Sunday Times 4th October 2009

5 Oct 2009 01:58 PM

The Sunday Times article of 4 October on UK involvement in the European particle physics laboratory CERN and high profile global astronomy projects, such as ALMA, is incorrect. The article has misquoted the Chief Operating Officer of STFC, Professor Richard Wade, and taken other comments out of context.

The fact is that UK membership of CERN is governed by an international treaty, and could only be changed with UK Government approval.

STFC's position in relation to the LHC is made clear in our Vision document, published in July 2009, which states that "our highest priority in particle physics is to exploit the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN". The document also states that our highest priorities in ground-based astronomy are to exploit our membership of the European Southern Observatory, which gives access to the world-leading Very Large Telescope and to the new ALMA millimetre astronomy array, and to carry out R&D towards the next generation European Extremely Large Telescope and the UK-led Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project.

STFC is conducting a major, and well-publicised, science consultation exercise through our scientific advisory panels and Science Board. The purpose of this exercise is to deliver on our Vision by ensuring our programme delivers maximum scientific, social, economic and international benefit to the UK. Particle physics delivers significant benefits to the UK economy, as demonstrated in the joint STFC-Institute of Physics publication Particle Physics - It Matters published in May 2009.

Our consultation exercise will also ensure STFC is prudently prepared for the tougher budget environment facing the UK public sector. STFC has publicly stated that the consultation must, of necessity, ask tough questions about the future direction of our science and technology programme, including the balance between disciplines.

The consultation encompasses all of STFC's programme, and includes an examination of the cost-effectiveness of the international subscriptions managed by STFC to provide access to world-leading facilities for the UK research base, including CERN, the European Southern Observatory, the ILL neutron source and others. All UK publicly-funded bodies have a responsibility to ensure value-for-money, and STFC has discussed with our international partners the need to restrain costs and, if possible, reduce expenditure.

This consultation is not concluded, and no decisions have been taken. We encourage wider community involvement in the consultation, and to that end the draft reports of our advisory panels and reviews are available on our website.

The consultation exercise will, by December, have enabled widespread input, analysis and planning so that Council can make firm decisions about 2010-11, and set the broad parameters for future years in the more competitive financial environment likely to face the research communities for some time to come.

STFC and our fellow Research Councils are extremely well placed to contribute to the nation's recovery from this economic downturn. But it will be some time before this flows through to public finances, so we are preparing now to be able to live within constrained budgets if need be, and to diversify our funding base. We are looking forward to the next few months - they will be challenging, but an exciting opportunity to set the course for the future.