In the Dark

Three days ago the latest Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Andy Burnham, gave a commitment to rescue Jodrell Bank Observatory from the threat of closure resulting from funding cuts at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

In a previous post about this I wrote

The last time STFC had a financial crisis was in 2009 and e-Merlin might well have been cut then but survived thanks to political intervention at the highest level. I suppose that could happen again, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

It looks like it has indeed happened again. The exact quote from Andy Burnham is:

There must be a way to save Jodrell Bank, and I give a commitment today, at this despatch box, we will find it.

That sounds like an unequivocal commitment, but it raises quite a few questions. One of these is that STFC was actually planning to cut funding to the e-MERLIN project and it is by no means clear that the £2.8 million needed for e-MERLIN will actually be reinstated in the STFC budget. It may transpire that Jodrell Bank Observatory emerges as more of a heritage site than a world-class research facility, which is what it will be if e-MERLIN disappears.

And if £2.8M is found to keep e-MERLIN going without changing the overall STFC budget, then the axe will just fall elsewhere in STFC. Jodrell Bank is a special site with special arguments for keeping it open, but other targets can no doubt be found that are equally excellent from a scientific point of view, but can’t mobilize political forces to mount such a strong defence. This is no way to perform a scientific prioritization exercise. In any case it is important to remember that there are cuts and cancellations elsewhere too; see here for a full list.

I think that there needs to be a complete review of funding across all the UKRI agencies. It is deeply unfair that physics and astronomy have to bear the brunt of cost overruns at facilities which are largely used by researchers in other scientific areas. Surely their funding councils should contribute. I can accept that belts might need to be tightened, but that shouldn’t just apply to STFC.

This entry was posted on September 4, 2026 at 2:48 pm and is filed under Politics, Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags Andy Burnham, e-Merlin, Jodrell Bank, Jodrell Bank Observatory, Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.