Archive for Horizon 2020

Value versus Values

Posted in Biographical, Politics with tags , , , , , on December 9, 2023 by telescoper

I noticed last week that the United Kingdom has a new Home Secretary, the ironically-named James Cleverly, who has taken over the task of making the country even more xenophobic. Among the measures he is proposing is hiking the minimum salary needed for skilled overseas workers from £26,200 to £38,700. That figure has come as a shock to scientific researchers, as the entry level for a new postdoctoral researcher in the UK is about £36-37K. No foreign postdocs, please, we’re British! I wonder how this squares with the recent (belated) decision to join Horizon 2020? I don’t see this latest bout of small-mindedness doing much to repair the damage done by a two-year absence from the programme.

Anyway, the decision to set a high salary threshold for skilled migrants, reminded me of something that struck me when I read David Graeber’s book Bullshit Jobs. It’s really just a side issue in the context of that book, and it’s probably something well known to students of ethics, but I found it interesting:

In English, as currently spoken, we tend to make a distinction between “value” in the singular, as in the value of gold, pork bellies, antiques, and financial derivatives, and “values” in the plural: that is, family values, religious morality, political ideals, beauty, truth, integrity, and so on. Basically, we speak of “value” when talking about economic affairs, which usually comes own to all those human endeavors in which people are getting paid for the work or their actions are otherwise directed at getting money. “Values” appear when that is not the case. For instance, housework and child care are, surely, the single most common forms of unpaid work, Hence we constantly hear about the importance of “family values”.

Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber, p. 203

The point of relevance here is that defining the “value” of a job only in the sense of how large the salary is misses the fact that the financial reward isn’t the only sort of value that a job has; there is social value too. As far as I am aware, though, there is no really satisfactory theory of social value. On the other hand, it does seem that many jobs with the highest social value (care worker, nurse, primary school teacher, etc) are poorly paid, i.e. have low financial value. Nevertheless, people still do them. Why is that? It’s because people are motivated by things other than money – values. It’s possible to find work rewarding in a way that’s not primarily financial. That’s yet another reason why it is daft to measure the success of a University course in terms of the salaries of those who graduate from it.

One thing that confuses me is that there seem to be people – perhaps many of them – who actively resent those who find their work enjoyable or fulfilling. This sometimes manifests itself as exploitation. Take nurses, for example. I think we all agree that health services would fall apart without them, but the are routinely denied decent monetary reward for their work. One can’t live off values. A system that drives nurses out of the profession due to financial hardship is truly rotten.

As a University Professor, I’m well off financially, but that’s not the reason I chose a career as an academic. I don’t think the reason is simple, actually, among the factors are: (a) I think science is important and wanted to make a contribution; (b) I enjoy teaching; and (c) I didn’t want to be bored (in other words I didn’t want a bullshit job).

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Ireland, CERN and Science

Posted in Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on November 15, 2023 by telescoper

And lo! it came to pass that Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris TD has today secured Government approval to submit Ireland’s formal application to join the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) as an Associate Member.

I have posted about this before, for example here. Currently Ireland is in the anomalous position of not having any form of association agreement with CERN; the list of Full and Associate Member states can be found here.

There is an important point about CERN membership, however, which I hope is not sidelined. The case for joining CERN made at political levels is largely about the return in terms of the potential in contracts to technology companies based in Ireland from instrumentation and other infrastructure investments. This was also the case for Ireland’s membership of the European Southern Observatory, which Ireland joined about five years ago. The same thing is true for involvement in the European Space Agency, which Ireland joined in 1975. These benefits are of course real and valuable and it is entirely right that arguments should involve them.

Looking at CERN membership from a scientific point of view, however, the return to Ireland will be negligible unless there is a funding to support scientific exploitation of the facility. That would include funding for academic staff time, and for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers to build up an active community as well as, e.g., computing facilities. This need not be expensive even relative to the modest cost of associate membership (approximately  €1.9M). I would estimate a figure of around half that would be needed to support CERN-based science.

The problem is that research funding for fundamental science (such as particle physics) in Ireland is so limited as to be virtually non-existent by a matter of policy at Science Foundation Ireland, which basically only funds applied research. Even if it were decided to target funding for CERN exploitation, unless there is extra funding that would just lead to the jam being spread even more thinly elsewhere.

As I have mentioned before, Ireland’s membership of ESO provides a cautionary tale. The Irish astronomical community was very happy about the decision to join ESO, but that decision was not accompanied by significant funding to exploit the telescopes. Few astronomers have therefore been able to benefit from ESO membership. While there are other benefits of course, the return to science has been extremely limited. The phrase “to spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar” springs to mind.

