1.1 Andrew welcomed everyone to the meeting. There were apologies from Mark Bunnage, Helen, Gleeson, Andrew Harrison and Michael Kohl.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "1.1 Andrew welcomed everyone to the meeting. There were apologies from Mark Bunnage, Helen, Gleeson, Andrew Harrison and Michael Kohl."

Roberta Fields
5 years ago
Views:

1 Notes of the 12 th Physical Science Strategic Advisory Team Meeting held on Friday 1 st March am at MRC, 1 Kemble Street, London Attendees: Andrew Bourne (Chair) Neil Alford Steve Blundell Kevin Booker-Milburn Richard Dendy Andrew Fisher Steve Howdle Peter Knowles David Lathbury Sarah Thompson Claire Higlett (EPSRC) Emma King (EPSRC) Apologies: Mark Bunnage Helen Gleeson Andrew Harrison Michael Kohl 1 Welcome and Introductions 1.1 Andrew welcomed everyone to the meeting. There were apologies from Mark Bunnage, Helen, Gleeson, Andrew Harrison and Michael Kohl. 1.2 David Lathbury requested that Gold vs. Green open access costs be added to the agenda. 2 Minutes and Actions arising 2.1 The minutes from the last meeting were agreed. 2.2 Success rates for the Chemistry, Materials and Physics panels are now available and formed part of item three on the agenda. 2.3 Andrew informed the SAT that the refresh of SAT membership is currently on hold due to the current review of Strategic Advice to EPSRC. Therefore membership is extended until further notice. 2.4 All other actions have been completed. 2.5 Nigel Birch is attending a diversity workshop next week. It was asked if EPSRC was looking at its processes regarding diversity. What potential policies could we have at an RCUK level? Andrew stated that there is to be a best practice group set up which Nigel will be part of and RCUK/EPSRC will ensure that grant conditions are in line with current legislation. 3 Update from the Physical Sciences Theme

2 3.1 Andrew presented a series of slides with the success rates for the last four Physical Sciences panels and commitments from recent calls, mid-range facilities and Programme and Platform grants The slides showed that Chemistry received a higher proportion of funding through Standard Mode, but this is due to the fact that more Chemistry Critical Mass grants were funded. It was noted however that Physics tend to be more successful with regards to Programme Grant funding The Catalysis hub call was funded at 12.9M, but the National Capability Physical Sciences contribution was only 5.3M due to gearing from both the Engineering and Manufacturing Themes M has been committed for the Mid-Range Facilities for running costs. These funds come from the Physical Sciences budget. All of the facilities funded so far are from Phase 1 and 2 of the mid-range facilities review that took place in 2009, except for XMaS which was from Phase 3. The community needs to recognise that these facilities are important as the funds come from the research budget It was raised that there were far fewer Physics proposals at December panel compared to Chemistry and Materials. This was due to sifting prior to panel on the basis of low reviewer scores. It was asked whether physicists were harsher reviewers but the feeling was that proposals had been rushed in due to the higher funding available in FY 2012/13 and were poorly written. It was also mentioned that the lower number of proposals in general could be due to project students no longer being allowed The SAT queried whether a December panel had been necessary. It was explained that the panel was held to ensure that those proposals submitted during the early summer period met their processing targets. 3.2 Andrew presented a slide on Physical Sciences Fellowships. The slide showed that there has been a slow uptake as the new scheme bedded in. The total spend to date is 15.8M with the majority being in Physics. As yet no Post-Doctoral Fellowships have been funded The SAT asked what had happened to the Dream Fellowships. This was a pilot scheme and the current set of Dream Fellows are about halfway through. There are eight across EPRSC, two of which are in Physical Sciences. The Dream Fellows were recently invited to EPSRC to discuss how things were going so far and to get feedback on the scheme. If the Dream Fellowships run again, it is envisaged that they will be part of the new fellowship arrangements. 3.3 Andrew updated the SAT regarding the recent activities in Physical Sciences. This included Physical Sciences Grand Challenges, Big Pitch and INSPIRE. It was raised what the value of doing such activities was as compared to Standard Mode. Andrew stated that as the budget had gone up for this FY, the theme has tried to do more strategic activities. However, the majority of Physical Sciences funding is still via Standard Mode; the Catalysis Hub being the exception.

