Slippage and Slideage
Back from the week’s exertions I’ve just realised that I missed the announcement from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the changes to their programme as a result of the 2009 budget settlement.
You can find the full statement here, but of immediate concern to astronomers is the plan to cut funding for the Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit (CASU) and the Wide-Field Astronomy Unit (WFAU) at Edinburgh. I’m not sure how much their support is to be reduced and what the long-term implications of the cuts will be.
Expenditure on the outrageously useless space gizmo Moonlite will be delayed until next year, thus saving another bit of money. In my opinion, it would have been better simply to have cancelled this one altogether and diverted the funding into research grants which are instead to be held at the levels they were cut to last year.
Other savings will be made by “rephasing” (i.e. delaying) other projects in particle and nuclear physics and some others have started late anyway for other reasons.
Any optimism there might have been about a better settlement at the next Comprehensive Spending Review has now totally evaporated, however, and I wouldn’t bet against STFC having to cope with further large cuts (in cash terms) a few years down the line. There are several ongoing consultation exercises (see Andy’s discussion and my earlier post for details) which will no doubt be used to draw up hit lists that will be used to make further cuts if and when needed.
The immediate impact of this review exercise on the astronomy programme seems considerably less brutal than I feared, but what may be going on is simply a holding operation and that the really drastic decisions will happen later, after money has already been spent on projects that are really already doomed. Still, a stay of execution is better than immediate termination.
In the Dark 
July 3, 2009 at 4:42 pm
As regards WFAU and CASU, nobody is expecting to lose their jobs this year, but more and more people in both groups are moving away from WFCAM and VISTA archiving (which still needs a lot of work) towards Gaia, where there is funding. Most of the development effort at WFAU has been moved to Gaia, and we have mainly operations people left doing work. There are a lot of things that would be nice to add into the VISTA archives that almost certainly won’t get done and I think the same is true at CASU. We would also like to get involved in new surveys, but I can’t see the funding coming for those any time soon.
Nick
July 4, 2009 at 3:31 pm
At the Paris conference I heard George Smoot give prominent billing to the capabilities of Clover in his plenary talk on CMB. Apparently the news hadn’t filtered through to the other side of the Atlantic….
July 4, 2009 at 4:22 pm
You may not have heard the last of Clover…
July 4, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Careful, you don’t want to go around saving instruments STFC has pulled the plug on. What sort of message does that send.
Next thing you know STFC will be cutting funding to lots more instruments with the understanding that cash from them was not needed to get the job done.
😉
July 5, 2009 at 6:58 am
Peter – allocations to WFAU and CASU rolling grants are reduced by about 40% compared to the panel recommendation about eighteen months ago. Nic is right that without Gaia it would be P45s all round. Even so, we are looking hard at what we can deliver and what we can’t for UKIDSS and VISTA on this reduced funding. A note will be widely circulated summing this up soon, and we certainly hope folk will mention us in their FUAP and GBFR returns…
July 5, 2009 at 10:53 am
Andy,
Thanks. I’d hoped you might fill in the details.
Peter