Although Ireland joined ESA almost fifty years ago, the same issue applies there. ESA member countries pay into a mandatory science programme which includes, for example, Euclid. However, did not put any resources on the table to allow full participation in the Euclid Consortium. There is Irish involvement in other ESA projects (such as JWST) but this is somewhat piecemeal. There is no funding programme in Ireland dedicated to the scientific exploitation of ESA projects.

Under current arrangements the best bet in Ireland for funding for ESA, ESO or CERN exploitation is via the European Research Council but to get a grant from that one has to compete with much better developed communities in those areas.

A significant shake-up of research funding in Ireland is in view, with Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council set to merge into a single entity called Research Ireland. If I had any say in the new structure I would set up a pot of money specifically for the purposes I’ve described above. Funding applications would have to be competitive, of course, and I would argue for a panel with significant international representation to make the decisions. But for this to work the overall level of public sector research funding will have to increase dramatically from its current level, well below the OECD average. Ireland is currently running a huge Government surplus which is projected to continue growing until at least 2026. Only a small fraction of that surplus would be needed to build viable research communities not only in fundamental science but also across a much wider range of disciplines. Failure to invest now would be a wasted opportunity.

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Research Matters

Posted in Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , , on September 10, 2023 by telescoper

One of the things that happened last week while I was preoccupied with ITP2023 is that, finally, the UK Government has decided to re-join the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project. I’m very happy about this, and can’t understand why it has taken so long to reach an agreement. I know many researchers in the UK who will be mightily relieved too. Of course things won’t immediately get back to normal. It’s not just that the UK contributions will start in January 2024 so there will have to be some sort of transitional arrangement. More importantly it remains to be seen how long it takes to repair the damage done to goodwill by all the political shenanigans.

While I’m on about research I should also mention that there was a short talk at ITP2023 by a particle physicist by the name of Ronan McNulty who is based at University College Dublin. The topic of that talk was the history of Ireland’s non-membership of CERN; I have blogged about this before, for example here. Currently Ireland is in the anomalous position of not having any form of association agreement with CERN; the list of Full and Associate Member states can be found here. It does seem, however, that Ireland is at last about to lodge an application for Associate Membership, perhaps as early as January 2024.

Ronan made a particularly important point about membership, which I hope is not sidelined in the discussions. The case for joining CERN made at political levels is largely about the return in terms of the potential in contracts to technology companies based in Ireland from instrumentation and other infrastructure investments. This was also the case for Ireland’s membership of the European Southern Observatory, which Ireland joined about five years ago. The same thing is true for involvement in the European Space Agency, which Ireland joined in 1975. These benefits are of course real and valuable and it is entirely right that arguments should involve them.

Looking at CERN membership from a scientific point of view, however, the return to Ireland will be negligible unless there is a funding to support scientific exploitation of the facility. That would include funding for academic staff time, and for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers to build up an active community as well as, e.g., computing facilities. This need not be expensive even relative to the modest cost of associate membership (approximately  €1.5M). I would estimate a figure of around half that would be needed to support CERN-based science.

The problem is that research funding for fundamental science (such as particle physics) in Ireland is so limited as to be virtually non-existent by a matter of policy at Science Foundation Ireland, which basically only funds applied research. Even if it were decided to target funding for CERN exploitation, unless there is extra funding that would just lead to the jam being spread even more thinly elsewhere.

As I have mentioned before, Ireland’s membership of ESO provides a cautionary tale. The Irish astronomical community was very happy about the decision to join ESO, but it was not accompanied by significant funding to exploit the telescopes. Few astronomers have therefore been able to benefit from ESO membership. While there are other benefits of course, the return to science has been extremely limited. The phrase “to spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar” springs to mind.

Although Ireland joined ESA almost fifty years ago, the same issue applies there. ESA member countries pay into a mandatory science programme which includes, for example, Euclid. However, did not put any resources on the table to allow full participation in the Euclid Consortium. There is Irish involvement in other ESA projects (such as JWST) but this is somewhat piecemeal. There is no funding programme in Ireland dedicated to the scientific exploitation of ESA projects.

Under current arrangements the best bet in Ireland for funding for ESA, ESO or CERN exploitation is via the European Research Council but to get a grant from that one has to compete with much better developed communities in those areas.

A significant shake-up of research funding in Ireland is in view, with Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council set to merge into a single entity. If I had any say in the new structure I would set up a pot of money specifically for the purposes I’ve described above. Funding applications would have to be competitive, of course, and I would argue for a panel with significant international representation to make the decisions. But for this to work the overall level of public sector research funding will have to increase dramatically from its current level, well below the OECD average. Ireland is currently running a huge Government surplus which is projected to continue growing until at least 2026.

