06/05/09 Research Fortnight - News

STFC set to avoid cutting external awards

Laura Hood

The Science and Technology Facilities Council's highest decision making body met on 28 April to begin considering cuts in its programmes, in a bid to claw back £10 million in 2009-10. However, it is likely that funding for grants will not be cut to absorb the cost.

The STFC's budget allocation was £491m this year—higher than originally announced in the 2007 spending review because of negotiations with the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills over the mounting costs of currency fluctuations. The department provided the council with an extra £9m last year when the falling value of the pound led to an increase in the cost of subscriptions to international projects.

But this was a loan, though its terms are not clear, and the pound has continued to slide in recent months. Chief executive Keith Mason noted in a memo released after the budget that the settlement is still not sufficient to cover the STFC#s full programme, and that another 10m in savings will have to be made.

The STFC Council met on 28 April to discuss how to reprioritise projects to save cash. But Martin Barstow, head of the College of Science and Engineering at Leicester University, and a recent addition to the expanded council, says he is confident that the grants line, still struggling from a 25 per cent cut in 2007, will not be hit again.

``I think there#s a genuine desire to not close the grants line down,'' he told Research Fortnight following the council meeting. ``I don't anticipate that there will be more problems there. It's always going to be tight but I don't think it's going to get worse.''

Cuts to the science programme will instead be decided via consultation, Barstow says. ``Science actually did OK, given the constraints in the wider Budget,'' he says. ``That isn't to say there aren't issues and obviously one of the biggest issues is how much it costs us to do science when we're paying in euros. That's really the biggest headache. It#s going to hang around for a while and it#s having a knock on effect.''