Physicists warn of ‘catastrophic’ impact of UK science cuts

British scientists are warned of a “catastrophic” impact on physics research due to budget cuts at public funding bodies. Research groups across the country face average cuts of 30 percent, but have been asked to plan for up to 60 percent.

It is understood that many groups will lose funding entirely, research positions will fall and the UK will withdraw from international projects such as the CERN particle physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is a public body that funds science and business, under the control of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. She has announced a budget of £38.6 billion for the next four years, which she says is actually a slight increase, although it does not take inflation into account. But she also warned that physics research needed to be severely curtailed.

UKRI’s expenditure is for further scientific research but also generates a return for the country. CEO of the organization, Ian Chapmanstated at a press briefing on February 5 that the organization is now more focused on commercialization. “We are a public body serving the British public. The public should expect us to make these tough decisions to ensure we have the biggest impact on the country to grow our economy,” he said.

The organization distributes grants through nine councils, one of which – the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) – focuses on particle physics, nuclear physics and astronomy. This includes the budget for UK contributions to CERN and the European Space Agency. It is the STFC that is making the bulk of the cuts, at £162m.

Recipients of STFC funds were told by the authority to expect overall cuts of 30 per cent, but were asked to propose different budgets with cuts of 20 per cent, 40 per cent and 60 per cent, according to the Institute of Physics (IOP)who called the report “a devastating blow to the foundations of British physics”.

IOP president-elect Paul Howarth said in a statement that the cuts would damage “human understanding of space and human progress.” “The Large Hadron Collider itself has given us fundamental information about the universe and the matter of which it is made. Accelerators developed for particle physics are used in X-ray equipment and new cancer treatments,” he said. “This cut in UK funding will hold back progress in its experimental capabilities, meaning less innovation and ultimately less economic growth. We urge the government to step back and consider how its new funding strategy will affect UK science.”

Michele Doughertyexecutive chairman of the STFC, told the briefing that the organization had been too ambitious about what it wanted to achieve in previous years. “We spread too little, we try to do too many things,” she said. “We’ve got a tough couple of years ahead of us. We just don’t have the money to handle everything.”

Dougherty admitted at the briefing that international cooperation in particle physics is coming to an end and that tough decisions are being made. “I think that’s a message that our international partners understand. They’re also under financial constraints,” she said.

John Ellis at King’s College London, says the cuts are damaging the UK’s reputation among international scientific collaborators. “This is not the way forward for international cooperation and risks branding the UK as an unreliable partner,” he says. “People will say, ‘Well, look, how do we know that Perfidious Albion is actually going to do what it says it’s going to do?’

One of the affected projects is the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which was involved in the discovery of the Higgs boson. The UK funding was to partly fund the modernization that must be done by the time the experiment ends. “I have no idea how they’re going to solve it,” Ellis says.

Another LHC experiment known as LHCb, which probes the difference between matter and antimatter, will also have a zero budget, Ellis says, threatening plans to upgrade the detectors. Reports suggest that the US-led electron-ion accelerator being built at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state is another affected project. When contacted, UKRI would not confirm whether these projects had been cancelled The new scientist.

Ellis says wider cuts to physics research could have long-term consequences for the UK, as postdoctoral and junior research positions will be lost. “You risk cutting off a whole generation of our young researchers at the knees,” he says. “It will be no small effect.

Jim Al-Khalili at the University of Surrey, UK, warned that the impact of the cuts would reduce the knowledge, skills and experience available to run the country’s nuclear industry, as well as affect general research. “These proposed cuts will be devastating to our community,” he says. “If it passes, the impact on the core program will be catastrophic.”

Alicia Greated The Campaign for Science and Engineering, which represents UK research bodies, says UKRI made mistakes in the way it communicated the cuts, leading to considerable confusion and uncertainty. “Regardless of the rationale behind the STFC budget savings decisions, which we need more clarity on, the impact is the same,” he says. “STFC facilities support all research in the UK, not just that in the physical sciences. Less money for them could undermine a critical part of our research infrastructure.”

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