Annex 1
January 14, 2008
The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, PC, MP Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
London, SW1A 2AA
United Kingdom
REF: STFC'S
DELIVERY PLAN,
ITS IMPACT
ON UK'S
PRE-EMINENCE
IN SCIENCE
AND EDUCATION
AND IMPLICATIONS
FOR THE
INTEGRITY OF
ITS SCIENCE
ADMINISTRATION
Dear Prime Minister
I write to you expressing my grave concern over
long-term irreparable damage to UK's premier international position
in fundamental science, potentially resulting from the Delivery
Plan of STFC as it is currently conceived and planned for implementation.
This plan, in my considered opinion, has not been subject to the
necessary critical scrutiny and review that is due. It has the
consequence of significantly eroding the foundation of higher
education in UK, its unique advanced skills base and its credibility
as an international partner. As a scientist, professor and scientific
leader who recently migrated to the UK after more than three decades
of a productive career in the world-class university and national
laboratory system in the USA, I was attracted by the rising eminence,
scientific prowess and credibility of the science and its administration
in the UK. Today, in self-introspection, I refuse to negate all
the positive forces that brought me to the UK, but cannot help
but seriously begin to question the integrity in UK science administration
in one particular sector that I am close to.
The STFC's discretion in the decision making
process and determining its own priorities can only be left unchallenged
within boundaries of reasonable and proportional deviations in
response to expected modest financial hardships. As the editorial,
"A policy of drift, British Physics faces an unnecessary
squeeze" in the 20-27 December 2007 issue of the international
journal Nature points out on page 1127,
Researchers in most countries in most parts of
the world, have to tighten their belts from time to time. But
these reductions are more drastic and sudden than any arm of a
competently managed research agency should have to bear"!
The competency or lack thereof can be
considered in various ways: understanding, articulating and advocating
one's business needs to the government, to peers and to the workforce;
establishment and practice of a due process of communication to,
and of participation by, the community; and finally a properly
informed and intelligent decision making process following a critical
analysis and scrutiny by peers. I will analyse these factors in
turn below.
The present STFC Delivery Plan calls for: up
to 500 job losses in the short span of a year or two at best in
the skilled science and engineering sector at the two national
laboratories of unparalleled international reputation—Daresbury
and Rutherford Appleton; a 25% reduction in the university grants
in areas of particle physics and astronomy where UK occupies the
front row seat globally among nations; elimination of certain
national and international projects without peer review or with
severely defective and questionable ones at best; and reduction
of university programs in higher education in physical sciences
and associated knowledge-based economy. The current situation
is supposedly a result of implementation of Full Economic Cost
(FEC) practice and bearing the operating costs of large scientific
facilities. These allegedly add up to a £80 million deficit
in expenses over a three year period relative to the STFC allocated
near-cash budget by the government, increasing by only 8% over
three years at the level of inflation only, by far the lowest
of any other research councils, including Arts and Humanities
(at 12%), according to information gathered by the community via
the Freedom of Information Act.
Observation: the FEC process was known
for some time to be properly accounted for and applied to all
government funded programs. The operating costs of large facilities
are high but expectedly so and not a surprise—they have
been anticipated at the required levels and noted as such for
several years.
Implication: The management of the newly
merged STFC had inadequate understanding of its Business needs.
If this is false, then either STFC was not capable of articulating
these needs to the government or deliberately did not consider
it essential to advocate its needs to the government, peers and
community.
On the face of this financial mismatch of the
business needs and the allocated funds, STFC faced a challenge.
Nobody in the community and even in the upper echelons of management
was aware of this challenge until very late in calendar year 2007,
when it was rumoured to be discussed in a confidential meeting
of the STFC Science Council, which supposedly was about to review
a Delivery Plan developed to meet this challenge.
Observation: STFC management did not
communicate with the community or the government the resulting
challenges they faced and developed its own priorities and plans
to address the financial shortfall confidentially amongst its
selective top management with information embargo in place.
