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British Science Project Threatened With Budget Cuts

Posted on: Thursday, 3 April 2008, 22:40 CDT

A world class science project in Britain, dubbed ‘Alice’, is in jeopardy of being moved to the U.S. or Russia due to cuts in Britain’s science budget.  

The project, conducted at Daresbury labs in Cheshire, is the first particle accelerator of its kind in Europe. The cuts could take effect as early as July, shutting down the project after six years of design and construction and before it has a chance to produce results.

Alice, short for Accelerators and Lasers in Combined Experiments, was built with taxpayers’ money, with the intent of demonstrating accelerator technologies and potentially more.

"Having spent £25m to build it, it would seem crazy not to operate it," Professor Peter Weightman of University of Liverpool told BBC News, referring to funds the project has already received.   Prof Weightman has guaranteed funding to do work that requires a machine such as Alice, which is estimated to cost approximately £3m a year to run.

"If we can't do experiments here, we will have to go to our sister lab in the States or to a facility in Siberia," said Professor Wendy Flavell from the University of Manchester, who also hoped to use the facility, in an interview with BBC News.

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) is currently contemplating Alice’s future, looking to plug an £80m deficit in its funding.

During a visit to the Daresbury laboratory, UK Science Minister Ian Pearson told BBC News he was committed to the future of the laboratories but could not guarantee funding for individual projects.

"It isn't for government to make decisions on what is the best science - it is really for the individual scientific communities to do that," he said.

Mr. Pearson was visiting the lab to announce £25m of funding for a new innovation center to attract hi-tech businesses.   Firms at the center will be able to leverage the labs’ expertise and facilities.

"We are committed to seeing Daresbury expand in the future and its future prospects are looking bright," said Mr . Pearson while making the announcement.  

"I have no doubt that we are going to see continued business investment into this campus and continued strong growth from the business we already have here today."

The innovation center already has 60 firms, but scientists fear that Daresbury will become "just another business park" without investment in leading-edge facilities.

"There are lots of plans for developing the Daresbury site but a key issue is that you should have a scientific driver," said Professor Weightman.

Alice, a prototype machine that allows scientists to probe materials in unprecedented detail, would be one such attraction for these companies.

The prototype serves as a test bed for technology that will be used in the New Light Source (NLS), a £150m "super microscope" that will allow scientists for the first time to capture amazing images of chemical reactions.

"Every single building block you would need for a new light source has been deployed here," Susan Smith, head of the labs’ accelerator physics group that oversees Alice, told BBC News.

But in a review of the UK’s scientific facilities,  the STFC ranked the prototype as "low priority".

According to the science council that looks after some of Britain’s largest science centers, projects with this status were most at risk of being cut.

The STFC will announce the fate of Alice, and 29 other low priority facilities, on  July 1. The announcement’s impact could be particularly hard on the North West, with Jordrell Bank’s eMerlin radio astronomy network also toward the bottom of the list.   An unfavorable outcome there could jeopardize other planned projects and waste even more taxpayers' money, say researchers.

Some agencies have already given grants running through 2011 to scientists to exploit the machine.

"It's a clear example of a lack of joined-up thinking by the research councils," said Professor Flavell, who said she will likely work abroad if Alice does not make the cut.

Other projects that rely on Alice may also be in jeopardy, such as a compact particle accelerator known as Emma, a £8.5m project that aims to build a machine for targeted cancer therapy.

"That's binned if we shut down Alice," said Mrs. Smith.

Even more ominously, say some scientists, it could be the beginning of the end for the national lab.

"The laboratory will close by slow attrition over a number of years," Dr Graham Clark, a synchrotron scientist and representative of the trade union Prospect, told BBC News.

The Synchrotron Radiation Source, the lab's main facility, will be closed later this year, and the continued uncertainty surrounding other projects is having an effect on the staff.

According to one union official, the laboratory was "hemorrhaging" expertise that had been acquired over 45 years, and the cuts will mean  the lab will shed 150 posts this year.   Unions and scientists say the solution is either funding for Alice or a guarantee that the NLS will be located there.

"Without [a large facility] here, what is the attractor?" asked Mrs. Smith.

"I think there is a fallacy that you can have a centre of excellence without the backup and infrastructure related to a large scale facility."

However, a final decision about where to site NLS is not expected soon, although Mr. Pearson told the BBC he hopes it would be located at Daresbury.

However, he was convinced that even without a large-scale project, Daresbury would be successful and would attract businesses and scientists.

"There will be a critical mass of scientists there regardless of any decision about whether there is going to be a large machine located there in the future," he said.

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On the Net:

STFC

Daresbury Laboratory

DIUS

STFC Funding Crisis: Astronomy

Source: redOrbit Staff and Wire Reports

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