Dear all,

I have recently been offered a 1+3 ESRC-funded studentship to start in September and my application has just been sent off to the ESRC to be confirmed. I am, however, pretty anxious about the possibility of Government cuts to research council funding. All the noises emanating from the Government and media suggest that the science budget at the Department for BIS is ripe for cuts. Has anyone heard similar things? The spending review from the Government is not due out until October so I am fairly confident that funding for my first year will not be affected, but am nervous that the Government might cut PhD funding from the next year. Is anybody else concerned?

Daniel

I doubt your personal funding will be affected - you have in effect signed a contract to be funded for 4 years.

The funding has already been allocated, it will be the funding in a few years that will really be affected - IMO. So it will be harder to get post doc funding. BIS has had its department budget cut by about 20% I think, maybe more.

That is what I was thinking. Also, it seems that Vince Cable's speech has been leaked to the media - both the Independent and the Telegraph are reporting that Cable will announce that research funding will be protected.

The gossip around my uni says they're basically going to cut social sciences/arts and leave medicine, science, technology, engineering type stuff alone.

I'm hoping this means that in 3 years they'll suddenly realise they need more social science research and ask me to do some :-)

======= Date Modified 14 Jul 2010 10:16:42 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============
It's difficult to predict. ESRC/AHRC funding would be more 'politically acceptable' to cut, but then again medicine/science/tech funding costs much, much more to fund - so if they wanted to make serious cuts they would potentially look at this areas.

I just hope they leave ALL research funding alone and b?*&%$ off.

======= Date Modified 14 Jul 2010 10:15:58 =======
============= Edited by a Moderator =============

(up)

yes Sneaks. Our director's annual letter (am at a Russel group social science university in London) also confirms that STEM will stay safe, but that things look serious not drastic...

I love that the moderator changed your post Danielsage :p

I've heard that some social science research, especially psychology, might start to fall more in the STEM area. My department saw a boost in funding last time round I think because most of the research was judged to fall into STEM. We have a lot of neuroscience research that goes on so that's probably why.

They should leave the funding alone. What they cut now they'll regret later when people leave for jobs elsewhere and research starts to dry up.

according to current 'Nature', the cuts effect the sciences (at least as well):

UK government warned over 'catastrophic' cuts p420
Royal Society predicts 'game over' for British science.
Richard Van Noorden

I am desperately trying to find some information what the ESRC is going to do now, because I am considering a postdoc application... but in this climate the likelihood of success may be next to none :-(