Implication: STFC management did not
believe in communication with its staff and community. STFC management
did not trust the community in developing, in partnership an appropriate
plan in response to the challenge.
The resulting Delivery Plan—as developed
by STFC senior management in a totally "opaque" fashion
without application of due process in taking intelligence-based
informed decisions and lack of subsequent communication to and
ownership by the community—has resulted in what, by all
measures, is a grossly disproportionate balance of priorities,
calling for devastating loss of skills and human resources which
are the foundation of UK's scientific and technological pre-eminence
and economy. Such dire consequences as above, incommensurate with
the alleged shortfall over three years, can not be considered
or accepted as part of any reasonable and respectful review process
and can only point to fundamental deficiencies in responsible
science administration. There have been three so-called programmatic
review processes to my knowledge in STFC: one in connection with
the future Light Sources in UK; one in connection with Particle
Physics; and one in connection with Accelerator Science R&D.
In all cases, there were no consultations, for the sake of full
ownership, with the community about the nature and selection of
the reviewers and no sharing of the resulting deliberations before
the review recommendations were declared final. In many cases,
there was fundamental scientific conflict between the reviewers
and the reviewed, thus compromising the integrity of the review.
The qualifications and stature of the reviewers often did not
match the qualifications and stature of the reviewed. The association
of the term international peer review' to any one of these reviews
is a serious caricature of this honourable practice that has withstood
the tests of time worldwide in assuring the very best in generating
scientifically honest judgments with integrity. These are serious
enough to call the entire enterprise into question as far as its
integrity in scientific honesty and leadership is concerned.
Observation: STFC management does not
have a grasp of its own portfolio to the point that either it
cannot judge for itself when it needs to seek counsel from peers
and community or has fundamental disrespect for the process of
peer reviews and pays only lip service to it.
Implication: The STFC management has
lost the trust of the community in having the wisdom in and respect
for the field they serve and in their intellectual and managerial
capacity to administer the portfolio under STFC remit.
The consequences of implementing such grossly
ill-considered Delivery Plan are so significant and devastating
for all UK science that they cannot possibly have been subject
to any meaningful and well-advised peer review. UK scientists
now have lost their confidence to a large measure in the current
STFC management's ability to administer UK physical sciences under
its remit, given their inability to constructively engage and
appreciate the consequential damage to the field. The STFC is
no longer able to determine their priorities, based on their best
assessment of the science. If STFC has been merely following the
instructions of DIUS all along, on the other hand, then the community
needs to hear urgently that this was the original intention and
design of the government.
I, as a newly inducted scientist and scientific
leader in the UK, am grossly disappointed at this state of severe
mismanagement of science. I however refuse to believe this to
be typical of what I have come to know and respect over years
in the UK as the science enterprise of the highest calibre and
integrity in the world. I request that, despite your other busy
engagements, you give this matter the highest consideration it
deserves and bring back the dignity, integrity and fairness that
the situation deserves for the sake of UK's pre-eminence in the
field and preservation of its foundational base that brought me
to the UK in the first place.
Respectfully and sincerely yours,
Swapan Chattopadhyay
Copies to:
The Rt Hon John Denham, PC, MP, Secretary of State
for Innovation, Universities and Skills Dr. Ian Pearson MP, Minister
of State, Science and Innovation
Mr. Mike Hall MP, Weaver Vale
Mrs. Louise ElIman MP, Liverpool Riverside
Mr. Phil Willis MP, Chair, House of Commons Select Committee for
Innovation, Universities and Skills
Professor Drummond Bone, Vice-Chancellor, The University of Liverpool
Professor Alan Gilbert, President and Vice-Chancellor, The University
of Manchester Professor Paul Welling, Vice-Chancellor, Lancaster
University
Dr. Mike Dexter FRS, Chair of the Board, Cockcroft Institute
Prof. John B. Dainton FRS, Sir James Chadwick Chair of Physics,
The University of Liverpool Sir Martin Rees FRS, President of
the Royal Society
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