UK Boosts Pay, Joins ESO, in Science Spending Spree

The UK government has announced substantial new money for higher education, academic salaries, and research. Over the next three years, the science budget will increase by 26% from £1.7 billion (about $2.5 billion) to £2.15 billion, while education will get an 18% increase to £6.4 billion. The majority of the new science funding will be spent on either life sciences or interdisciplinary programs. However, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) has done particularly well compared to the last spending review three years ago, when it was the only research council that received no funding increase above inflation. Its budget will go up 20% from £194 million to £232 million by 2004. "This new funding will ensure our physicists and astronomers remain at the forefront of international research," says Ian Halliday, PPARC CEO.

Thanks to lobbying by astronomers, £10 million of the new PPARC money will go to joining the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Chile (see Physics Today, September 2000, page 55). "This is excellent news for UK science and lays the foundation for cutting-edge research over the next 10 years," says Mike Edmunds, chairman of the Astronomy Vision Panel, PPARC's long-term planning committee for astronomy. "British astronomers will be delighted by the government's rapid and positive response to their case."

The money will buy UK astronomers 20% of the time on the Very Large Telescope as well as time on the Atacama Large Millimeter Array being built in Chile. Despite the good news, cuts of more than £5 million a year in the UK's astronomy program will have to be made over the next 10 years to afford the £70 million joining fee that comes on top of the £12 million annual membership dues. Recommendations for the cuts will be made public in February.

PPARC also won a £26 million grant for two projects from the Department of Trade and Industry's "e-science" program. That money will fund research into the creation of Astro-grid, a virtual observatory combining astronomical data from many space- and ground-based observatories, and DataGrid, a network system for analyzing data from CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

Stipends for physics graduate students will go up 23% by 2004 to £9000. "We have got to send a clear signal to young people that research should no longer be seen as a Cinderella career," said a spokesperson for the government's Office of Science and Technology.

The 10% increase above inflation in the higher education budget has three main goals: to modernize university facilities, expand student numbers by at least 8%, and increase the pay of academics. Despite the funding boost to education, the UK still spends less as a proportion of its gross national product than most members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. To bring higher education up to the OECD average would cost an additional £7.5 billion per year.

Roughly one third of the new education cash (£330 million) is earmarked for salaries. The money is in addition to any nationwide pay increase negotiated with trade union leaders in the next few months. Universities have been told they can use the money for recruiting new staff or to break the national payscale and increase existing salaries at their institutions. "Universities and colleges have to compete internationally to recruit the best staff," says Brian Fender, CEO of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which distributes public money to universities and colleges. "This funding settlement is a major step in helping them do that."

Currently an English literature professor earns the same salary as a physics professor anywhere in the country, but the pay raises are expected to change that. "There is now an acknowledgment amongst the government and some university institutions that it is no longer relevant to have a nationwide payscale," says Peter Cotgreave from Save British Science, a UK pressure group. "It should reflect national priorities." Science and technology are among those priorities, and low pay is widely believed to be the main reason for a UK academic "brain drain" both to industry and abroad.