I’m probably more pro- than anti- this whole Impact exercise to be honest, particularly after reading Andy’s post on the subject and all its comments – although like you say, I’m more of an outside observer of the UK community these days. But from talking to British astronomers I get the feeling that many of them have the feeling that this process will lead to more funding cuts in astronomy in favour of more applied research.

As a side note, having had plenty of experience in working with industry during my PhD, I really hope that business too is given plenty of incentive to work with universities. In my time, that was sorely lacking.

I’d urge readers not to be cynical – the stats from the on-line questionaire *will* influence the direction of the UK’s ground-based astronomy programme.

I have to admit that posting this on the site of a Belgian astronomer working in the Netherlands makes me feel peculiar about the UK having an astronomy programme distinct from those of other EU nations.

I don’t share your distrust of KE and EI initiatives, Sarah. We can’t expect countless billions to be thrown at astronomy unless we agree to scratch our heads once in a while and ponder whether our new technologies can be applied more widely. Astronomers benefit from KE too: radar -> radio astronomy ->little green (wo)men…

So this is really a consultation of the community to determine what the highest-priority facilities are: which of the existing observatories need to be maintained, which future ones does the UK particularly want a stake in, what types of instruments are lacking etc.

“Scientific endeavour is not purely utilitarian in its objectives and has important associated cultural and social values. It is also important to maintain a basic competence in “flagship” sciences such as physics and astronomy for cultural reasons. Not to offer them would be to take a negative view of our future – the view that we are a second class nation, chained forever to the treadmill of feeding and clothing ourselves.”

I don’t know how South African economy fares at its best compared to the UK economy at its worst but one thing that is needed whether economies are doing well or not is vision.

Is the STFC looking for a vision that the review panels and other consultations can define or is this mostly an exercise to structure the apparent elimination process going on?