Astrophysics research is in trouble... #shorts

By Dr. Becky

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Enough trouble to send a bunch of physicists to Westminster this week to chat to MPs to see if they can help. The problem is that we’re facing a 30% funding cut over the next few years to astrophysics, particle physics and nuclear physics in the UK. Now the message from on high is that there is no funding cuts, that it’s “flat cash”. But the way the funding body is set up means that the research money to do the science, so the data crunching and the analysis, also comes from the same pot of money that’s used to pay for big experiments like CERN and the Vera Rubin telescope. So with energy costs going up, and the cost of silicon for chips going up because of the AI boom, and because of big swings in exchange rates, there’s then less money for the actual science. And what it’s going to mean is that there’s less jobs in physics research for early career researchers like me, those between PhD and professorship that do the bulk of the scientific research. So if you care about this and want