31 As above](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3222204x_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
