yes it confuses me as well
We're going to end up with facilities and few users. If you read the STFC "delivery plan" which is code for cuts and redundancies, then it looks like the cuts in university grants will be 25-30%. the reality is that its going to be alot worse than that:
1) grant cycle is 3 years, therefore at this time 2/3 of the grant purse is already committed - you dont have to be a boffin to work out what that means to grants just submitted into the system this year.
2) given the lack of funding the council has a list of strategic priorities (actually in astronomy they only listed galaxy formation and large scale structure), presumably if you are working in something else (eg exoplanet detection) you might as well jump on a plane to the USA. This will def. have an affect on undergraduate student recruitment.
Its also clear from the plan that there is MUCH worse to come.
Pen pushers slaughter UK boffins.... Our facities will be shrines to a time when we had people to use them. Its a sad day for UK physics and especially UK astronomy.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
