News from Science Board

May 2009

STFC’s Science Board held its most recent business meeting on 20th-21st May 2009 at the Medical Research Council (MRC) in London. Science Board’s business included the ongoing work in prioritising future science and technology opportunities, including a review of the status, prospects and total spend of the various subject areas and types of facilities supported by STFC.

Science Board considered the proposal put forward by STFC Executive to manage the budget issues for 2009-10. With regret, Science Board endorsed the approach that was being proposed, noting that it exploits natural slippages, delays and squeezes in ongoing programmes. As far as possible it avoids closing out options for the highest priority programmes in the future, and allows major strategic decisions to await consultation and inputs from advisory panels and from the review of ground-based astronomy facilities.

Science Board received the annual report from the Science in Society Advisory Panel and discussed STFC’s future public engagement programme. The Board received a presentation and reports on the STFC Economic Impact programme.

Science Board also received reports from the chair of the Particle Physics, Astronomy and Nuclear Physics Science Committee (PPAN) and chair of the Physical and Life Sciences Committee (PALS).

Since the last meeting of Science Board, PPAN has met once on 7th-8th May 2009. At their meeting, PPAN considered three statements of interest:

• a proposal to participate in the upgrade to the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLAB) in Virginia, USA;
• a statement of interest to participate in anti-neutrino running using the MINOS detector at Fermilab;
• a statement of interest for participation in the completion of Phase 1 of the Magdalena Ridge Observatory Interferometer

PPAN also re-considered the Virtual Observatory Technology Centre (VOTC) UK statement of interest after requesting further information from the collaboration. PPAN also considered the consultation questions for the Projects Peer Review Panel (PPRP) and Project Research and Development (PRD) review and provided feedback to the review team.

PALS met on 6th-7th May 2009 at Daresbury and their meeting included a visit to ALICE, a superconducting linear accelerator at Daresbury Laboratory. PALS received an update on the New Light Source (NLS) project and the NLS Town Meeting; and considered the Accelerator Centres Review Report.

At their May meetings, both PPAN and PALS re-considered and re-confirmed the outcomes of the 2007-8 Programmatic Review and identified and prioritised new projects which had arisen since the Review. Both committees also discussed a decision making framework that will facilitate consistent decision making across the STFC.

The next meeting of Science Board will be 15th-16th July 2009.