Science budget 2015/16
11 Feb 2014 10:44 AM
Research Councils UK notes the allocations of the science budget for 2015/16, which have been published yesterday (10th February 2014), and welcomes the recognition that this gives to the contribution of research to the growth, prosperity and wellbeing of the UK.
STFC’s core programme will, in line with the programmes of other Research Councils continue to receive flat cash. We are pleased to note the continued allocation of our funding by partition, which allowed a few specific areas that were in need of additional support to be funded without creating unnecessary pressure on our core programme. This additional funding is for our international subscriptions (CERN, ESO, ESRF, ILL) to compensate for anticipated exchange rate shifts, and for the domestic facilities ISIS, Central Laser Facility and Diamond Light Source to cover the higher operational costs experienced in recent years and ensures that these cost pressures are not transferred to our core program.
This funding comes as a combination of increased allocation from the other Research Councils and from the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills. We will now develop our final Delivery Plan for 2015/16 with BIS, continuing to draw on the advice provided by Science Board’s Programmatic Review to ensure that UK continues to maintain its excellent international research standing and that we deliver maximum impact from our research. Once this process is complete, we will release our Delivery Plan and the full report from the Programmatic Review, which has been extremely valuable in helping us reach this outcome.
| Partition |
Resource
allocation (£M) |
Capital
allocation (£M) |
| |
14/15 |
15/16 |
15/16 |
| STFC core programme |
172.2** |
165.1** |
53.3 |
| STFC International Subscriptions |
123.1 |
127.5 |
27.3 |
| STFC Large Facilities |
89.5** |
107.4** |
48.5 |
**The difference between resource for 14/15 and 15/16 reflects a £6.9m reassignment of corporate overheads from the core programme partition to the large facilities partition.
This has no net effect on programme allocations in either partition.
For the full allocation, see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/science-and-research-funding-2015-to-2016