EPSRC considers blacklisting measures

The Guardian reports that the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has 'announced plans to "blacklist" academic researchers who submit three unsuccessful research proposals in any one year and have a low personal success rate of winning grants'. The EPSRC has said the proposal will help to manage demand for grants. David Reid, EPSRC's head of communications is quoted as saying, "A small number of people put a disproportionate burden on the peer-review system. We're talking about weeding out consistently low-quality proposals."

However, the announcements have caused fear and anger in the chemistry community, with concern about the impact of such measures on scientist's careers and potential department closures as a result.

In a letter to the Guardian, Professor Joe Sweeney (University of Reading) states: 'This policy will not increase the number of scientific projects funded: only the success rate will improve. Thus, then it presents the ludicrous possibility that the distribution of public funding for science will now be judged not by quality, but by the amount of money, in a self-destructive negative-feedback loop: the less money available, the less success, and the higher the body count of blacklisted scientists.'

A petition against the policy has been set up on the Number 10 website.

Read the Guardian letter in full.
Read Professor Joe Sweeney's letter in full.
Sign/view the online petition.

EPSRC funds new wave of scientists

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has today announced plans to fund 44 new centres for doctoral training which will train over 2000 PhD students over the next five years.

The centre for doctoral training will 'bring together many areas of expertise, building relationships between teams in universities and with industry. Students receive taught coursework to develop their technical knowledge and broaden their skills as well as carrying out challenging PhD-level research projects'.

Read the story in full on the EPSRC website.

Public Power

In a novel case, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has made decisions on which areas of nanotechnology to fund based in part, on public opinion. A consultancy firm hired by EPSRC, through a series of public workshops found public opinion supported proposals which focused on devices to detect diseases in their early stages and to improve targeted drug delivery to hard-to-reach tissue. A thumbs down was given for so-called theranostics, the insertion of small devices into patients to read chemical levels and provide automatic adjustments as required.

Read the THES article in full

EPSRC removes ring-fence

THE EPSRC has removed ring-fencing for strategically important "national services", they will now have to compete for "responsive mode" funding rather than competing with each other for "directed mode" funding. One casualty is the National Service for Computational Chemistry Software (NSCCS) at Imperial College London, which is to close March 2009. An online petition has been set up condemning the decision. A spokeswoman for the EPSRC is quoted as saying, '"The decision not to fund the NSCCS was taken on the advice of independent scientists through the peer review system."'

Read the THES article in full

EPSRC puts up signposts

In an attempt to facilitate further interdisciplinary research, EPSRC has developed a system by which areas of special interest can be flagged. At the beginning of April the '"physics-life sciences interface" research was added to its list of transient blue-skies signposts along with a budget of up to £8 million. The EPSRC have stressed that they are not calls for research proposals. Proposals which fall into signposted areas will be treated by a different mechanism than solely responsive-mode peer-review panels; extra experts will be drafted in to help panels with their assessments.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=401485

http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/Content/News/PhysicsLSIFunding.htm