Select Committee slams Government... and my boss

[e_pepys]

The Science Select Committee just released the report into its enquiry about the present funding crisis in Particle Physics and Astronomy. It was pretty damning of the DIUS and the management of my employer, the STFC. I've not yet finished the full report, but from what I have read, I haven't found anything to disagree with. I am impressed by how

Comments

[zengineer]

I read the full report and it really was damning of DIUS for interfering and of the STFC for poor management and poor communication. Rutherford seems to have come off quite well compared to Daresbury and Edinburgh.
DIUS and STFC have said that they can't afford to wait for the Wakeham review but if they pay any attention to this report they will have to. In the end STFC have 80 million less than they need to keep everything running as normal so unless more money is made available people will lose their jobs (hopefully not you or me) and research will be scaled back.
I heard today at coffee that Edinburgh have decided to gamble on getting more work in and will run at a loss so if they don't get the work the whole thing will close down. Good for them I say.

[e_pepys]

They have rather dried up, I'm afraid. We did hire a couple of people recently (to replace people who had retired), but that might have already been in progress before the recent funding crisis (hiring takes ages). In any case, they were both hired internally as a result of people who had had their posts cut.

Maybe if the decision is reversed, or alleviated, next year we'll have to hire people to make up for all the people who left. It wouldn't surprise me.