Hi all. Apologies for the off topic, largely UK-centric posting.
In a period of fiscal uncertainty in which most governments (USA, India, China, France, Germany) are actively increasing their investment in R&D, the UK government is seriously considering cuts of up to 25%, if press/analyst reports are to be believed. It goes without saying that such drastic cuts would seriously impact on UK science. This will not only impact upon research funding, but also potentially funding for large projects like the Diamond Light Source, and indeed, CCP4. A campaign has been started to highlight the economic, social and cultural importance of science funding within the UK. The "Science is Vital" campaign is supported by many organisations such as the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), Cancer Research UK, the Wellcome Trust, Nature Publishing group, etc, and is holding a rally outside the Treasury in Central London this afternoon, and Lobby of Parliament on Tuesday 12th October. For more information please see http://scienceisvital.org.uk/ - If you can take the time to sign the petition on the website, this would be very much appreciated. Apologies again for the off topic post. Dave ============================ David C. Briggs PhD Father, Structural Biologist and Sceptic ============================ University of Manchester E-mail: [email protected] ============================ http://manchester.academia.edu/DavidBriggs (v.sensible) http://xtaldave.wordpress.com/ (sensible) http://xtaldave.posterous.com/ (less sensible) Twitter: @xtaldave Skype: DocDCB ============================
