Fustercluckage [purplecthulhu]

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Rumour has it that the cuts to astronomy and particle physics funding in the UK is deliberate on the part of government, and is part of a 'realignment' of UK science towards immediate wealth generation. In other words we're back to the Thatcherist attitude that short term research is all that we should do. Even the conservative party saw the error of this policy and gave up on it during Major's time as PM. That Brown should return to this discredited notion demonstrates just how intellectually bankrupt they are.

Get signing the petition and write to your MP. If you know any A-level science students get them to sign and especially write to their MP if they find astronomy and particle physics particularly stimulating. These are the subject areas that get people into the hard sciences, and we need more of them not fewer.

Who will invent the next MRI scanners and synchrotrons if we dump physics? Not anybody in the UK, that's for sure...

Mood::

depressed

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There are 12 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

Can you say where these rumours come from? (I'm assuming they're more concrete than just common-room conspiracy theory, or you wouldn't have told us.)

I'd like to write to my MP about this: I signed the petition the first time you mentioned it, but still feel I want to do something. Quite apart from anything else, if the government is moving in that direction then my own field of interest (the more abstract end of pure mathematics) is probably going to be even worse off.

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I can't say explicitly who these rumours come from, but it is someone or someones who are closer to STFC decision making than I am.

A letter to your MP would be great. I think it's worth emphasizing the long term rewards from basic research (synchrotrons, the new wonder tool for medical research, for example, are a product of particle physics) and the importance of basic research in firing people's interest and enthusiasm for science. Without either of these we'll be high and dry when the 'knowledge economy' moves on.

I have to say I'm rather disappointed that none of this is coming out explicitly - if this is a change of policy then it needs to be announced as such rather than this cowardly skulking in the shadows.

I think your funding comes from EPSRC? This would seem to be safer than STFC in the medium term since there isn't a 900 pound vested-interest gorilla in the room in the shape of Diamond.

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Hmmm. Very disturbing. I'll try to write a letter to my MP (who is, unfortunately, an ultraloyal New Labour backbencher with a track record of avoiding rocking the boat).

I think your funding comes from EPSRC?
I think you're mistaking me for someone who is or has been in receipt of some sort of funding - alas this is not the case, although I do have vague dreams of it being so at some point in the future :)

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If he's loyal Blairite he might not mind rocking the boat...

Even if not, he probably has a lot of university types in his constituency so he should be made to be worried about the implications for his constituents.

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Good point - he's got at least one and (depending on exactly where the border is) maybe two universities in his constituency. That didn't stop him voting to introduce top-up fees, but I guess the whips were more persuasive than a bunch of mere students and academics.

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Being cynical, the students were going to go to university anyway and most of them don't vote away from home. This current cut, though, will cost jobs in his constituency (quite the opposite effect of the tuition fees) so this might get his attention. Warwick, for example, has a significant involvement in space plasmas, an area that is targeted for substantial cuts.

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EPSRC? This would seem to be safer than STFC in the medium term since there isn't a 900 pound vested-interest gorilla in the room in the shape of Diamond.

Perhaps not, but wealth-generation is part of the funding ethos (I can moan about short-termitis but will (thankfully) refrain), the budget is much smaller, and who knows what surprises might land. Can anyone remember Rover already?

*sigh*

This is galvanising me for looking for an out - either non-academia UK or OS. If it were just me, I'd start learning Chinese and see what's available, but I have others to consider :/

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Wealth generation comes from trained and motivated people produced by research groups - we've just sent two to hedge funds, so that should impress the PM...

This whole thing has left me wondering how much of a poison chalice my recent ascension towards a lectureship might be. Rover now seems like a small pinprick. We should have taken that as a warning and opposed the STFC merger :-((((((((((

I hope we actually get a chance to meet before you leave, if you do leave!

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. o O (perversely one of the alternative options may involve going to london)

For me academic is what I always wanted to be - but I seem to have had a rather idealised view coloured by 1970s british literature and the situation that professors at top institutes find themselves in. So I am never sure whether I have failed and should give up, or if my expectations were too high (and I should go do something else), or if it was always so for younger academics and I should just persevere and things will turn out all right. At the moment I am starting to lead to the former, but some part of me still believes it is the latter - I hope whatever I pick is the right choice when it comes to it ...

(sorry, its late at night)

I'll let you know next I'm in London, but my station is Euston (and/or Picadilly), so I think that's a bit far from you?

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I suspect the cultured near-idle tenured professor of the 70s was never real and anything that came close died off before I became an undergraduate in the mid-80s. I know funding was tight then though in my field it might be even tighter soon. I think there has always been a lot of paddling going on beneath the seemingly swan-like surface.

I work in South Kensington and live in Bethnal Green so I pretty much go past your stations every day.

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Yes, I know that certainly there is a lot of hard work - what frustrates me is the lack of time to think and read, and I get inklings that some of my colleagues elsewhere have more time to do this. Of course it could always be bad time management on my behalf. The problem is the uncertainty of knowing how much are factors in your control, or your fault or because you are lazy, and how much is just the circumstance that I should just be 'happy' to deal with. And no time to find out really because 200 prac scripts need marking (50 of which haven't been distributed yet), exams are next week, lectures need to be refreshed, 3 grant applications need to be submitted and 2 papers need reworking. Preferably by the end of the week because its friday :)

(having said that however, I don't know where our senior staff get time to do work - one has just moved in the office next to me and he is constantly talking to people - I guess I need some proper minions)

I'll let you know next time I come down. I am waiting to hear from Greenwich about some external examining - otherwise next RSC meeting is in early May sometime.

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I've not got a full teaching load yet, but I can see how these things might stack up.

What I've learnt while doing what is on paper a 'zero research' project management job is to be totally selfish and self centered when it comes to research and thinking time. This is hard because it's not how we're told to behave, but it seems to be what the senior people do.

So don't chase those missing 50 scripts because it's someone else's job to distribute them, then use the time you'd've spent on them doing the papers or grant proposals. And, more generally, learn to say no.

There's a good friend of mine who used to be at a university in wales who was driven to severe illness by the mounting demands put on her by her department. Telling the department 'no' when it gets too much (or preferably before that) is best for both you *and the department*. In my friend's case she ended up taking very early retirement because of stress induced illness on a full pension paid for by the university. Otherwise they would have been sued into oblivion because of the unreasonable and damaging stress they put her under. Please don't let this happen to you!

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purplecthulhu

Fustercluckage

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December