Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans

yup that about sums it up - very refreshing that Vallance was open and honest about this though.

A graph showing the use of the Diamond Light Source, based on their publications over the last 5 years. EPSRC is the primary user at 56.9%, then BBSRC on 21.3, MRC on 14.6, STFC on 4.3 and NERC on 2.9

This nice plots illustrates it all (from Alan Heavens and co posting on other socials)

how else do you get to triumphantly say that 50% of all of UKRI's funding is all going into curiosity driven research.... (while hoping that people won't understand the details on QR)

Absolutely, huge thanks to @royalastrosoc.bsky.social @iop.org @royalsociety.org @lucienheurtier.bsky.social and co for co-ordinating letter writing campaigns. It's working!! We'll keep up the pressure at the Commons select committee tomorrow!

I think the high-level of co-ordinated lobbying that the PPAN community have galvanised, has genuinely come as a surprise, and so now they're looking at every alternative?

We are pretty awesome at what we do - it's true 😃

Really can't see EPSRC happily bailing out STFC this time. Vallance pointed out that the other RCs have already been "absorbing" STFC overspends for "years" 🙁

Summary: "it's this question of the [PPAN] partition.... I think it's a very legitimate concern because of the tensioning between the increasing facilities cost: that's what she's trying to work through at the moment to come up with solutions"

(sadly no offer of a magic money tree solution though)

Parliamentlive.tv Science and Technology Committee

If you want to watch the hearing in full it's here. The UKRI/STFC discussion is the first ~30minutes.
parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...

Finally an interesting nugget on QR:

"Would it be right to say that [QRs] being assumed to be principally supporting bucket one"

"no it's going to support whatever the universities want it to support its just been allocated somewhere because you had to put it somewhere"

As we suspected....

On why blue skies research is important "once you lose that you lose it for a very long time and it's that work which ultimately creates wealth in 10-20-30 years time even though I can't tell you which bits of it are going to create".

hear hear Sir Vallance

Not sure how I feel about PPAN potentially moving across to EPSRC...

On who makes the decision: "it's right that the heads of the Research Council should make these decisions" - so Vallance passing the ball back to Michelle Dougherty there.

Good news: "I'm very determined that UKRI must find a way to look after PPAN"

But: "all funding gets tensioned against something so it either gets tensioned against the rest of physics which might be one way to do it or you tension against EPSRC...something they're looking at that at the moment"

We went from "concerns are groundless" to "it's a very legitimate concern" over the space of 20mins, so well done to the Lords for really pushing on what Vallance describes as "very particular problem around STFC".

"The comms have been terrible" is a mantra we heard often during the hearing.

People sat in rows a committee hearing - all smartly dressed

Here is my run-down of today's Science and Technology Committee hearing (House of Lords) where "considerable disquiet in the science community" was raised with Sir Patrick Vallance. Really great to see the public gallery packed with physicists!

Gorgeous! I feel energised just looking at this Peter 🙏🙏

😂🙏

The only solid conclusion I've managed to draw is that we don't spend nearly enough on public engagement!

🤩🥳 Almost as sparkling as your glitter beard selfie

I'm sure we'll all agree that everything is now super clear 😵‍💫

High res version here: committees.parliament.uk/publications...

😂🙏

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I will be channelling my inner Lintott for enthusiasm and inner Rees for gravitas!

Obligatory train selfie: London here I come!

1st time on a train, & 1st time leaving Scotland, since getting proper ill in 2022. Thankfully doing a lot better these days, but will welcome all energy donations.

And yes, I know I totally rock the "I'm about to clear your house of asbestos" look 💃

🤩 Gorgeous- thanks for sharing Stuart - a perfect start for my day 👌

Aww thanks Leigh - will do my very best not to let you all down on the day!

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿💪😂

Here is a copy of the open letter from the heads of physics departments across the UK- worth reading as it makes a lot of excellent points

www.iop.org/about/news/o...

Top academics warn UK physics cuts threaten effort to boost economy More than 50 heads of departments tell science minister that changes risk undermining crucial tech growth fields

"Planned cuts to physics and astronomy funding threaten to undermine a core UK government strategy to harness innovation to boost economic growth, leading researchers have warned ministers."

Thanks @financialtimes.com for covering this really important story

🗞️: www.ft.com/content/a235...