Postdoc funding delay not caused by STFC cuts, says Vallance

Cuts to physics funding have not caused postdoctoral researchers to lose their grants, science minister Patrick Vallance has insisted, claiming delays being faced by some recipients were a “mistake” that would soon be rectified.

Speaking to the House of Commons’ Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Vallance admitted some early career researchers at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) had not been able to begin projects on time but this was not triggered by the organisation’s recent decision to slash funding by £162 million over the next four years.

Only about 15 of the 324 postdocs supported by the STFC have been affected, Vallance told MPs on 17 March, saying that the issues related to a missed international deadline in January.

This caused the group of postdocs to not be able to begin their research this year, insisting it had nothing to do with the highly-publicised funding cuts recently criticised as “wholly unacceptable” by the committee’s chair Chi Onwurah, he said. 

“I do not know why it happened – it was not the right thing to do and we should not have missed that [deadline]. The money for those postdocs is still available and that work can happen now,” Vallance explained.

The applicants will now work with universities and the STFC’s advisory council to ensure the research went ahead, either later this year or in the following academic year, he said.

“As far as I can see there was time to get it sorted out – I don’t know how this happened. Someone thought it was not such a big deal – I think it is a big deal and we can get that right,” Vallance said.

Addressing the funding shortfalls at the STFC caused partly by unfavourable currency fluctuations, which have increased the cost of international subscriptions, Vallance said it was not possible to guard entirely against these unforeseen circumstances.

“They do hedge against foreign exchange changes,” he explained, adding that he did not think “anyone could have predicted what was going to happen” regarding the currency swings.

“We cannot hedge for the whole thing – we can only hedge against certain variables,” Vallance continued.

Asked if the “over-ambitious” commitments by STFC cited as another cause for potential cuts to existing projects could be described as “bad financial management”, Vallance was reluctant to criticise previous leaders at the council.

“People were trying their best to get good projects out – the reality is that it overran,” he said.

“I really do not think it has been bad financial management but there is an important stage now to get us in a position where we have better cost control over domestic research funding programmes and other areas,” he said.

Accepting the looming cuts to physics grant programmes, however, Vallance said: “It is not how it should be – I want to get things right,” noting the current situation “is painful and will cause noise”.

The former government adviser pushed back on coverage of the STFC cost pressures, in particular whether the STFC would be cutting back on its commitments to international science projects such as Cern.

“It is not right to portray these as massive cuts to things – it is about managing budgets responsibly and being clear how much we can afford to with international subscriptions,” he said.

Defending the decision to reform how UKRI awards research funding – with a large section of funding now dedicated to applied research in certain government priority fields, Vallance said the changes answered frequent criticisms that science spending was not properly targeted.

“This committee has commented previously that UKRI lacks strategic focus, has too many priorities and would benefit from more direction, while it needed [to show] greater transparency and accountability,” he said, arguing that the organisation’s chief executive Ian Chapman is “trying to make those changes and it is not straightforward”.