News from Council - March 2010

STFC Council met in London, following the official launch of the UK Space Agency (UKSA) by the Science Minister, Lord Drayson, and the Secretary of State, Lord Mandelson. Council members attended the launch, with members of the STFC science communities, other government partners and industry.

The Chairman, Professor Michael Sterling, opened the meeting with a vote of thanks to the retiring council member Professor Michael Edmunds, who has served on the PPARC (Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council) and STFC Councils for a total of five years. Prof Edmunds briefly reviewed his experiences on Council, and suggested that STFC must continue to strengthen its attempts to engage with its science communities in decision-making. He also urged a greater role for STFC in provision of science advice to Government.

Council discussed the importance of the creation of the Space Agency, and its impact upon STFC’s science areas. Although full administrative details were ongoing, responsibility for the ESA (European Space Agency) subscription would transfer to UKSA, project grants and post launch support for missions would also transfer but STFC would retain responsibility and funding for science exploitation grants including studentships and fellowships.

Council noted that 2010-11 was the last year of the current Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period, and agreed on the urgency of formally preparing for the next CSR given the upcoming election and pressures upon public spending – noting the extensive information already available from the 2009 prioritisation exercise. Although HM Treasury has not yet issued guidance on the next CSR, Council agreed it would be wise to plan based on previous CSR processes, but with the realisation that each spending review was different and that these plans would likely have to be adapted as further details emerged.

Council noted that the fixed costs of the international subscriptions would affect the flexibility available in CSR planning. Prof Sterling, noting Prof Edmunds’ earlier comments about the imperative of engaging with stakeholders, agreed that STFC should have a clear process for ensuring community input into CSR planning. CEO Professor Keith Mason advised Council that Executive Board (EB) had met recently to plan the changes required to embed stakeholder engagement throughout the organisation, focussing on the preparations for the CSR as the first goal. EB had recognised the important cultural shift required within STFC to fully achieve this, but had stressed the importance of evolving to a more stakeholder-centric approach to all its business.

Council tasked a sub-group of Council to provide strategic direction and oversight of STFC’s CSR planning, with assistance from the Executive and regular reports to the full Council.

The implementation of the structural improvements announced in the Drayson Review following his review of STFC was also discussed by Council, including the importance of early agreement between the Research Councils on the funding model agreed for the major UK based science facilities ISIS, Diamond and the Central Laser Facility, and clarity before the next CSR on the compensation mechanism for foreign exchange risk.

Council also received the latest report on implementation of the 2009 prioritisation, noting that meetings had been held or would be held with interested groups including the Astronomy Forum in January and members of the Nuclear Physics Community in February, and a planned Particle Physics town hall in late March. In addition the reports from PPAN (Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics) and PALS (Physical and Life Sciences) had been released giving detailed justification for rankings of the facilities and projects considered during the prioritisation as well as explaining the process undertaken by the committees.

Astronomy grants have now been announced at the level recommended by the Grants Panel (AGP). Of the eighteen groups in this round with current rolling grant support (three year plus two year awards), six will not continue as rolling grants, though they will receive standard three-year grants. Reductions have been apportioned according to ranking and the scale of the savings required will result in changes for most groups.

STFC has had further fruitful discussions with ESO (European Southern Observatory) on resolving the outstanding issues relating to the VISTA agreement. VISTA itself is producing exciting images and commencing its survey programmes.

E-ELT (European Extremely Large Telescopes) and SKA (Square Kilometre Array). STFC has discussed with ESO what the UK will require in order to be able to provide a positive vote in Council for the E-ELT at the end of the year. We continue to lead the European SKA effort though our ability to drive the agenda will be limited by the reduction in the size of the UK programme.

After discussion with the SKA consortium and leaders of the radio astronomy community we have agreed funding from within current resources to support the installation and initial operation of a LOFAR station (the Low-Frequency Array) at STFC’s Chilbolton site. Future arrangements for funding are yet to be agreed. There will be no early change to our agreed support for e-MERLIN with the University of Manchester.

Shared risk observing with SCUBA-2 has started on the JCMT (James Clerk Maxwell Telescope) in Hawaii. Although there is still much to be done, this marks a significant milestone in this exciting project. However, we will not know until late 2010 whether the JCMT with SCUBA-2 might justify continued support beyond 2012.

A specific agenda item on the managed withdrawal from UK post-launch support for space science missions was included in the UK-ESA SRE bi-lateral earlier in March 2010.

Following the ESA Council decision to proceed with the joint Aurora programme with NASA, the mission Science Management Plan and Implementing Rules are being updated at the programme board. UK instrument costs are being consolidated with respect to the reduced budget. The UK will be hosting one of three EU/ESA workshops on space exploration at Harwell on 29-30th April in preparation for the EU Ministers conference at Brussels in October 2010.

During the course of the last few months work has been carried out to prepare the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) to run at 7 TeV (3.5 TeV/beam) and repair the water cooling system of CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid). The LHC has now started operation again and collisions are expected on 30 March. This will begin a long phase of operation with the LHC expected to run until summer or autumn 2011 before the next long shutdown of about 1 year when further work will be done to allow the machine to operate at 14 TeV.

STFC is now issuing the Particle Physics experiment rolling grants for the period commencing 1 October 2010. These grants are at the reduced levels resulting from the prioritisation, and will run for the remaining period covered by the PPGP (Particle Physics Grants Panel) review from 2009 (i.e. two years until the next review point).

Council discussed the administrative processes for awarding grants. Council tasked the Executive to discuss improvements in the process with the community, with a view to reducing the administrative burdens on universities and project leaders.

The first meetings of both the Photon Science Department Facility Board and the ISIS Facility Board have now been held. As these were the first meetings of each board, the focus was mainly on gaining a general understanding of the science scope, users and goals of each facility. The boards will be requesting more detailed financial reporting and metrics in order to properly fulfil their terms of reference.