Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Confidential advice to the government late last year warned that British
science was heading for trouble. A report from the Advisory Board for the
Research Councils argued that next year’s budget was ‘substantially less
than the sum needed to sustain the health of the UK science base’. New scientist
has obtained a copy of the unpublished report.

The four-page letter from David Phillips, head of the ABRC, to Kenneth
Clarke, the education secretary, reveals a deep rift between the minister
and his civil servants. While Clarke has expressed confidence about the
state fo British science, Phillips is worried. ‘The proportion of the nation’s
wealth ]GDP^ deployed through the science budget will have declined by 15
per cent between 1981 and 1994,’ Phillips wrote. ‘This will make it difficult
to sustain scientific excellence.’

Phillips rejects the government’s assessment that the 6 per cent increase
in the science budget represented level funding in real terms. He argues
that because costs, particularly salaries, are rising by more than 6 per
cent, ‘the volume of scientific programmes will have to be reduced’.

In a debate on science in the House of Commons last week, Clarke argued
that level funding next year was justified by big rises in the past, ‘especially
the big 8 per cent uplift which took place two years ago’. But Phillips
rejects this. He says the impetus of the 1989/90 funding boost will be ‘more
than cancelled out’ by next year’s cuts.

Phillips also contradicts Clarke’s view that cuts of 28 million Pounds
forced on the Science and Engineering Research Council are the result of
‘reckless overcommitment’ by SERC. He says the ‘offending’ research was
‘started, with your ]Clarke’s^ predecessor’s endorsement, during 1990/91’.

Although the SERC last week announced a two-year reprieve for the Nuclear
Structure Facility (NSF) at Daresbury which faced closure, grants for new
research will be halved, a solution Phillips calls ‘extreme’.

This criticism of government policy will carry added weight coming from
the ABRC, the government’s own advisory body on science funding. In the
previous five years the advice was published, but this year the Department
of Education and Science kept it confidential. Phillips is plainly unhappy
with this. His letter closes with: ‘I should also welcome the opportunity
to discuss the publication of the board’s advice.’

Phillips also queries the amount of money newly allocated to the research
councils to cover overheads of some projects previously paid for by the
universities. The government has allocated 50 million pounds in 1992/93
and 100 million pounds in 1993/94. Phillips thinks the research councils
could lose out on the transfer. He says ‘more work is needed to refine the
amounts corresponding to the range in funding responsibilities’.

Phillips’s letter assesses how cuts might affect the research councils.
The Natural Environment Research Council has cancelled plans to build two
types of submarine. The cost of redundancies in the Agricultural and Food
Research Council has absorbed half the planned increase in research grants.
the Economic and Social Research Council has cut back work on the 1991 census
and its ‘positive health’ centre for health promotion. The Medical Research
Council has also cancelled work for ‘financial rather than scientific reasons’.

One quarter of Phillips’s letter is devoted to the SERC’s problems.
On top of this year’s cuts, Phillips says that the SERC has also decided
‘to consider possible reductions in long-term commitments at its research
establishments and through international subscriptions’. He says the council
also belives ‘some further reduction in the proportion of SERC’s budget
spent on ‘big science’ (nuclear physics and astronomy) would be desirable’.

As the goverment has ruled out cutting the subscription to CERN, the
European centre for particle physics, those statements point to a continuing
squeeze on nuclear physics. This week, Mark Richmond, Chairman of the SERC,
compared the small number of researchers who can use the NSF with the many
more who can use other facilities at the same time, ‘The cost per head of
the synchrotron radiation source ]at Daresbury^ is a much more effective
use of resource than the NSF,’ he said.

Phillips’s letter suggests the ISIS neutron source at the Rutherford
Appleton Laboratory is considered more deserving than the joint European
source in Grenoble. ‘Particular attention is being given to the possible
ending of UK participation at the treaty renewal point in 1992,’ says Phillips.

Phillips believes that Britain’s competitors are ‘investing significantly
more in research’. He says the ABRC’s major disappointment is that the level
of current funding will ‘widen the disparity with research budgets in other
³¦´Ç³Ü²Ô³Ù°ù¾±±ð²õ’.

Mark Richmond, who sent shock waves through the nuclear physics community
by threatening to shut down the NSF, still wants to shift the council’s
funding from big facilities towards individual grants. But he says the problems
with next year’s funding mean that ‘in the short term, we will move in the
opposite direction’.

The SERC last week announced cuts of 28 million pounds. To Richmond’s
dismay, the biggest cuts are in grants. The council can fund only half of
next year’s grants.

The underlying problem is that 130 million pounds of the SERC’s budget
is tied up in international projects, says Richmond, leaving only 300 million
pounds spare. The astronomy board of the SERC would like to pull out of
the Spectrum-X astronomy project with the USSR, says Richmond. But the project
is an intergovernmental agreement and therefore ‘horrendously complex’.
Pulling out may cost more than staying in.

The NSF is guaranteed funding for next year. In 1992/93, after a review
of nuclear physics has been completed, it will require 5 million pounds,
open or shut. This money is not currently in the SERC budget and Richmond
hopes it will come either form the ABRC’s reserve or as extra science spending
from the government. Otherwise it will rob other facilities – or grants.