UK research funding agencies

On 22 May, two UK funding agencies released a joint statement in support of their merging, a move suggested by the Treasury earlier this year. The government is expected to decide this summer whether to go ahead with the proposed merger of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC) and the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CCLRC), and to decide on the purview of the new agency.

The motivations for the proposed merger, according to government spokespeople, include positioning the UK to play a stronger role in the next generation of European and global projects and gaining clout with the business community, which could benefit technology transfer. Financial savings is not one of the motivations. Merging would aid in long-term strategic planning over a wide spectrum of scientific fields, says PPARC head Keith Mason. “If you have it all under one roof, it’s easier to make decisions across the patch and to take advantage of synergies.”

Although UK scientists widely support the merger, they want the individual grants currently under PPARC’s auspices to stay in the new agency—for now called the Large Facilities Research Council—and not, as the government has suggested, moved to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Also on the table is whether the new agency would incorporate nuclear physics and nuclear fusion, which are currently funded by EPSRC.

PPARC’s annual budget is roughly £300 million ($550 million), CCLRC’s is £157 million, and nuclear physics and fusion grants currently at EPSRC total in the tens of million pounds.

The last major reorganization of UK research funding agencies was in 1993.