Only a small fraction of that surplus would be needed to build viable research communities not only in fundamental science but also across a much wider range of disciplines. Failure to invest now would be a wasted opportunity.

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Hard BrExit Reality Bites UK Science

Posted in Politics, Science Politics with tags , , , , , , on January 17, 2017 by telescoper

Before lunch today I listened to the Prime Minister’s much-heralded speech (full text here) at Lancaster House giving a bit more detail about the UK government’s approach to forthcoming negotiations to leave the European Union. As I had expected the speech was mainly concerned with stating the obvious – especially about the UK leaving the so-called Single Market – though there was an interesting, if rather muddled, discussion of some kind of associate membership of the Customs Union.

As I said when I blogged about the EU Referendum result back in June last year

For example, there will be no access to the single market post-BrExit without free movement of people.

The EU has made it perfectly clear all along that it will not compromise on the “four freedoms” that represent the principles on which the Single Market (correct name; “Internal Market”) is based. The UK government has also made it clear that it is running scared of the anti-immigration lobby in the Conservative Party and UKIP, despite the mountain of evidence (e.g. here) that immigration actually benefits the UK economy rather than harming it. A so-called “hard BrExit” approach has therefore been inevitable from the outset.

In any case, it always seemed to me that leaving the EU (and therefore giving up democratic representation on the bodies that govern the single market) but remaining in the Single Market would be completely illogical to anyone motivated by the issue of “sovereignty” (whatever that means).  So I think it always was – and still is – a choice between a hard BrExit and no BrExit at all. There’s no question in my mind – and Theresa May’s speech has hardened my views considerably – that remaining in the EU is by far the best option for the UK. That outcome is looking unlikely now, but there is still a long way to go and many questions have still to be answered, including whether the Article 50 notification can be revoked and whether the devolved assemblies in Scotland and Northern Ireland have to give separate consent. Interestingly, the Conservative Party manifesto for the 2015 General Election included a commitment to work within the Single Market, so it would be within the constitutional limits on the House of Lords to vote down any attempt to leave it.

Overall, I felt the speech was worthwhile insofar as it gave a bit of clarity on some issues, but it was also full of contradictions on others. For example, early on the PM stated:

Parliamentary sovereignty is the basis of our constitution.

Correct, but in that case why did the UK government appeal the High Court’s decision that this was the case (i.e. that Parliamentary consent was needed to invoke Article 50)? Moreover, why if she thinks Parliament is so important did she not give today’s speech in the House of Commons?

This brings me to what the speech might imply for British science in a post-BrExit era. Here’s what I said in June 2016:

It’s all very uncertain, of course, but it seems to me that as things stand, any deal that involves free movement within Europe would be unacceptable to the powerful  UK anti-immigration lobby. This rules out a “Norway” type deal, among others, and almost certainly means there will be no access to any science EU funding schemes post 2020. Free movement is essential to the way most of these schemes operate anyway.

I’m by no means always right, but I think I was right about that. It is now clear that UK scientists will not be eligible for EU funding under the Horizon 2020 programme.  Switzerland (which is in the Single Market) wasn’t allowed to remain in Horizon 2020 without freedom of movement, and neither will the UK. If the PM does indeed trigger Article 50 by the end of March 2017 then we will leave the EU by April 2019. That means that existing EU projects and funding will probably be stopped at that point, although the UK government has pledged to provide short-term replacement funding for grants already awarded. From now on it seems likely that EU teams will seek to exclude UK scientists.

This exclusion is not an unexpected outcome, but still disappointing. The PM’s speech states:

One of our great strengths as a nation is the breadth and depth of our academic and scientific communities, backed up by some of the world’s best universities. And we have a proud history of leading and supporting cutting-edge research and innovation.

So we will also welcome agreement to continue to collaborate with our European partners on major science, research, and technology initiatives.

From space exploration to clean energy to medical technologies, Britain will remain at the forefront of collective endeavours to better understand, and make better, the world in which we live.

Warm words, but it’s hard to reconcile them with reality.  We used to be “leading” EU collaborative teams. In a few years we’ll  be left standing on the touchlines. The future looks very challenging for science, and especially for fundamental science, in the UK.

But the politics around EU science programmes pales into insignificance compared the toxic atmosphere of xenophobia that has engulfed much of the UK. The overt policy of the government to treat EU citizens in the UK as bargaining chips will cause untold stress, as will the Home Office’s heavy-handed approach to those who seek to confirm the permanent residence they will otherwise lose when the UK leaves the EU. Why should anyone – scientist or otherwise – stay in this country to be treated in such a way? 

All of this makes me think those scientists I know who have already left the UK for EU institutions probably made the right decision. The question is how many more will follow?

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