Astronomy Advice Please!

I’m up at the crack of dawn this morning in order to travel to Swindon for a meeting of the Astronomy Grants Panel of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Three days in Swindon beckon.

Anyways, while I’m thinking STFC stuff let me put my community service hat on and remind astronomers that the Astronomy Advisory Panel (yes, there is one) is consulting, and the deadline for folks to fill in the consultation questionnaire is tomorrow (Wednesday 5th September 2012). Please upload your input forthwith.

As a prompt, you might like to have a look at this figure that shows the breakdown of STFC expenditure generally, and specifically within the astronomy programme.

Do these pie charts provide you with food for thought?

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Astronomy Grant Outcomes

While this is by no means an official outlet for news from the Science and Technology Facilities Council nor the Astronomy Grants Panel (AGP) thereof, but I am on the AGP so I thought I’d take the opportunity to pass on a bit of news to the UK community, or at least those members that read this blog.

An email  by Colin Vincent of STFC  was circulated this evening via the ASTROCOMMUNITY email list, which includes the following:

As part of the process for improving the feedback to the community of outcomes we have just published a more detailed listing of the recommendations for all projects. This can be found at

http://www.stfc.ac.uk/Our%20Research/12214.aspx

We hope that the community will find this helpful. This information supplements what is already available in STFC’s ‘Grants on the Web’ pages.

The link included there takes you to a page that includes a general description of how the AGP works and what it tries to do, and also for the first time (as far as I’m aware) a link to a document that contains a ranked list of all the projects rated fundable, whether funded or unfunded.

Speaking personally, i.e. not in my capacity as an AGP member, I think making this amount of detail public is an extremely good move, as I think it makes the process much more transparent. There’s just a chance, however, that the actual list might ruffle a few feathers here and there, and probably in other places too.

As always, please feel free to comment through the box below, but if you do so please remember that this is a personal blog and I’m passing this on as a community service. I can’t respond on behalf of the AGP, so please don’t ask me to!

UPDATE:  29th June 2012. The document containing the AGP outcomes has been removed from the STFC website. Don’t ask me why…

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Honours and Admissions

Time for a quick comment on the Queen Birthday Honours List for 2012 which, if you’re interested, you can download in full here.

The honours system must appear extremely curious to people from outside the United Kingdom. It certainly seems so to me. On the one hand, I am glad that the government has a mechanism for recognising the exceptional contributions made to society by certain individuals. Musicians, writers, sportsmen, entertainers and the like generally receive handsome financial rewards, of course, but that’s no reason to begrudge a medal or two in recognition of the special place they occupy in our cultural life.  It’s  good to see scientists recognized too, although they tend not to get noticed so much by the press.

First of all, therefore, let me congratulate space scientist, and occasional commenter on this blog, Professor Monica Grady on her award of a CBE. I also couldn’t resist commenting on the award of a knighthood to the Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council

..Professor Michael Sterling, who has turned round the Science and Technology Facilities Council

according to the official government announcement; the emphasis is mine. The phrase “turned around” is an interestingly frank way of putting it, and a refreshing admission from a very high level  that STFC was in disarray under its previous management.

Although I’m happy to see recognition given to such people, as I did last year on this occasion I can’t resist stating my objections to the honours system for the record. One is that the list of recipients  of certain categories of award is overwhelmingly dominated by career civil servants, for whom an “honour”  goes automatically with a given rank. If an honour is considered an entitlement in this way then it is no honour at all, and in fact devalues those awards that are  given on merit to people outside the Civil Service. Civil servants get paid for doing their job, so they should have no more expectation of an additional reward than anyone else.

Honours have relatively little monetary value on their own, of course so this is not question of financial corruption. An honour does, however, confer status and prestige on the recipient so what we have is a much more subtle form of sleaze. One wonders how many names listed in the current roll of honours are there because of political donations, for example.

I wouldn’t accept an honour myself, but that’s easy to say because I’m sure I’ll never be nominated for one. However, I imagine that even people like me who are against the whole system are probably still tempted to accept such awards when offered, as they generate good publicity for one’s field, institution and colleagues. Fortunately, having less than a cat in hell’s chance of being nominated, I’m never going to be tempted in that way!

