What appeared last spring to be a rational reorganization of the way in which the UK funds several fields of science and technology has now elicited howls of outrage from British particle physicists and astronomers. In April the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) was merged with the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC) to create the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Astronomer Keith Mason was appointed chief executive of the new STFC.

The CCLRC had been responsible for the Daresbury and Rutherford Appleton central laboratories as well as for major UK facilities like the ISIS spallation neutron source and the Diamond synchrotron light source. The STFC also took on the nuclear-physics responsibilities that had been the province of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

At first the headlines appeared comforting. In October the UK government announced that its just-completed “comprehensive spending review” for...

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