UK scientists dodge bullet

The British government surprised researchers of all disciplines today (20 October) by promising to protect core research from a linkurl:harsh, four-year program;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57749/ of public spending cuts.

George Osbourne
Image: Wikimedia commons, Mholland

Announcing the spending review to a packed House of Commons, George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, said: "Britain is a world leader in scientific research, and this is vital to our future economic success." He announced that the science budget at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) -- which pays for research at Britain's universities -- would be frozen at £4.6 billion until 2014/15. Budgets in other departments were cut by an average of 19 percent over the four-year period.The small print of the review document also said that spending on the Medical Research Council would be increased to take account of inflation over the period, indicating that biomedical research will do better than other disciplines over the four years.Scientific organizations -- who had feared absolute cuts of up to a quarter in research council spending -- expressed relief, bordering on ecstasy, at the news. They were particularly heartened that Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron have, for the first time since their election in May, explicitly endorsed research spending as a key to future growth. Mark Walport, linkurl:director of the Wellcome Trust,;http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/Organisation/Governance/Executive-Board/index.htm said in a statement that the government had "listened to the voices of the scientific community" and called the outcome a "crucial vote of confidence" in science. However the planned budget freeze still amounts to a cut of about ten per cent in real terms, over the four years. Other cuts -- including a reduction in university teaching support by 40 percent, from £7.1 billion to £4.2 billion -- will have spillover effects on research. So today's announcement is not an out-and-out victory, biologists cautioned. "It is great that the science budget has been spared anything like the worst," said linkurl:David Finnegan,;http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/people/homepage.php?id=dfinnegan head of the Institute of Cell Biology at the University of Edinburgh, "although it isn't clear quite what that budget includes, so what it will mean on the ground remains to be seen." Finnegan also told The Scientist that planned cuts in university teaching "will inevitably have an effect on science."John Hardy, a linkurl:neuroscientist also at UCL,;http://www.ucl.ac.uk/neuroscience/Page.php?ID=12&ResearcherID=173 said: "While the initial reaction might be that science has dodged a bullet, the changes in student fees and payment structures will have impacts on our host institutions, and this could cause chaos in the university sector."Government sources said that capital spending on science projects will be cut by an unspecified amount over the four years. But specific projects -- including the planned linkurl:UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation (UKCMRI);http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53962/ in London, and the Diamond Light Source in Oxfordshire -- were specifically protected by Osborne in his Commons statement."The settlement for the core science budget is very welcome news in the context of this extremely tough spending review," said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, Britain's national academy, in a statement. "There remain areas of concern, especially with regard to capital spending and the funding of universities. But this outcome enhances our optimism that such issues can be addressed."
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Fork in the road;http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/2/1/30/1/
[February 2010] *linkurl:UK biologists brace for cuts;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57749/
[18th October 2010] *linkurl:New home for UK medical research;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53962/
[5th December 2007]