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STFC Programmatic Review

Following hard on the heels of  its decision to close the UK Infra-red Telescope and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on Hawaii, the Science and Technology Fatalities Council today announced the next stage of its Programmatic Review.

STFC graciously invites your contribution to this exercise, which is to be conducted by a Mr Reaper from Swindon…

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Astronomy Lost and Found

Just finished my last postgraduate lecture, so that’s the teaching out of the way for this academic year. Time, methinks, for a short post to pass on two little bits of astronomy news for reaction and perhaps comment?

The first item concerns the balloon-borne polarimeter experiment known to its friends as EBEX. A truly bizarre story emerged this week concerning the disappearance of this telescope and associated equipment while it was in transit via lorry from the University of Minnesota to the launch site in Palestine, Texas. The truck failed to arrive at its destination, and seemed to vanish for about three days.

Obviously scientists working on EBEX were getting very nervous about its whereabouts , but finally it showed up. Apparently undamaged. The truck had apparently been stolen when the driver at stayed at a motel for the night; it was eventually found, three days later, abandoned not far from the motel.

Curiously, though, the driver hadn’t reported the theft of the truck to the local police. I wonder why? Something tells me there might be more to this story than meets the eye…

The other item of news I thought I’d pass on is an official announcement from the Science and Technology Facilities Council  of the forthcoming closure of both the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the UK Infra-red Telescope (UKIRT), both based at Hawaii;  UKIRT will close in September 2013, and JCMT the following year.

There’s been much reaction to this announcement on Twitter. Andy Lawrence has posted about it, for example.  Most colleagues of mine who have commented on the STFC decision have expressed dismay at the decision to lose UKIRT and JCMT and surprise at the decision to extend the operations of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes (ING) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma in the Canary Islands, primarily the William Herschel Telescope (WHT) until at least 2015. I’m not sure of the extent to which these decisions were made on scientific grounds.

The decision to close UKIRT/JCMT isn’t exactly a surprise as they have been living on borrowed time since the STFC prioritisation exercise in 2009. It remains to be seen how the astronomical community reacts to the decision. I gather a statement is expected from the Royal Astronomical Society later today.

Comments and reaction are invited via the comments box, but please don’t shoot the messenger!

UPDATE: The statement from the RAS can be found here.

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EPSRC Blues

I woke up this morning to find via Twitter an interesting blog post about a demonstration in London against the policies of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

For those of you not up with the ins and outs of the UK science funding regime, EPSRC is the agency that funds the more mainstream areas of physics (as well as chemistry, engineering and some mathematics) while the more exotic bits (particle physics, nuclear physics and astronomy) are the responsibility of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). The current protest seems to be lead by a number of eminent chemists, including Prof. Sir Harry Kroto, Prof. Sir John Cadogan and Prof. Anthony Barrett.

Almost five years ago – was it really so long? – owing to a mixture of funding cuts and incompetent management, STFC was born into a financial crisis that made many of us doing astronomy and particle physics wish that we also were protected by the friendly hands of EPSRC rather than left out in the cold as we felt we were at STFC. Things have slowly improved at STFC, which now has an executive team that actually seems to listen to its community as well as speaking the language that Whitehall wants to hear. Funding is still tight, but STFC is a noticeably happier ship now than it was it first launched.

In the meantime, any envy we might have had about our colleagues in, e.g., condensed matter physics being safer in the EPSRC stable has now well and truly evaporated. Their strategy, “Shaping Capability“, expressed in dreadful management-speak, involves the imposition of arbitrary priorities such as the restriction of fellowship applications to certain areas chosen by The Management. Worse, its new funding rules attempt to target funding at commercially-driven research. Dark clouds are gathering in the “blue skies” under which UK science has hitherto flourished.

The unresponsive top-down character of EPSRC has strengthened under the leadership of David Delpy who must have been made in the same factory as Keith Mason, former Chief Executive of STFC, whose diplomatic skills were similarly remarkable by their absence.

