Jodrell Bank gets funding cut in latest UK science funding announcement #shorts

By Dr. Becky

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The iconic Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank is set to shut down. There is a petition to try and save Jodrell Bank, which needs £2.8 million per year to keep operating, for comparison the catering budget for the House of Commons is just under £7.5 million a year. *sigh* that’s just one of many cuts to science funding coming in, and the community is still reeling from the announcement but let’s talk about it. So for some context this comes off the back of the science funding body announcing in January to expect up to 30% cuts to astronomy and physics funding in the UK. That was because the budget has been set at a constant number for the next 5 years, which is only 2.7% lower than it is currently. But to afford to run all the experiments and fund projects already committed too, that was going to result in a 30% cut to research funding, i.e. funding people to do the actual research. So in June I went to parliament with a bunch of other physicists to chat to MPs about stopping the cut