Academics warn of physics funding crisis

University physics departments are facing the worst funding crisis in more than 20 years following government budget cuts, academics warn today.

Ministers have left the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) with an £80m shortfall, said physicists.

The group of 36 physicists from the UK's leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, have come together to express concern over the shortfall.

The group's warning coincides with today's publication of the research councils plans for how they will spend their budgets allocated in October's comprehensive spending review (CSR), and their research priorities for the next three years

John Denham, the universities minister, will be discussing the plans with scientists and the heads of the research councils this afternoon.

The deficit will result in a 25% cut in the number of grants the STFC can award for research projects, and reduce the number of new PhD students and post doctoral researchers universities can enrol.

The UK's involvement in international projects in astronomy, space exploration and particle physics will also be affected.

Prof Keith Mason, chief executive of the STFC, announced last month that the 13.6% rise in the council's budget to £6.5m in 2011 allocated in the spending review "represented an essentially flat cash allocation".

The STFC subsequently said it would have to withdraw from the Gemini Observatory, which operates eight-metre telescopes in Hawaii and Chile, due to the funding shortfall.

The STFC was formed earlier this year by the merger of the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) and the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).

Physicists say the government gave assurances that the merger would be properly funded and would not adversely impact research in university departments.

But in a statement released today, the ad hoc group of physicists say: "the 25% reduction in grants and the cancellation of existing research programmes will adversely affect the finances of many of the country's leading physics departments at a time when the government is encouraging an expansion in physical sciences."

One of the physicists, Dr Mark Lancaster, from University College London, said: "Income from research supported by the STFC is responsible for the majority of the income maintaining the highest ranked physics departments in the UK. The CSR settlement will put in jeopardy a number of departments which is at odds with the government's aim to stem the tide of physics department closures."

Another, Prof Brian Foster, from Oxford University, said: "The science minister has emphasised his belief in the vital importance of healthy university physics departments. His advisers in the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) cannot have made clear to him the contradiction between his support and the setting up of a new research council, STFC, with patently insufficient funds to carry out its core business; they have advised him to accept a CSR settlement that exacerbates the damage."

Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, said: "The STFC seems landed in a situation where it could inflict seriously damaging cuts on university physics departments, and be unable to derive full benefit from the world-class facilities that have already been funded.

"This situation has arisen - despite an overall comprehensive spending review settlement that was generally welcomed - because the STFC has been constrained in its priority-setting by the Ministry, and also because there was inadequate consultation with the relevant communities."

He added: "University physics departments all over the UK are a breeding ground of innovation, and it is crucial to maintain their strength in order to attract the next generation into this key scientific discipline. They are central to our economic and educational success. This issue must be quickly resolved."

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