Memorandum submitted by the Royal Astronomical
Society (FC 26)
1. The RAS welcomes the opportunity to provide
input to the Committee's inquiry. Our Fellows who work in the
astronomy and space science research communities have been greatly
affected by recent spending cuts and shifts in spending priorities,
particularly at the Science and Technology Facilities Council
(STFC). A separate submission to the Committee will come from
the British Geophysical Association (BGA), which represents those
RAS Fellows who work in the area of Solid Earth Geophysics.
2. This submission has been assembled following
extensive discussion within the RAS, the Astronomy Forum (representing
university astronomy groups around the UK) and with the Institute
of Physics.
The process for deciding where to make cuts in
SET spending
3. The Society does not wish to comment
on the overall balance of the SET budget nor express a preference
for one part of its Fellows' work over another. We support a balanced
portfolio of investment, with sufficient resources to allow internationally
competitive curiosity-driven research (including astronomy and
space science) to flourish.
4. For any future cuts, we strongly support
a decision making process that is open and transparent across
the different levels of Government, with the reasoning behind
strategies adopted in the public domain.
5. Within the Research Councils, the RAS
believes that investment should follow scientific priorities established
by broad consultation with the research community. For example,
in the most recent round of cuts, there is a concern that STFC
did not follow the advice of its scientific Panels covering the
astronomy area. The Council supported a number of less favoured
projects and did not seek to prioritise investment in people,
both actions that are contrary to Panel advice.
The feasibility or effectiveness of estimating
the economic impact of research
6. The RAS concurs with the premise that
scientific researchers should facilitate the exploitation of their
work by society and industry. In astronomy and space science,
there are many examples of this taking place, for example in imaging
techniques in medicine, in the Terahertz imaging scanners now
being introduced at UK airports and in signal processing in telecommunications.
7. However, the Society strongly opposes
the introduction of `economic impact' in the assessment of research,
both retrospectively (via the proposed Research Excellence Framework
or REF) and in applications for future funding. Our opposition
is based both on the lack of feasibility of this approach and
the distortions it is likely to introduce to research funding.
8. In our science, researchers are rarely
able to predict the impact of their research at the outset or
during the first few years. Impacts that do arise are often a
consequence of many years (or even several decades) of further
work and extremely difficult to attribute to the original research.
For example, the development of Wi-Fi from radio astronomy took
more than 30 years and relied on contributions from other disciplines.
9. We find implausible the proposals contained
in the REF for a new `approach' to be developed to tackle this
time lag and it is certainly hard to see how this will give due
credit to the many different contributors to a resulting impact.
10. With very few exceptions, it is then
almost impossible to trace the ultimate economic impact that follows
from a new product or technique back to a single original piece
of research.
The implications and effects of the STFC budget
cuts
11. The RAS believes that the STFC budget
cuts are very damaging to UK research in astronomy and space science.
This is contrary to the stated Government policy of attracting
students into STEM subjects, given the evidence that astronomy,
cosmology and particle physics attract students to study undergraduate
physics degrees, where applications increased by 19% between 2002-07.
The number of UK astronomy academics increased by 13% between
2003-04 and 2007-08, following the average 14% growth in academic
numbers nationally over this time frame.
12. The cuts themselves are described in
detail in the STFC investment strategy announced in December 2009.
They result from a combination of factors: (a) the £80 million
shortfall in the STFC settlement resulting from the 2007 Comprehensive
Spending Review (CSR07); (b) the inability to withdraw prematurely
from long term, international commitments without severe financial
penalties; (c) forward budget planning made on the assumption
of flat cash settlements in future spending rounds. The initial
CSR07 announcement was particularly ill-timed for STFC since this
new organisation lacked community input to prioritisation via
advisory panels. Delays in the establishment of such panels prevented
the outcome of a scientific prioritisation exercise until now,
accruing £46 million in loans over 2008-09 and 2009-10, which
have to be repaid in 2010-11.
13. Further financial pressures have arisen
from the decline in the Net National Income (NNI) of the UK, calculated
on the basis of GDP and exchange rate. With a weaker pound, subscription
levels for international organisations including ESO and ESA have
increased sharply. So far, these potentially crippling costs to
STFC have been reimbursed by DIUS/BIS to the value of £17
million (for the financial year 2008-09), £42 million (2009-10)
and an anticipated £60 million in 2010-11, but this has inevitably
led to financial tensions within RCUK, including a contribution
of £14 million to STFC from other Research Councils for 2010-11.
