Memorandum 28
Submission from Dr Brian WJ McNeil, Department
of Physics, SUPA, University of Strathclyde
I write to express my deep concern at the damage
the £80 million shortfall in STFC funding will cause to UK
science and economic competitiveness.
There has been little or no consultation within
the scientific community on how to deal with these cuts and STFC
senior management appear to have made hasty decisions that will
adversely affect science strategy in the long-term. While there
appears to be a positive bias towards space science, other economically
important areas of science research look increasingly likely to
suffer.
In particular, I am very concerned that research
towards building the next generation of light sources will be
compromised.
Currently, sources such as Diamond in Oxfordshire
enable determination of the structure of atoms, molecules and
biological systems. The next generation of sources, such as the
UK's 4GLS project (now abandoned) will be able to follow their
motion in time so that we will be able to "see" how
such systems function and interact. This would generate great
economic benefit from across the whole of science. Other nations
(eg USA, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, South Korea) are all investing
significantly in this field and will reap the rewards.
Staff at STFC Daresbury laboratory have been
informed that they will probably suffer significant and disproportionate
redundancies. These are the highly skilled people who designed
the Diamond light source and who have been designing the UK's
next generation light source. If redundancies are made on the
scales anticipated (leaving only approximately 150 staff at Daresbury)
great damage will be done to the UK science base from which it
will take at least a generation to recover.
I strongly urge you not to allow Daresbury labs
to be decimated in this way and to take immediate action to remedy
the situation at your forthcoming meeting of the Innovation, Universities
and Skills Committee.
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