For some reason, this reminds me of the following quote from Smiley’s People

In my time, Peter Guillam, I’ve seen Whitehall skirts go up and come down again. I’ve listened to all the excellent argument for doing nothing, and reaped the consequent frightful harvest. I’ve watched people hop up and down and call it progress. I’ve seen good men go to the wall and the idiots get promoted with a dazzling regularity.

I’ve argued before that I think EPSRC’s approach is fundamentally wrong. When taxpayers’ money used is used to generate immediate commercial returns, it ends up in the pockets of entrepreneurs when the research succeeds and, if it doesn’t, the grant has effectively been wasted. Commercial Impact should not be a factor in awarding public funding, because it is perfectly suited as a criterion for attracting private funding. This is why we have a national fiscal policy: the only justification for levying taxation is to fund projects which will not yield short-term economic returns. There is no reason to spend public money on commercial projects: we need to justify pure research by a non-economic valuation.

This morning EPSRC have issued a press release calling upon scientists to work together ahead of the forthcoming comprehensive spending review. It doesn’t mention the demonstration, or other manifestations of unrest within the EPSRC community, but instead re-asserts the need for its so-called strategy, with a clear message not to rock the boat ahead of the next Comprehensive Spending Review.

I’ve heard that argument many times in the context of STFC during its crisis period. I firmly believe that rocking the boat in that case helped it get off the rocks. It remains to be seen whether the EPSRC protest, which is currently rather small, will gather enough momentum to make a difference. It all depends on what fraction of EPSRC scientists have actually signed up to the Delpy Agenda. Is the new campaign representative of the views of the EPSRC community? No doubt many research groups will be prospering under the new regime, at least in the short term. Time alone will tell what the long-term impact of short-termism will be.

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STFC Team Selection

It’s been such a busy day today I almost missed a seemingly unimportant message on Twitter from the Science and Technology Facilities Council about its new management structure. Only when I got home this evening did I read it carefully and discover that it’s not really as innocuous as I’d assumed. In fact it looks like the Chief Executive has been busy during the recent transfer window.

The new team at STFC will line up like this

It doesn’t look all that different from the old one, except it’s a slightly more compact  formation with less width in the wide areas, and perhaps fewer clichés in the final third.

The controversy however comes with ashen-faced manager Ron John Womersley’s team selection. As per the announcement:

Following staff input, and Council approval, I have conducted an internal selection process to fill the new senior positions in the structure and can now announce the following appointments from 1 April 2012:

• Executive Director National Laboratories: Dr Andrew Taylor
• Executive Director Business and Innovation: Dr Tim Bestwick
• Executive Director Corporate Services: Mr Gordon Stewart
• Executive Director Strategy, Performance and Communications: Dr Sharon Cosgrove

In addition, Mrs Jane Tirard will continue in her role with the new title of Executive Director Finance, and Dr Janet Seed will extend her acting stewardship of the programmes area as Acting Executive Director Programmes pending an open recruitment exercise for the position.

So three prominent members of the previous line-up are no longer part of the team:

For example, out goes hard-tackling wide man and own-goal specialist, Richard Wade, who apparently leaves on a free transfer. Or is he just on the subs’ bench for the time being?  According to the diagram, Tim Bestwick stays but will move from a central position to the right side, roughly changing position with Gordon Stewart who also keeps his place in the team. Andrew Taylor, formerly in midfield, moves to an inside forward role where, as Director of the National Laboratories, he will sometimes be “in the hole” (i.e. Didcot).

Most pundits reckon the new-look STFC will deploy a Diamond-Light Source shaped midfield aimed at closing down the opposition, as opposed to the old team which concentrated more on closing down its own facilities. It looks like the reorganization was made with  one eye on European challenges, but Womersley remains committed to the national game, as last week’s scouting trip to the University of Neasden makes clear.

The STFC supporters’ club  (Sid and Doris Bonkers) expressed delight with the team changes, but former manager Keith Mason remains bound and gagged in the basement of UKSA was unavailable for comment.

Harry Redknapp is 97.