14. This combination of factors has nevertheless
resulted in a devastating impact upon STFC science including (a)
a 25% reduction in the volume of exploitation grants over CSR07;
(b) major cuts to the current and future scientific facilities
required by STFC's scientific user base, with UK-led programmes
lacking formal agreements with international partners hardest
hit and (c) the inability to maximise the return from major subscriptions
or national facilities. On the latter point, in the Particle Physics
Astronomy and Nuclear physics (PPAN) area the current ratio of
STFC investment between facilities and exploitation grants is
around 3:1, which many researchers believe to be too low for that
exploitation to be effective. However, the current strategy is
that funding for astronomy Post-Doctoral Research Assistants (PDRAs)
will reduce even further, with a planned reduction towards 60
PDRAs/yr, 45% below the 2007-08 level of around 110/PDRAs/yr,
leading to a yet greater imbalance between astronomy facility
provision and exploitation grants.
15. The chair of the STFC Astronomy Grants
Panel (AGP) believes that these savings could mean that 70% of
UK astronomy rolling grants (those extending over a five year
period) to research groups in universities will no longer be viable
as they will lack a critical mass of postdoctoral researchers.
This loss will make it almost impossible for them to compete with
their peers both in the UK and overseas.
16. Such a profound shift will remove the
ability of virtually every research group to provide leadership
in international projects. This in turn could threaten the viability
of many physics departments around the UK that have a significant
fraction of their work funded by STFC. The combination of cuts
to previously announced STFC research grants and the general outlook
for STFC supported science in Universities will inevitably lead
to a rapid decline in academics within these areas, unless confidence
can be rapidly restored through greater stability in funding.
17. STFC has also announced a 25% cut to
the education and training budget for 2010-11, a reduction in
the number of postgraduate studentship awards and cancellation
of the 2010 postdoctoral fellowship round at late notice. It will
become more difficult to receive postgraduate training and far
harder to take the first step on the ladder of an academic career,
further accelerating an exodus of the brightest young scientists
overseas, a process which had started before these latest announcements.
Urgent changes need to be made to offer hope of a future within
the UK to current STFC-funded postgraduates and PDRAs.
18. In terms of facilities, these savings
include UK withdrawal from a swathe of ground-based research projects
and observatories, including the Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory
in Argentina, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) regional
centre, the Joint Institute for Very Long Baseline Interferometry
in Europe (JIVE), the UK Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii,
the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and Chile and potentially the
Isaac Newton Group (ING) in La Palma in the Canary Islands.
19. One dramatic consequence of the cuts
to ground-based facilities is that after 2012 UK astronomers may
no longer have access to any optical telescopes in the northern
hemisphere, effectively denying British researchers the opportunity
to observe the sky above their heads.
20. Support will no longer be available
for researchers working on data from the ongoing and highly successful
space missions Cassini (studying Saturn and its moons), Cluster
(studying the Earth's magnetosphere), the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO), Venus Express and the X-ray observatory XMM.
In all these cases UK scientists were involved in designing instruments
for and held key roles in planning the missions.
21. STFC has also planned for a further
£16m in savings from the budget for ground-based astronomy
and a further £28m from space-based astronomy research. These
savings partly result from the proposed shift of £24m from
the (PPAN) area to the Physics and Life Sciences (PALS) area.
22. At present the UK has enormous strength
in astronomy and space science. It is one of the few scientific
areas where we are genuinely world-leading, with the number of
citations of scientific papers second only to the United States.
This reputation helps attract the best talent from overseas and
also has the effect of encouraging young people to careers in
science and engineering. In UK universities, many academics working
in other more "applied" areas of physics and engineering
state that they were drawn into science by their enthusiasm for
"blue skies" subjects like astronomy (examples are outlined
in the RAS submission to the RCUK review of physics in 2008 led
by Professor Bill Wakeham).
23. Given the scale of the proposed cuts,
the Society believes that if they are implemented UK astronomers
will lose their leading position and that this change would likely
be irreversible. It will also remove the technical base (for example
in instrument development) that forms the heart of knowledge exchange
activities in this area as well as much of the motivation for
scientists to engage in outreach activities.
The scope of the STFC review
24. The RAS welcomes and has actively engaged
with the review of STFC announced by the Science Minister on 16
December 2009. Our proposals for the Science Minister are set
out in the following paragraphs.
25. Firstly, we acknowledge and welcome
the positive action taken by DIUS and then BIS since 2008 to mitigate
the detrimental effect of increases in international subscription
costs. We also recognise the efforts made by STFC management to
better engage with the research community (at least via the RAS)
in the period since their CSR07 settlement and the welcome consultation
exercises that have followed.
26. Nevertheless, the Society believes that
structural issues remain whilst the risk associated with international
subscriptions are largely the responsibility of the Research Council.
Their fluctuations are essentially beyond the control of STFC,
yet major subscriptions now amount to ¥50% of STFC's near-cash
allocation in 2009-10.
27. To provide a permanent, rather than
ad hoc solution we believe that the Government should move the
risk associated with changes in NNI to the level of BIS or HM
Treasury, which would allow far greater certainty in forward planning.
This compensation should ultimately be cost neutral, as in many
years BIS would also benefit from positive movements in exchange
rates (and hence NNI).
