STFC consultation exercise, or "Do you want Diamond to thrive?" Gerd Materlik, Trevor Rayment and Dave Stuart have put the case strongly, see forwarded email below.
Apologies if this is duplicated, Peter Peter Moody 1/56 Henry Wellcome Laboratories University of Leicester Lancaster Road Leicester LE1 9HN UK tel. (0)116 229 7097 fax. (0)116 229 7084 Times Higher Education University of the Year 2008-9 ________________________________ From: Materlik, GT (Gerhard) [[email protected]] Sent: 24 July 2009 11:34 To: [email protected] Subject: Important and urgent, please read and respond Dear Colleague, STFC, who provides 86% of our budget, is undertaking a complete re-analysis of its funding priorities with a view to laying out their future plans this autumn. The operational budget of Diamond has already been squeezed since the start of operations in 2007 and a very significant cut is now proposed for this year which cannot be met without impact on the quality of our user programme. A further reduction of budget for next year is also being discussed. If implemented, this would inevitably result in a significant reduction in user access by not operating some beamlines and by reducing the overall number of operating hours. In addition, your continued support for Phase III beamlines is essential to secure the future exploitation of the full potential of the Diamond facility. STFC have published a questionnaire which will require your time and careful attention. Deadline for responses is 05:00 PM Thursday 20th August 2009 - http://www.stfc.ac.uk/forms/pap.aspx We urge you to make your views known and respond carefully to the consultation, highlighting the priorities for your research field and how they fit into the strategic priorities of the Research Councils. The volume and quality of responses will be key to determining the future of your science. Please encourage all of your team and collaborators to respond individually. STFC values comments from both current and future leaders of the UK science community. Thus, it is important that all of us, PIs, PDRAs and PhD students do participate. Do not underestimate the scale of change that may be imposed for those areas not receiving the highest support. Synchrotron science lies in your hands. Please make your voices heard as the future of your field is at stake. Kind regards, Gerd Materlik, Trevor Rayment and Dave Stuart -- Scanned by iCritical.