P.S. The STFC statement describes the staff departures thus:

STFC has benefited from the very significant personal contributions of the existing senior management team. They have helped develop STFC into a successful workplace as recognised by the recent Investor in People accreditation (Silver status), and our positive Comprehensive Spending Round outcome. However, the changing dynamics of STFC mean that it is time for a change and not all senior managers will continue with the organisation.

Do I detect a note of insincerity?

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Notional Student Survey

The first couple of weeks of this term have been hectic, primarily because of our new-style Consolidated Astronomy Grant Proposal to the Science and Technology Facilities Council which has just gone in with a deadline of tomorrow, but also because I’ve just started teaching Nuclear Physics for the first time, a subject I know absolutely nothing about about which I am a little rusty. I’m only just keeping up with the lectures and problem sheets, and am glad the students are being patient. So far, anyway.

I had only just got back on schedule with this morning’s lecture when I find that tomorrow I have to give up part of the next one by advertising the National Student Survey and encouraging my third-year class of 85 or to participate; the NSS taking place over the next few weeks.  Apparently the rate of return by Physics students is especially low and the University is keen that it should increase. For some reason I’ve been singled out as a suitable person to persuade our third years to provide their input and have been given a special powerpoint presentation to show to encourage all eligible  students – i.e. students in their final year – to complete the survey, so I thought I’d share it here in order to spread the message as widely as possible. I’m not sure what fate awaits me if our rate of return doesn’t improve…

It doesn’t take long to complete – it’s all online – so I hope anyone reading this will take the time to respond. That’s not just for Cardiff Physics students – although I know a few of them do read this blog – but also for students elsewhere in the United Kingdom. If you don’t tell us what you think we don’t know what we could be doing better, so please fill it in. You know it makes sense.

The NSS have also given me a boomerang. I think it’s meant to symbolize a high rate of return. Or something. I may attempt to throw it in tomorrow’s lecture, although I’m not sure that’s allowed on Health and Safety grounds. At least it will provide a bit of light entertainment before I launch into the deep joy that is the semi-empirical mass formula.

P.S. Coincidentally, there’s a nice a typically snarky piece about the NSS by Laurie Taylor in a recent Times Higher.

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Thinking of Applying for a PhD in Physics or Astronomy?

This afternoon I gave a short talk to our final-year students about postgraduate research in which I passed on some, hopefully useful,  information about how to go about applying for PhDs  in Physics  and Astronomy. I am, for my sins, the Director of Postgraduate Studies within the School of Physics & Astronomy here at Cardiff University.

Although quite a lot of what I talked about was about our own arrangements in Cardiff, I thought I’d jot down here a few general remarks that might be useful to people elsewhere who are thinking of taking the plunge when they graduate. I’m aiming this primarily at UK students applying for places in the UK; special considerations apply for students wanting to do graduate research abroad.

What is a PhD? The answer to that is relatively easy; it’s a postgraduate research degree. In order to obtain a PhD you have to present a thesis like that shown on the left (which happens to be mine, vintage 1988), typically in the range 100-250  pages long. A thesis has to satisfy two conditions for the award of the degree: it should contain original research, which is publishable in an academic journal; and it should present a coherent discussion of that original work within the context of ongoing work in the area of study. In Physics & Astronomy, the PhD is pretty much a prerequisite for any career in academic research, and it usually takes between 3 and 4 years to complete. After submission of the thesis you will have to undergo a viva voce examination conducted by two examiners, one internal and one external. This is quite a tough test, which  can last anywhere between about 2 and about 6 hours, during which you can be asked  detailed questions about your research and wide-ranging questions about the general area.

The Money Side. In the UK most PhDs are supported financially by the research councils, either EPSRC (most physics) or STFC (nuclear & particle physics, astronomy). These generally award quotas of studentships to departments who distribute them to students they admit. A studentship will cover your fees and pay a stipend, currently £13590 pa. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but you should at least remember that it is a stipend rather than a wage; it is therefore not taxed and there is no national insurance payable.