28. The Society accepts that international
subscriptions to which STFC's user communities are the sole users
should be tensioned against other components of their programmes,
except for ESA subscriptions or bilateral agreements which are
in the wider UK strategic interest.
29. The STFC structure grew out of the merger
of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC)
with the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils
(CCLRC). STFC is now responsible for and has active involvement
in both the science exploitation and the facilities provision
on the PPAN side but only the facilities in the PALS area. Consequently
only the PPAN part of the UK science programme is tensioned against
the PALS facilities, which serve communities funded by the other
Research Councils and are effectively "national laboratories".
The merger was justified on the basis that the previous arrangement
ran the risk that the UK did not fully exploit its investment
in large scientific facilities. To date, underfunding has led
to STFC failing in this regard.
30. We therefore urge the Government and
RCUK to treat the PPAN and PALS areas of STFC separately, at least
for financial purposes. STFC would benefit from a more transparent
division between science and multi-disciplinary national facilities
if those were considered by separate Boards. Future science budget
allocations and associated technology development in the PPAN
area could then be made explicitly for this new Science Board
which would gain a more executive role. Costs for the Facilities
Board would be met at the time of the next CSR by those Research
Councils requiring the use of the national facilities, in proportion
to their proposed use. Membership of this Board would then need
to have representation from across RCUK.
31. The RAS believes that this would remove
the direct tensioning between national facilities and the PPAN
research community, although the national facilities would still
need to be tensioned against their own user communities from different
research areas. However, future STFC science budget allocations
could still be distorted by the "non-cash" costs associated
with the depreciation of capital assets like Diamond and ISIS
included in Treasury accounting rules. A standalone National Laboratory,
located on multiple sites and reporting to a stakeholder board,
could provide large-scale engineering and computing facilities
for both the public and private sectors. The Innovation Campuses
would also sit naturally inside an organisation of this type.
The Astronomy Technology Centre should remain within STFC, since
its primary role is the development of instrumentation for ground-based
astronomy facilities with UK involvement.
32. If the new approach is adopted, the
RAS believes that this will stabilise the STFC research grants
line, provided that subscriptions to major international organisations
are stabilised, although it is recognised that increases in these
costs may be imposed on the UK through majority voting amongst
international partners. At the very least, these revisions would
create a more transparent decision making process, where changes
to the Council budget would translate more seamlessly into research
activity.
33. We also believe that these solutions
are preferable to shifting the grants line into another Research
Council, thereby fragmenting the responsibilities for UK research
in astronomy. PPAN research is characterised by long lead times,
sometimes a decade or more, supported by the "Rolling Grants"
model which better ensures continuity of funding over project
lifetimes and has been instrumental in allowing the UK to take
its world-leading position in astronomy and space science. This
model is not used in for example, EPSRC, where research projects
are more impact-led and expected to deliver results on a much
shorter timescale.
34. One other aspect of astronomy and space
science funding so far not covered by the review of STFC is the
role of the new freestanding Space Agency.
35. The RAS welcomes the creation of the
Agency, with the view that its leadership could be far more effective
than the present BNSC partnership. Our proviso is that additional
costs associated with the Agency should not be met at the expense
of the science research budget. Since the Ministerial announcement
last December, we also remain unclear as to the shape of the Space
Agency and the areas it will be responsible for. We therefore
request the Government to publish its proposed Agency model in
the near future and to work with the scientific community to devise
an appropriate structure for the new organisation.
The operation and definition of the science budget
ring-fence
36. The RAS welcomes the public commitment
of the Science Minister to retain the science budget ring-fence.
We note however that the additional costs arising from the impact
of NNI fluctuations discussed above are at present funded by shifting
resources within the ring fence, making it less effective at protecting
research funding than might be assumed.
Government objectives set out in the "Science
and Engineering Investment Framework 2004-14"
37. The Society notes the ambitious vision
for Science set out when the Framework was published in 2004.
With the planned contraction of research in astronomy and space
science, that vision will be harder to realise.
38. With Governments of other nations like
the United States and Germany committed to increasing investment
in science, the UK's world ranking as second to the US for research
excellence is unlikely to be sustained. It is also hard to see
how the UK will continue to be an attractive destination for researchers
from other countries if the reputation of our science is so diminished.
39. In 2004 the Framework set out the ambition
that Research Council's programmes should be more strongly influenced
by and delivered in partnership with end users of research. Although
matters have improved greatly since 2007, there is still well-founded
concern in the astronomy and space science community that STFC
is not responding to scientific recommendations in the way that
it should.
40. One final note concerns the provision
of science teachers in schools and the "step change"
in their numbers sought by the Framework. Despite welcome efforts
made to improve recruitment in the form of bursaries and other
incentives, 50% of secondary schools in inner London have no physics
graduates teaching science. This has long-term and well documented
implications for the supply of future graduates in physics and
astronomy and we urge the Government to look again at policy in
this area.
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