Michele Dougherty grilled by MPs on \u201ccatastrophic\u201d impact of cuts on early career physicists <\/p>\n
The withdrawal of funding for a major project at Cern will \u201cweaken\u201d the UK\u2019s international standing in physics, the leader of the Science and Technology Facilities Council has admitted.<\/p>\n
In January, Research Professional News revealed that that UK Research and Innovation would no longer provide funds<\/a>\u00a0promised for an upgrade to a detector at the Large Hadron Collider\u2014currently the world\u2019s largest and highest-energy particle collider\u2014called the LHCb.<\/p>\n Michele Dougherty (pictured), executive chair of STFC, was pressed on the impact of the decision by MPs on the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee on 4 March, saying \u201cit does weaken our [international] standing, certainly\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it doesn\u2019t do is undermine our subscription to Cern\u2014we are the second-largest partner,\u201d she added. Without UK funds, the future of the LHCb upgrade is in doubt and the withdrawal has angered collaborators<\/a> overseas.<\/p>\n Modelling cuts<\/p>\n STFC is also having to make decisions on where to impose cuts to research grants and the facilities it supports, with costs predicted to outstrip its budget by \u00a3162 million<\/a> over the next four years.<\/p>\n In January, Dougherty wrote to the particle physics, astronomy and nuclear physics\u00a0(PPAN) community saying the grants programme was expected to see a budget cut of around 15 per cent in 2026-27, building on a cut of 15 per cent the year before.<\/p>\n But Dougherty told MPs that as part of an ongoing prioritisation exercise, the council would model cuts of 10, 20 and 30 per cent to the PPAN programme. She promised that STFC will engage with the community before presenting options to UKRI, having earlier stressed that she was a member of the physics community so \u201cwas feeling the pain\u201d.<\/p>\n MPs pressed her on whether transitional money could be made available, expressing incredulity that the UK\u2019s R&D budget was rising but that STFC was having to impose cuts and suggesting money could be found elsewhere.<\/p>\n Mulling structural changes<\/p>\n Dougherty indicated the decisions were not hers to make and that despite having previously been on STFC\u2019s council, she was not aware until starting as executive chair in January 2025 that there was a shortfall in the region of \u00a3100m-\u00a3150m, adding it was \u201cnot what I signed up to\u201d.<\/p>\n She said she wanted to look at the structure of STFC funding to prevent the grants budget from being eroded by spending on international subscriptions and science facilities.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I would like to do is have an open and honest conversation about where PPAN grants sit,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Dougherty said she had been having conversations with the science department about removing international subscriptions from STFC\u2019s budget, as well as potentially moving the grants programme to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council\u2014echoing comments made by the science minister<\/a> Patrick Vallance the day before.<\/p>\n Actions for ECRs<\/p>\n Earlier in the session, Simon Williams, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Durham, said that for this year the situation for early career researchers in theoretical physics \u201cwas almost too late to fix\u201d. He questioned why there had not been consultation with the community before changes were announced, adding that\u00a0\u201cthe uncertainty that has been injected into the system has been catastrophic\u201d.<\/p>\n Williams, who co-authored an open letter to Vallance about the plight of early career researchers affected by the cuts, said \u201cwe have essentially no STFC consolidated grant-funded postdocs beginning this year\u201d and said that mechanisms should be put in plans to \u201csalvage the ECRs in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n There has been widespread concern that the cuts will fall most heavily on ECRs<\/a>, with cuts already implemented by STFC seeing opportunities drop off sharply<\/a> in 2026-27.<\/p>\n Williams said the impact of cuts on ECRs would be \u201ccatastrophic for UK science\u201d, characterising it as \u201ckilling the tree by removing the roots\u201d.<\/p>\n Dougherty said that after meeting ECRs, STFC would be \u201clooking at the impacts of the cuts that we are going to make on ECRs across the UK and how long it would take to then get numbers back up\u201d.<\/p>\n