How do I choose a PhD? During the course of a postgraduate degree you are expected to become an expert in the area in which you specialize. In particular you should reach the point where you know more about that specific topic than your supervisor does. You will therefore have to work quite a lot on your own, which means you need determination, stamina and enthusiasm. In my view the most important criterion in your choice of PhD is not the institution where you might study but the project. You need to be genuinely excited by the topic in order to drive yourself to keep through the frustrations (of which there will be many). So, find an area that interests you and find the departments that do active research in that area by looking on the web. Check out the recent publications by staff in each department, to ensure that they are active and to have something to talk about at interview!

Qualifications. Most universities have a formal requirement that candidates for admission to the PhD should have a “good honours degree”, which basically means at least an Upper Second Class Honours degree. Some areas are more competitive than others, however, and in many disciplines you will find you are competing with a great many applicants with First Class degrees.

How to apply successfully. The application procedure at most universities is quite simple and can be done online. You will need to say something about the area in which you wish to do research (e.g. experiment/theory, and particular field, e.g. cosmology or star formation). You’ll also need a CV and a couple of references. Given the competition, it’s essential that you prepare. Give your curriculum vitae some attention, and get other people (e.g. your personal tutor) to help you improve it. It’s worth emphasizing particular skills (e.g. computing). If you get the chance, make use of your summer vacations by taking on an internship or other opportunity to get a taste of research; things like that will undoubtedly give your CV an edge.

The Interview. Good applicants will be invited for an interview, which is primarily to assess whether you have the necessary skills and determination, but also to match applicants to projects and supervisors. Prepare for your interview! You will almost certainly be asked to talk about your final-year project, so it will come across very badly if you’re not ready when they ask you. Most importantly, mug up about your chosen field. You will look really silly if you haven’t the vaguest idea of what’s going on in the area you claimed to be interested in when you wrote your  application!

Don’t be shy! There’s nothing at all wrong with being pro-active about this process. Contact academic staff at other universities by email and ask them about research, PhD opportunities. That will make a good impression. Also, don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Although we’re all keen to recruit good PhD students for our own departments, we academics are  conscious that it is also our job to give impartial advice. Ask your tutor’s opinion.

How many places should I apply for? Some research areas are more fashionable than others so the level of competition varies with field. As a general rule I would advise applying for about half-a-dozen places, chosen because they offer research in the right area. Apply to fewer than that and you might lose out to the competition. Apply to many more and you might not have time to attend the interviews.

What’s the timetable?  Most applications come in early in the new year for entry to the PhD in the following October. The Christmas break is therefore a pretty good time to get your applications sorted out. Interviews are normally held in February or March, and decisions made by late March. STFC runs a deadline system whereby departments can not force students to accept or decline offers before the end of March, so there should be ample time to visit all your prospective departments before having to make any decisions.

That’s all I can think of for now. I hope at least some of these comments are useful to undergraduates anywhere in the UK thinking of applying for a PhD. If there are any further questions, please feel free to ask through the comments box. Likewise if I’ve missed anything important, please feel free to suggest additions in the same manner…

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News Flash from STFC

At last!

The worst kept secret in science is now out. The new Chief Executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council is Professor John Womersley. Here’s an official-looking picture of him, although I think it has been photo-shopped to stop him looking so much like Christopher Biggins:

The announcement of appointment of the new CEO has been expected for months now. It appears that the reason for the delay is tied up with the start date. John Womersley will in fact take up the reins at STFC on 1st November 2011, not when the current CEO retires (at the end of March next year) as originally planned. The current CEO, Professor Keith Mason, has been shunted across to kicked into touch at booted into the long grass in given the opportunity to take up a secondment at the UK Space Agency until he retires next year. Apparently he is moving there

to advise on steps needed to leverage the research base to maximise the economic growth of the space sector.

Don’t ask me what it means, but one guesses some form of negotiation must have been going on behind the scenes all this time (a) to persuade Keith Mason to go early and (b) to persuade UKSA to make room in the basement for him.

Anyway, heartiest congratulations to John Womersley (@JohnWomersley on Twitter)  on his new appointment. A change was long overdue, and I wish him well in what is going to be a difficult job.

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