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The Almighty Buck Science

British Government Slashes Scientific Research 168

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the no-soup-for-you dept.
asobala writes "The British Government has slashed the funding of scientific Research Councils by £68 million. The Research Councils most affected by this include the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which has been hit by a £29 million reduction in funding, and the Medical Research Council, which is seeing a £10.7 million reduction in funding. The response of the BBSRC biological research council announces that the council will have to cut 20 new grants and reduce expenditure on new equipment."
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British Government Slashes Scientific Research More

British Government Slashes Scientific Research

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  • Parallels in the US Situation (Score:5, Informative)

    by noopm ( 982584 ) * on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:53PM (#18159966) Journal
    Funding for the physical sciences (among others) in the United States has been facing a lot of difficulties lately as well. Failure of the congress to pass the new budget has caused a crisis in science funding [nytimes.com] from agencies such as the NSF [nsf.gov] and NIH [nih.gov] that supply much of the money for taxpayer funded research in the states. This threatens to close major facilities*, delay new projects and leave thousands of government scientists out of work.

    Concerned citizens are encouraged to write to their congressmen [congressweb.com] to not forget the cause of advancement in the US. Instead of bemoaning the loss of the US edge in the sciences [slashdot.org], speak up!

    It seems hardly a coincidence that the US and UK are allies in the misguided Iraqi Invasion, as well as the fight against adequate science and research funding. With all the money diverted into these misguided efforts, no wonder science funding is suffering all over (There's only so much of it to go around!)

    * Example from the nytimes.com article:
    "Among the projects at risk is the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, on Long Island. The $600 million machine -- 2.4 miles in circumference -- slams together subatomic particles to recreate conditions at the beginning of time, some 14 billion years ago, so scientists can study the Big Bang theory. It was already operating partly on charitable contributions, officials say, and now could shut down entirely, throwing its 1,069 specialists into limbo."

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      Out of curiosity, is the UK also seeing a surge in Jeebus-people who are anti-science, similar to what we're seeing in the US?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by mustafap ( 452510 )

        >is the UK also seeing a surge in Jeebus-people who are anti-science
        Yes.

        >similar to what we're seeing in the US?
        Absolutely not!

        IMHO
    • and with the strings attached its not always wanted either.

      Most US advances are not made with government money. It just doesn't work that way. Look towards the corporations leading the edges of technology to see what is really getting done that applicable to everyday life.

      The problem with government grants is that you end up with both good and bad, new ways to heal people and usually multiple ways to kill them. At least pharms are a one way street in the corporate world... still...

      don't bemoan a proble

      • Re:US rarely needed government investment (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ENOENT ( 25325 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:36PM (#18160472) Homepage Journal
        Which corporation was it that invented the Internet again?

        • Re:US rarely needed government investment (Score:5, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26, 2007 @08:05PM (#18160836)
          Wasn't it AOL?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by elsilver ( 85140 )
          I'd say credit goes to BBN.
          • No, it was Al Gore, who invented the internet while simultaneously saving the planet. He did this on his spare time and didn't ask for a dime in royalties!

            GORE 2008!

      • Re:US rarely needed government investment (Score:4, Informative)

        by andy314159pi ( 787550 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:47PM (#18160640) Journal
        Almost all significant research in physics and physical chemistry is done with government funding. But thanks for trolling this thread with wild misinformation.

      • Re:US rarely needed government investment (Score:4, Insightful)

        by rhakka ( 224319 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:51PM (#18160688)
        Those corporations often rely on advancements in SCIENCE, largely funded publicly (NASA, DARPA are two huge examples I might toss out there), to allow them to develop TECHNOLOGY.. applied science.

        Get that? to make things applicable to daily life... that is, to develop technology... you need to research science, which is not immediately or directly applicable to daily life typically.

        Funny how that works, I think. You'd almost think it was worth funding science research.

      • Re:US rarely needed government investment (Score:5, Insightful)

        by darkwhite ( 139802 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @08:07PM (#18160870)
        I don't think you understand how modern science works.

        Most government investments into fundamental physics, biology, astronomy, computer science, applied math, and many other types of research would never occur, and corresponding research never made, in any private context, because private corporations can find absolutely no incentive for it (save for exceptions like IBM and Bell Labs, which are still very limited in scope and dwarfed by the US scientific establishment). Moreover, the long-term consequences of this research and the experience acquired by people who perform it are unpredictable and would be precluded in a private context, where results are not nearly as widely published and shared across the community.

