Please help save British Science

[e_pepys]

I was going to call this "Please help save my job", but having been the victim of a previous cut, I am hoping that even if this thing goes through, I'll still have a job. But you never know. In any case, some of my colleagues won't be so lucky.

There's a petition to 10 Downing Street to reverse an £80M shortfall in funding for UK research into

Comments

[zengineer]

I've signed since it is my job too - maybe.

[e_pepys]

Most of the noise seems to have been from Particle Physicists, though that may just be selection bias (those are the articles that have been pointed out to me). Or maybe Astrophysics isn't so hard-hit. I hope for your sake that is the case.

[zengineer]

Astro will probably be worse hit. They have already announced a withdrawl from Gemini, the Canaries telescopes and ground based solar observation. Unless a renegotiation is made UK astronomers will have access to no telescopes observing the Northern sky. The astrophysicists are less organised and less vocal than particle physicists.

[purplecthulhu]

The RAS has actually done a pretty good job so far. There are quite a few blogs out there covering the astro side (see links on my blog) and the initial 'paxoing' of the science minister was at least party thanks to the RAS president. To be honest I haven't seen much of the particle side. I guess we're suffering from selection effects...

[zengineer]

Since my section does both particle and Astro work I get to see both bits. The astro people seem no less effective and the 'paxoing' of the Science minister was reportedly very well done but the PP community does seem more organised.

[purplecthulhu]

I think it's fair to say that PP is more organised, partly because of the way the field works - a small number of very large experiments with people talking to each other all the time. We've more, smaller (in some cases very small) experiments so are more disconnected. The axe is also falling on us in several very different ways. Space-based stuff is significantly less hit, partly I think because it's seen as a good way of funneling money to industry to build things and so has the Treasury more behind it. The other more cynical interpretation is that the head of STFC is from the space side and so is making sure his home institute is feather bedded (see earlier posts on my LJ) and so the rest of us get some leeway from that. Ground-based astronomy and STP, in contrast, are quite badly hit, and the 25% cut to the grants line is a disaster for everyone.

[zengineer]

All very valid points. It does annoy me when the government supports a branch of science because it is seen as a way of funnelling money to industry. I have been on the industry side of that equation and it irritated me there too. You should fund good science and then industry will supply the equipment to do that science - not pick an area that industry likes and then fund the science to create a false market.

[purpletigron]

Lots of familiar astro-sigs on the petition!