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Science Board met on the 24^th and 25^th October at Jury’s Inn, Swindon.

Science Board welcomed five new members as part of the rotation of Board membership. They are:

• Professor Malcolm McMahon – University of Edinburgh
• Professor Bob Nichol – University of Portsmouth, ICG
• Professor Pam Thomas – University of Warwick
• Professor Dan Tovey – University of Sheffield
• Professor Chick Wilson – University of Bath

A further new member will join for the December meeting to bring the membership to 16 core members.

• Professor Jon Goff – Royal Holloway, University of London

The full Science Board membership listing may be found on the STFC website.

Science Board considered a number of Peer Review items including four reports from the Projects Peer Review Panel (PPRP):

• COMET – a proposal for the world’s most sensitive search for physics beyond the Standard Model in the area of charged lepton flavour violation;
  
  
• g-2 – a proposal for an experiment to make the world’s best measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon;
  
  
• Gaia CU9– a proposal to support a data management work package for the ESA’s Gaia mission which will provide the most sensitive astrometric census of the sky;
  
  
• WEAVE – a proposal for a UK-led, next-generation wide-field spectroscopic facility for the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope.

In each case Science Board made a recommendation to the STFC Executive concerning funding.

Science Board also considered three Statements of Interest and a report from a Sub-Group established to provide strategic advice to Science Board on which, if any, of three spectroscopic instrumentation proposals should be invited to submit a full proposal to the PPRP. Science Board thanked the Sub-Group for their work and made recommendations regarding the review of the proposals.

A report was received from the chair of the Astronomy Grants Panel (AGP) regarding the recent grants round.Science Board noted that the proposals were of a very high standard and that due to financial limitations a significant amount of high quality research could not be supported. Science Board thanked the AGP for their hard work and endorsed the Panel’s recommendations.

Science Board discussed the lessons learned from the 2012-13 Programmatic Review. Feedback had been sought from within STFC, the Programmatic Review Sub-Groups and the Advisory Panel chairs. Science Board noted that there would be a further opportunity for input subsequent to the publication of the Programmatic Review final report.

Science Board discussed its future work programme and noted the need to ensure an appropriate balance between its long term strategy, review and monitoring, peer review, and programme oversight activities.

The annual report from the Futures Programme was received. Science Board noted the organisational changes in the programme management and expressed an interest in seeing some case studies at a future meeting.

An update was received from the UK Space Agency. Science Board noted that input to the selection of the ESA M3 mission would be sought under Dual-Key in the near future. ESA’s selection process and timescale for the L2 and L3 mission science themes was also noted.

Other business included an update on the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project, a proposal for a review of the Accelerator R&D programme and an update on the planning for HiPER.

The next meeting of Science Board will be the 19^th and 20^th December at Polaris House, Swindon.