Government dithering over science and research budgets is risking international collaborative electronics, astronomy and physics projects an all party group of MPs has warned.
The Innovation, 
Universities, Science and Skills Committee of the House of Commons said that the Government must “demonstrate greater effectiveness” in the way it manages scientific research in the UK.
class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">In a report out today on the Science Budget Allocations, the Committee expressed concern that an increase in the overall Science Budget in the 2007 does not fully cover Government-determined spending commitments.
As a result the newly created Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), which is responsible for physics and astronomy research funding, has been left with an £80 million shortfall.
“The events of the past few months have exposed serious deficiencies within STFC’s senior management, whose misjudgements could still significantly damage Britain’s research reputation in this area both at home and abroad,” said Chairman of the IUSS committee Phil Willis MP.
World-renowned science facilities in the UK face an uncertain future because the Government’s science budget was poorly allocated and left a hole in the finances of a major research funding body.
This has left many in the science community in the dark about their employment prospects and some of the UK’s most respected science institutions, such as the Jodrell Bank observatory and the Daresbury laboratory in Cheshire, facing an uncertain future.
“Substantial and urgent changes are now needed in the way in which the Council is run in order to restore confidence and to give it the leadership it desperately needs,” said Willis.
MPs were particularly critical of the way the STFC’s management has handled decisions to withdraw from, or reduce involvement in, projects, such as the International Linear Collider Gemini Observatories and ground based solar terrestrial physics facilities.
The Committee feared that the UK’s international reputation has suffered as a consequence of these decisions and the UK has been left looking like an “unreliable” and “incompetent” international partner.