News from Council - April 2010

STFC Council met on 27 April to review preparations for the next three-year budget cycle, and a range of other business. It was the first meeting for new Council members Gill Ball and Will Whitehorn, and was followed by a meeting of the Council sub-group overseeing the budget bid. The current financial year is the last of the current three-year Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) period. Although HM Treasury has not yet issued guidance on the processes for developing the next spending round, Council has agreed STFC’s preparations should initially be based on previous CSR processes.

The sub-group, chaired by Sheffield Vice-Chancellor Professor Keith Burnett, considered options for securing stakeholder input to the spending review process and noted the need to ensure greater public understanding that the CSR process was markedly different from that involved in writing a grant application or academic proposal. It was in many ways immune from public lobbying efforts that may characterise budget bids in other countries.

STFC is one of seven Research Councils which collectively form Research Councils UK (RCUK). They are publicly funded bodies, and the preparation of their budget bids adheres to strict rules of confidentiality. Each Research Council prepares a short presentation on its forward proposals, which is collated by the RCUK secretariat and discussed for balance by the seven Chief Executives. The individual Research Council proposals and the short collated material is then provided to the Research Councils’ sponsoring department – the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

BIS utilises the Research Councils’ input in its discussions with HM Treasury on the overall level of the science allocation, which is subject to the same financial pressures as other parts of total government spending. The Research Councils do not bid individually or independently to HM Treasury. After the total science allocation is set, BIS notifies the Research Councils of their individual allocations.

The sub-group discussed the impact of the Drayson Review of STFC, published in March 2010, which established a mechanism for dealing with the exchange rate fluctuations affecting STFC’s international subscriptions to the European particle physics laboratory CERN, the European Southern Observatory astronomy organisation, the Institute Laue-Langevin neutron source and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility light source. The Review also announced the creation of a new cross-Council funding model for the national science facilities operated by STFC – the ISIS neutron source, Diamond light source and Central Laser Facility. The third component of STFC’s budget comprises grants to university groups in particle and nuclear physics and astronomy, and supporting infrastructure for multi-disciplinary science including high technology engineering, micro- and nanotechnology, space science technology, high performance computing, microelectronics support and training, large scale scientific computing and data storage provision, and public outreach and education.

Each of these three components of STFC’s budget will, as a result of the Review, be likely treated separately and the sub-group agreed that STFC’s scenario planning should reflect the Review outcomes in this respect. The sub-group will meet regularly over the next few months. The next council meeting will be Cardiff on 22 June.