      • Re:US rarely needed government investment (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Bowling Moses ( 591924 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @09:13PM (#18161584) Journal
        "Most US advances are not made with government money. It just doesn't work that way."

        Open up any science journal of your choice. In the acknowledgements section of each article the funding that supported the study will be stated. If you found a journal where even just 10% of the articles were supported in part or in full by non-governmental funds, I wouldn't believe you until I had that journal in my hands to verify it.

        Government funding of research is only half of the story. When I am funded by the government, I am expected to publish my findings so that other researchers may learn from them. Contrast that to industrial researchers, who often if they find something of interest it becomes a trade secret. Sure that company the corporate scientist works for might use that knowledge to generate a better, cleaner, faster, whatever product which ain't a bad thing at all...but they might just stuff it in a report in their knowledge base and sit on it forever. Either way, nobody outside the corporation knows exactly how they do that voodoo they do so well, and those corporate scientists will be basing a large part of their background knowledge for their study on publicly funded research. Goverments cut public funding of science at their own peril.

      • Most US advances are not made with government money. It just doesn't work that way. Look towards the corporations leading the edges of technology to see what is really getting done that applicable to everyday life./quote>

        Netscape browser, born as Mosaic, made by University students at a government funded, land grant institution.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by skoaldipper ( 752281 )
      If you look at our own history, NASA's own budget _doubled_ during the Vietnam War with the Apollo project and shortly trickled off just a bit after we landed on the moon. And during the First Gulf War, the budget actually _increased_ leading to and including the Mars Observer and Hubble Telescope projects. There is no 1:1 correlation to war expenditures and NASAs budget (and actually just the opposite or indifferent). I think agencies just need to learn how to focus and market the government's attention
      • This is incorrect. Nasa's budget [wikipedia.org] was highest in then-year and inflation adjusted dollars in 1966, the second year of heavy U.S. involvment in the Vietnam War. Nasa's budget declined for the remainer of the Vietnam War.

    • But plenty of money for Big Brother (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm feeling really pessimistic about life today...

      Take away the toys, funding, research, the education. No more good jobs, no more anything interesting. More investment in off-shoring, and for the homeland more police and surveillance... Don't know what to do, don't care what you do, don't care if you're fed, or have a roof over your head. Just gonna beat you over the head and fill you with dread, until you are dead.

      My keyword is blabbing... How appropriate :)
    • Hate to be replying to my own post... however, the link to the NYtimes article regarding science funding in the US can be read without registration/TimesSelect only via the following link [nytimes.com]
    • It looks like sanity may have temporarily prevailed and funding's been increased for some American science. Science [sciencemag.org] 23 February 2007:Vol. 315. no. 5815, pp. 1062 - 1063 (sorry no linky-unless you're at a uni you probably gotta pay) says that the NSF's budget increased by $334 million, matching it's 2007 request (NSF they say has a $4.4 billion budget). NIH also got a boost of $612 million, and the DOE $200 million. So that's about 1.1 billion, or for the median 'merican that increase is less than half a
    • The nytimes article is archived so i only read the little bit that was free. It appears that the artticle is about the projects of government scientist. What about university research? Much of it is funded by government grants, the rest is funded by industry. Naturally, the industry funded research is in technologies that have a quicker anticipated payoff, but blue sky research probably benefits some from being conducted in the same institutions. So how will university researchers be affected by govern

  • Priorities (Score:4, Insightful)

    by realmolo ( 574068 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @06:53PM (#18159970)
    68 million pounds buys a lot of surveillance cameras.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Don't get ahead of yourself, there! 68 million pounds worth of surveillance cameras?

      If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Here's a breakdown:

      14 million pounds to replace the carpeting in the surveillance centre (includes the standard 98% kickback for my nephew who runs the carpet company).

      38 million pounds to refund to the party's corporate sponsors as tax breaks. After all, they do deserve it for all the hard work they've done in supporting us.

      5 million pounds to cover miscellaneous expenses
    • Maybe if these new smart surveillance cameras [slashdot.org] get sufficiently smart, Britain won't need scientists. Just put surveillance cameras on all natural phenomena, and let the cameras figure out how stuff works.

  • Read this also (Score:5, Informative)

    by 15Bit ( 940730 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:01PM (#18160066)
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6384499. stm [bbc.co.uk]

    And please pay close attention to the 3.4bn value halfway down. This is not a "slash" in the budget, its simply the government calling back some of the buffer money thats left at the end of the year. It will have an effect, and some people may be out of funding as a result, but lets not blow it totally out of proportion. With luck some of that money that was previously "wasted" in Rover might make it into future science budgets...

    • Mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)

      by somepunk ( 720296 )
      Drat, that inconvenient "context" thing comes in and totally screws the whole story. I suppose I could blame the editors, but we all know how useful that would be. I know, I'll blame our pathetic educational system, yeah :)

      You can't get past the first sentence of the summary without having these big questions pop into your head. At least if you have any critical thinking ability whatsoever.
    • When there's money left over, the budget is reduced the following fiscal year by the excess amount the prior fiscal year. That's the way the UK Government funds things, which is why there is a desperate scramble at the end of the year to buy useless, expensive items to flush the rest of the budget. Take a look at the spending pattern of any of the UK county councils.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by myth24601 ( 893486 )

      And please pay close attention to the 3.4bn value halfway down. This is not a "slash" in the budget, its simply the government calling back some of the buffer money thats left at the end of the year.

      This sounds similar to how in the US when politician A proposes to increase some kind of funding for program X only to have politician B propose a smaller increase for the same program. Politician A then holds press conferences to complain about how terrible politician B is for "Cutting" and "Slashing" funding

  • A Few Facts (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:07PM (#18160122)
    I always cringe when I read something that sounds like it has been taken from a red top tabloid - "slashed". I almost expected the byline to read "phew what a scorcher!".

    As for the story - it is due to the DTI having to pay extra costs as a result of the UK car manufacturer Rover going bust. It is not some vast cutback, and the

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6384499.stm [bbc.co.uk]

    BBC story give a far more sensible view that the summary does. It is a 1 year cut due to an overspend, and will be restored (with an increase on top of it) next year. I am no fan of the current Labour government and their lying ways - but they are sensible enough to realise that increasing funding in science and turning the UK into a "knowledge based" economy is not only one way for the future - it is the *only* way.
    • BBC story give a far more sensible view that the summary does.

      It's not even remotely fair to compare a BBC new story with a Slashdot summary, I know that and I'm American. Now if you were comparing Slashdot to, say, Fox News ... that might be more reasonable.

    • I always cringe when I read something that sounds like it has been taken from a red top tabloid - "slashed".

      Given how often Slashdot quotes from The Register, that should be expected

      "phew what a scorcher!".

      Does the rest of the world understand that reference?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zoxed ( 676559 )
      > I always cringe when I read something that sounds like it has been taken from a red top tabloid - "slashed".

      Ditto. And a quick google finds the 2005/6 total budget was £2.8 billion [rcuk.ac.uk], so 68 million is about 2.5% (assuming billion=1000 million). *Perhaps* significant (especially to those who will loose a grant), but certainly not "slashed". But, hey, this is Slashdot :-(
  • Apparently we've got to buy some more nuclear missiles [bbc.co.uk] from the USA to replace our old ones (or is that hire from some US company, I can never remember).

    The money's got to come from somewhere!
  • So is the U.K. filling up with radical militant Christian future terrorists (Evangelicals) pushing intelligent design bull too?

    In any case, looks more like budget tweaking compared to the overall budget then a mass cutback.
    • No and Yes!

      Well, the UK has it's extremists, apathists, irrationalists and plenty other '*ists' like anywhere else. But in this particular case there's nothing ominous at all - money got spent in the wrong place trying to bail out an old UK company and this is where that money has come from.

      It's a fraction of the total amount earmarked for various sciences and it's a one-off reduction - it'll be back on budget next year.

  • With all of the paranoia being caused by jobs being shipped to other countries, I don't see how this is going to help things any. One of the job areas that has been staying in the US/UK is the research and development market. Many companies are keeping their research here and moving their production facilities to other countries. With the surge in scientists and engineers that China and Asia are producing it would be a small wonder if companies didn't start moving their R/D facilities out as well. If th
    • Frankly, you can't really expect people to want to pay people in the UK (or the USA) to do *anything*. Why? Because it's so much cheaper to pay the Chinese to do it.

