Updated: listen to the MP3 of this session.

We’re about half an hour away from the ‘town meeting’ that forms the one chance in the year for the whole of the UK astronomical community to ‘discuss’ issues and progress in our field. I put ‘discuss’ in inverted comments deliberately, because in such a large group (I’m sitting in the overflow lecture theatre as I type as there’s already no room in the main one) there’s little change for proper discussion. This event is attracting more attention, coming as it does in the wake of some very nasty cuts for UK astronomy, totaling at least £80 million. I’m going to try and give as full a blog as possible, primarily for those who are interested but who can’t be here. There have already been three months or so of discussion, so if you need a recap I thoroughly recommend Paul Crowther’s excellent page.

Below the jump, live reportage from the back row (where all the trouble makers traditionally sit!).

Updates : My headlines : e-MERLIN (and therefore Jodrell) safe, Keith Mason claims Gemini Board to blame for ‘confusion’ over the intention to withdraw, RAS accepts invitation to inspect detailed financial data. In short, the STFC (the body which distributes money from the government to astronomers and physicists as well as funding the UK’s large laboratories) has had its budget cut in real terms by the government. As far as astronomers go, this means a cut of about 20% across all grants and the possible closure of many much loved facilities or projects. Michael Rowan-Robinson, president of the Royal Astronomical Society, is in the chair. He’s summarizing the situation; although the amount of money available was increased, a change in how it was distributed meant an effective cut. There’s also some question as to whether the cuts are being distributed fairly between different communities (astronomy, particle physics etc). Consultation is now under way about cuts to projects, with the whole astronomical community involved. However, the RAS would like to see as much transparency as possible. Finally, as well as the cuts to projects, cuts to grants are important and there seems no willingness to try and change the situation.

Michael Rowan-Robinson has just handed over to Keith Mason, head of STFC and either a brave defender of astronomers or the villain of the piece, depending on who you listen to. He’s starting by invoking the Haldane principle - the government decides how much money to give us, but scientists themselves should decide on how to use that funding. Keith says this means we can’t pitch specific projects to government. Worse, STFC are apparently forbidden from talking to the rest of us during much of the communication with government. Much of the increase is in the form of ‘non-cash’ to cover deprication and other technical accounting things (which are very important, else the Treasury takes your real money away to cover it). Without FEC (changes to payments to university departments) we have flat cash - the same amount of money, but we lose out over time because of inflation. This is the same situation as other research councils, and it would have been the same if we’d stayed in PPARC (the old research council that only took account of astronomy and particle physics). There will be a cut in jobs - but it will only return the number of postdocs (including me!) to where it was in 2000. What happens after that? That depends on the next spending review which ‘depends on the case you and I and everyone makes for astronomy’ (although this doesn’t seem to tie with the fact that this spending review was confidential and couldn’t be shared with the community). There are no cuts in studentships.

Next up is John Womersley, Director for Science Strategy. Taking the ’speak softly and carry a big stick’ approach to things, he points out that criticising either the peer review process or the management of STFC in the media is likely to lead to the government funding less rather than more funding to the council. However, they have tried to respond to the request for more consultation, setting up 10 ad hoc panels and now discussing what can be made public. 1400 comments have already been received via the formal web-based consultation. His final quote sums up his position, I think:“I have good ideas about how to spend money that falls from the sky, and you should continuing praying for that to happen, but I have to plan a program with what I’ve got”. Walter Gear, in charge of the committee ranking projects came next. The meat of his presentation is that everything on the list has already passed peer review, and represent good science, but as there isn’t enough money some things had to go. He also mentions (for the first time, I think) that they considered saving money for grants by cutting project further, but decided the pain would be too great. He’s also making the point that commenting anonymously to the press makes scientists looks bad.

Andy Fabian in the first question points out that there are some contradictions. Is this plain sailing with a dip (as he characterized Keith’s talk), or is this panic and a crisis? That gets him the largest round of applause to date, but the answer is that this isn’t a deliberate attack and we should be careful ‘not to paint a target on our chest’ (Keith, who also reassuringly claims that there isn’t a desire in government to cut pure science). In response to another question, John points out that we need a strategy for the whole of the STFC - not just separate ones for astronomy and particle physics. Someone in the audience who was shaking their head gets pretty short shift; he seems to be the ‘attack dog’ of the day. Making the same point more gently is Monica Grady from the OU, who is pointing out that STFC hasn’t just inherited PPARC’s aims - all researchers in the country including chemists, material scientists and biologists use STFC’s facilities. John Peacock from Edinburgh asks for more details, not necessarily being convinced that ex-PPARC types aren’t covering for costs inherited from CCLRC or for projects like Aurora. He closes by saying he doesn’t believe that cuts would have been necessary under flat cash under PPARC; Keith’s response is to invite him to Swindon (That’s where STFC is based, it’s not a bizarre threat) and then to go on to explain that they’d been very ‘bullish’ in assuming they’d be more money than there is. John asked him to put the information on the web, calling for STFC to be proactive in releasing information. Keith says it’s a very complex situation - ‘pages’ of spreadsheets that can only be understood after ‘a week’s tutorial’. Michael Rowan-Robinson says the RAS will take up the offer (!).

Keith Mason - in response to a question - claims that the ambition to move to full survey mode in UKIRT by 1st April was ‘a typo’ and that e-MERLIN was never under threat (MRR pointed out it had moved from the under threat list to the ok one). It was rated as lower priority by science board (apparently because it’s late and costing money while being late, but the council of STFC added a rider pointing out that this is part of the strategic move to lead the Square Kilometre Array project. On Gemini he says that ‘you were all had by the Gemini board’; we’ve been concerned about future funding for the instrumentation programme, producing instruments for 2014 when our commitment runs out in 2012. Discussions to resolve this were leaked by someone on the Gemini Board - at no point did they even draft the formal document that meant withdrawal. Lawyers were apparently involved before ‘everybody saw sense’.

There’s a new holder of the loudest applause award - a student who studies solar physics - who wanted to know why he should ‘take the risk’ of studying this area. Answers from the panel - Solar Orbiter is coming in ten years or so, and was given a high priority. Oh, and work overseas. John again - ‘If you cared about money you wouldn’t be a scientist’ (this is almost certainly true, but came very close to being booed); he then pointed out that if we didn’t train people for other things then each professor could only have one student who would replace them when they die.

And that’s it. This could be the biggest blog post I’ve ever written. Thanks for reading if you’ve got this far. I’ll write a reaction post tonight or tomorrow morning which might be a little more accessible to everyone. And now - back to your regular programming!