According to BBC News, UK science funding bodies will have to absorb cuts of 41% to their budgets. These cuts will effect money spent on building, maintenance, or equipment. The budget cuts are seen as a way of increasing efficiency, prioritizing, and reforming how institutions conduct research in order to decrease capital investment and increase investment in research projects and researchers. International collaborations such as CERN and the European Southern Observatory are exempt as well as several Medical Research projects. However, this means that funds which would usually be employed in researchers and their research projects must be allocated towards building, maintenance, and equipment costs according to Imran Khan (Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering- CASE).
This spells a very tricky four years for British research since Chancellor George Osborne has announced to the House of Commons that he would freeze the annual science budget in the next four years. Physics and Astronomy research funders have been anticipating a much worse deal considering the very high capital spending involved in their research. The reason that Medical research can be easily maintained due to a rule change by the Treasury which allows research organizations the ability to reap the profits from their patents.
However, science is not only about medical research. This is the question being posed before the British government today: How far should the axe go into the science budget before the benefits of scientific research are axed as well?
Information for this article obtained from BBC News
Written by Nzinga Mbande
No comments:
Post a Comment