      This isn't rocket science. It's the difference between our lifestyles. If you want food shipped from all over the world, world class healthcare, enormous amounts of pointless travel and lots of high-end consumer luxuries, you have to pay for it. Companies know that if they employ people in western nations, then THEY are going to have to pay for
  • Does anyone know, is that 29 million cut for the EPSRC higher because they get more money in the first place, or are they specifically cutting back more on Engineering?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by henrygb ( 668225 )
      The previously planned levels of funding are here [dti.gov.uk]. Page 6 suggests EPSRC are seing one of the biggest increases in absolute terms from around £500 million in 2004-05 to £720 million in 2007-08. So it is hardly a cut - just a slower rise this year follwed by a bigger rise next, both for individual research councils and in total.

  • Obvious (Score:2, Troll)

    by cdrguru ( 88047 )
    As a socially-responsible country, the UK government has to fund NHS to greater and greater levels. The UK is taking in lots of new immigrants and this requires more and more health care spending.

    There are plenty of other socially-responsible programs that need funding as well.

    You can only cut the pie so thin, and then somebody doesn't get a slice at all. NHS or science? People or theories? This is precisely the discussion going on in the US and so far the "theories" side is still winning by enough of a
    • Despite the context of immigration increasing health care costs etc, as well as the inflammatory edge to the comment, the parent actually makes a really good point.

      I fail to see how this is at all a troll OR a flamebait. Obviously, scientific investment is necessary for ANY nation that doesnt want to be left behind in the increasingly "near" futures, but how DO you propose balancing the need for theoretical advancement versus direct advancement of your populace by investing more in health care programs and

  • Ministry Funding (Score:5, Funny)

    by DevelopersDevelopers ( 1027018 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @07:25PM (#18160332)
    Well, in Britain's defense, that money is much better used at its new recipient, the Ministry of Silly Walks. They've been in need of additional funding for quite some time now to compete with foreign, Silly Walking threats.
  • People please. What's with this is money for science talk. What if the terrorist blows up a train? There need to be more cameras capable of interpreting what it sees through its lenses. Come on. Get your priorities straight.
  • Are getting too close a cancer cure or hyper fuel efficiency and the Big Oil or Big Pharm are shutting them down via political arm twisting.
  • I live in the UK and my local government is looking to spend an obscene amount of money to ensure that the special religious needs of children are met in schools. How much of that money could have been spent on science equipment?

    As religion gets bigger, science gets smaller. I guess the reverse is also true, but that's just not the trend these days is it? With science you justify your existence by getting results. Sooner or later it's no results, no money.

    With religion, results are not required - and your f
    • Oh please. Has science spending been cut to fund faith schools? No. Maybe you have a problem with religion (I might also), but this is a different discussion. The British government tried to bail out Rover. It was a valiant attempt to keep a few more workers working and off benefit. It didn't work, there's a short term pinch. It happens. Oh, and I work on an EPSRC funded project, so yes, I do care.

  • Eurofighters (Score:4, Funny)

    by suffe ( 72090 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @08:26PM (#18161076) Homepage Journal
    I guess they needed four additional Eurofighters. Got to have 'em all! Or is that Pokemon? I always get the two confused.
  • If they changed from monarchy to republic. Or else create some little Elvises in the cities where the problems are.

  • What a mess... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OldChemist ( 978484 ) on Monday February 26, 2007 @10:07PM (#18162122)
    One hardly knows where to begin. The Brits deserve a lot of credit for their "sealing wax and string" approach to science. Read Crick (and Watson), Max Perutz, Rosalind Franklin, etc. (Fred Sanger and many others for the 'real' afficianados out there.) Some of the comments on slashdot seem to imply that academic researchers are a bunch of lazy sobs who are only interested in feathering their nests... Couldn't be further from the truth. "It's the people, stupid" to paraphrase a lot of stuff out there. What is amusing to someone who's been on both sides of the table (academics and industry) is that when you push the people who complain about the training in the Universities concerning what they want, they usually do not have any constructive suggestions. "Send us smart people who are well trained" is usually what you hear. And we are actually pretty good at this on the university side. So it is sad to hear about what is happening to funding in the UK. They are very good at doing tremendous work on a shoestring, as are the people in the US. Good luck getting the same quantity and quality work done from "contract research." Mr. B.
  • Newton was able to do some spectacular science back in his day (on a shoestring budget). Same for Maxwell, even for Einstein (though he got way more funding, but peanuts compared to today's budgets).

    The community does need to ask--why is science getting "more expensive"? Is it the cost of an apparatus? The IP law/legal know-how to protect yourself, that science is currently profit oriented, science is tightly coupled with a free market society or even tightly coupled to a political bias? Or is it just a cos

  • The introduction does not state that £68 million is a drop of about one third. The drop was from £196 to £128 million.

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