Examination of Witness (Questions 80-99)
PROFESSOR KEITH
MASON
4 FEBRUARY 2009
Q80 Chairman: When the director of
the Cockcroft Centre says that he is thinking of moving and the
centre is basically running down is he just shroud-waving?
Professor Mason: You would have
to ask him that.
Q81 Chairman: I am asking what you
think.
Professor Mason: My vision for
Cockcroft is that we seek ways to expand that. Accelerators are
a key technology that this country needs and we need expertise
in that technology.
Q82 Chairman: But if the director
does not support your view there is something wrong, is there
not?
Professor Mason: I doubt very
much that he does not support that view. There might have been
some misunderstandings earlier on as to intent, but he is working
with us to develop his vision of the accelerator world and how
to move that forward. He is very supportive of that.
Q83 Dr Harris: Has the government
told you that it would like to see a new large facility at Daresbury?
Professor Mason: The government
has not told me anything in that regard.
Q84 Dr Harris: You are the only person
in the world! I should like to clarify what you said earlier.
You said it could not be guaranteed that there would be a new
large facility at Daresbury.
Professor Mason: No.
Q85 Dr Harris: There might or might
not be; you just cannot say?
Professor Mason: As you know,
we are working on the new light source project and putting a lot
of energy into it. We are developing that case and we shall have
to consider the merits of it in competition with all the other
demands for funding.
Q86 Chairman: It is not going to
happen, is it?
Professor Mason: I cannot say
that, and it is not a decision that I will make. What I will do
is prepare the best possible case I can. You know the process
for large facility capital funding; it must be ranked against
other bids by RCUK and eventually government will make a decision.
Q87 Dr Harris: Figuratively speaking,
how much energy are you putting into the European Spallation Source?
Is the plan that the UK will bid for this new source and back
it or is your priority to concentrate on upgrading the two existing
facilities that you use which I think are ILL and ISIS, I think?
Professor Mason: We had a town
meeting of the relevant community not so long ago and agreed a
national position.
Q88 Dr Harris: I have read it but
I cannot understand it and that is why I ask the question. The
situation is not clear from that position statement.
Professor Mason: The first thing
to clarify is that these facilities are complementary and do different
things. In particular, the ISIS short pulse source has a totally
different set of applications from the ILL and ESS will occupy
an intermediate space. Our current priorities are to exploit the
ISIS instrument and to work to maintain that at the forefront
of the world. I am hopeful that that will involve internationalising
ISIS much more than it is even today, so it would be part of a
European network and our contribution to European neutron studies.
As to the ESS, our first priority in the short term is to exploit
ILL where there is a development programme and ISIS, but we are
conscious of the fact that ILL is a reactor-based facility. Initially
we felt that one of the reasons we started the ESS discussion
was for fear that ILL might not continue beyond 2020. I think
we have to sit down and look very hard at the timing of the ESS
with respect to any continuing programme on the ILL.
Q89 Dr Harris: I did not really follow
whether there was an answer to my question. Do you want another
go?
Professor Mason: In the short
term our priorities are ISIS and ILL, but we are conscious that
we do need to develop ESS for the longer term and that is the
position that the community came to which is contained in that
statement.
Q90 Dr Harris: The statement says
that a decision by ministers on the site for the ESS could be
taken within six months, so that is the short term, and yet you
are saying that your short-term priorities—I do not argue
with them because it is not for me to say what they should be;
I just want to establish what they are—are not to bid for
the ESS; it is not a priority in the next six months to a year
or a couple of years?
Professor Mason: I think there
are two issues here which probably cause the confusion. Ministers
particularly in Europe want to make a decision in the next six
months and that is driven by various issues, but once you have
decided where it is there is a separate decision as to when it
is. Even if the decision is made in the next six months it is
not clear to us that one would start building the ESS in the short
term.
Q91 Dr Harris: So, if they do get
a move on we might not be in there at the beginning because we
have other short-term priorities?
Professor Mason: No. Let us be
clear: we are very heavily engaged in the ESS discussion. One
of my people is convening the study that is looking at the ESS
going forward. There are many ways in which we can contribute
including technical developments. Whilst I have said that all
of these three facilities work in slightly different ways they
have at their root quite a lot of common technical work. I am
sure that if we were to upgrade ISIS that work would also be useful
for the ESS.
Q92 Dr Harris: In other words, is
there a conflict in the short term? This may be a good thing because
you want to make sure you sort out ILL and ISIS?
Professor Mason: That is right.
Q93 Dr Harris: The funding of that
would compete with early investment in ESS, so in a sense it is
in your interest to keep flexible and for ESS not to be moved
forward very quickly in terms of expenditure?
Professor Mason: We are in a situation
particularly in this economic downturn where competition for resources
throughout Europe is very, very tight. We have to have a serious
discussion about how best to move forward. People will have different
views. We need to sit down and reach a consensus. That is what
we are doing, and we are leading that discussion.
Q94 Dr Harris: You are agreeing with
that point. If there are financial issues, can I urge you to say,
in answer to the first question, what they are? Say what they
are: communicate.
Professor Mason: Indeed; that
is what we are doing.
Q95 Dr Harris: The next question
concerns Gemini. Where are we on that? The position is not clear
to me so now is an opportunity with a new communication strategy
to make this clear.
Professor Mason: As you know,
Gemini is a complex issue, but we are a member of it and are committed
to be a member until 2012. We have to take a view on continued
membership beyond 2012. The debate in which we are engaged with
the astronomical community both in the UK and beyond is about
what sort of range of facilities we need in future when moving
into an era of extremely large telescopes. Clearly, everybody
is in the same boat and has to deal with a fixed resource. We
need to put in place the optimum plan in terms of making sure
we stay at the forefront, so if we press ahead with the VLT which
ESO is very keen to do we have to take a view on the priority
of that compared with maintaining existing facilities. That is
the debate that I am to kick off shortly.
Q96 Dr Harris: As I understand it,
your current plan is to sell 50% of your time in order to concentrate
on one of the telescopes, which I think is the northern one.
Professor Mason: We are open to
offers to buy time from us because we believe that those resources
can be better deployed elsewhere. We have consulted with our community
about that and the majority view is that that is an appropriate
thing to do in order to use the resources most widely.
Q97 Dr Harris: Would you give an
undertaking that as your position develops you will keep us informed
in clear terms?
Professor Mason: Absolutely.
Q98 Dr Harris: It is better that
we hear it directly than to hear concerns and complaints from
vested interests on either side.
Professor Mason: Indeed.
Q99 Dr Harris: I move to ground-based
terrestrial physics, which as you know is our favourite subject
with you. How are you getting on with the discussions with NERC
about transferring responsibility?
Professor Mason: We are making
very good progress. We are still discussing and negotiating and
hope to make an announcement very shortly. One of our concerns
here was that clearly the application of these facilities has
changed. It is directed more at the climate change agenda than
the space agenda where it started. The whole business of upper
atmosphere research has always been a difficult boundary between
what was PPARC and NERC and now STFC and NERC. One of the clear
things we have done over the past several weeks is to get an understanding
of what the issues are and try to put a more clearly defined interface
between the responsibilities of the two councils. You cannot legislate
away boundary issues because science ignores them and transfers
across, but we also have a well-established procedure for bidding
for two entities at the same time for cross-disciplinary work
and we want to encourage that. We shall be coming out with a considered
statement in the near future, but I can tell you that we already
have a much more robust definition of where the boundary lies.
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