News from Science Board - November 2010

STFC’s Science Board held its most recent meeting on 18th November 2010 at University College London.

Science Board’s main business was devoted to a discussion on the most recent draft delivery plan scenarios submitted to BIS. Following the Government’s spending review decision to maintain overall investment in science at flat cash, STFC was requested by BIS to elaborate the impact of several funding scenarios around this figure. The capital allocation is still not finalised and so various assumptions had to be made. Science Board talked through the programme under each of these scenarios and was asked to provide advice in a number of areas where further input to Council would be helpful.

Science Board also received an update regarding STFC’s Technology Strategy. A draft technology strategy framework has been developed and Science Board was invited to comment on the framework. The next stage is to develop an implementation plan. Science Board was supportive of the current draft technology strategy framework and would like to further discuss the detail of the implementation of this strategy at the appropriate time.

The next meeting of Science Board will take place on 13th January 2011.