3 3.4 Andrew gave an update on CDTs. The call is now live and the advice the SAT gave regarding the different reasons for setting up a CDTs (culture change, capability gap, research challenge, translational challenge, user pull) was fed back into the call The SAT agreed that the Physical Sciences led areas are relatively broad. However there was a worry that CDTs that cover more than one research area or theme would suffer if the outlines were assessed in a silo-like manner. Andrew reminded the SAT that the call is EPSRC wide, and that it is no bad thing to cover more than one area, but the centre must be focussed and deliver on core strengths whilst not ignoring any synergies with other areas and themes. There has to be some pragmatism when it came to assessment. Physical Sciences would be using two panels to assess outlines. The SAT asked if there would be a balanced portfolio across EPSRC, Andrew confirmed this was the case. The outline stage is to prioritise the centres. If there was a case for centres to join up after this stage then that would be allowable but both centres would have to be high quality. The SAT liked the process so far for the CDT call; the pre-announcement was especially highlighted as a positive. However there was concern over the make-up of the sift panels as it will be hard to get people who are truly independent of the process. ACTION - SAT to suggest panel members by Monday 3.5 Andrew gave an update on the Chemistry Capability call. This call arose from the RCUK capital road map. EPSRC challenged the Heads of Chemistry to draw up a draft bid of chemistry capital requirements for the next 3 years and included mass spectrometry, NMR, X-ray diffraction and atomic level microscopy. The go ahead was given for the first year s funding. Andrew funded 15.5M across 15 universities. Andrew informed the SAT that there is a possibility for a similar activity in Physics, but a bid needs to be written first. Oxford are prepared to lead this. 3.6 Andrew gave an update regarding the recent Physical Sciences Theme visits. Core messages that have come up regularly include CDTs, fellowships and issues concerning crossdisciplinary research. Other issues that have arisen included funding constraints for the next financial year, peer review and diversity. Feedback from those SAT members who have been visit was that the visits were much appreciated. 4. Progress on Shaping Capability 4.1. Andrew reminded the SAT that the Research Area of Analytical Science is a maintain area, but as it s such a broad area it will be reviewed so that EPSRC can shape it further with confidence. It was asked what the SAT would want from a review. Andrew has already spoken to the RSC and showed a set of slides. The SAT stated that it needs to be defined properly. At present the definition is The development of novel techniques, or the novel

4 application of existing techniques, for the analysis of chemical or biological systems and entities. Current issues in Analytical Science include: sustainability of instrumentation; researchers don t see themselves as analytical scientists; the Physical Sciences aspect of research could be small so is overlooked e.g. PET huge pieces of kit are involved but chemistry just provides the reporter molecule. An area which is currently completely missing is real-time analysis. The SAT questioned whether this area needs a Grand Challenge or sandpit? 4.2 Chemical Biology and Biochemical Chemistry is also a maintain area and is being reviewed via a Theme Day later this year to see if we are getting value for money and gain insight regarding future scientific requirements. The SAT was asked what they would like to see coming out of the Theme Day. Again, a clearer definition of the area was needed and it is important for the physical sciences to claim Chemical Biology as its own. 4.3 Andrew showed the SAT the current list of Research Areas where fellowships are available. The SAT felt the Material Scientists have found it hard to fit in, but that the addition of Materials for Energy was a good thing. However there was the feeling that the list does need a health check as people are losing track of the logic behind why some areas have been nominated and others hadn t and why particular career stages had been chosen. Andrew stated that the list had been developed as part of the Shaping Capability exercise and was intended to be refreshed as newly awarded fellowships and fellowships which have ended change the capability landscape. The SAT endorsed the current fellowship priorities for another twelve months with the proviso that there was a full review for next year s refresh. 4.4 Andrew told the SAT that the Physical Sciences Theme will be part of a pilot monitoring Shaping Capability. This will be a Theme Lens view to see how the dynamics of the research landscape are evolving. The pilot area is to be Advanced Materials as this spans 6/7 Research Areas. There will be a full SAT discussion on this at the next meeting. 5. Eight Great Technologies and the Physical Sciences Theme 5.1 Andrew asked the SAT how the Physical Sciences Theme can play in the space covered by the Eight Great Technologies report. How can we tease out the key, underpinning science in the report and champion it to the community? Big Data Revolution spintronics, metaphysics, high performance computing, computational chemistry, architectures Satellites and Commercial Applications of Space materials resistance to radiation in space, sensors and instrumentation

5 Robotics and Autonomous Systems theory of collective behaviour, communication systems Where Dry meets Wet: Life Sciences, Genomics and Synthetic Biology Chemical Biology, Synthetic Chemistry, Analytical Sciences, and Computational Chemistry. For example: synthesis of drugs such as bryostatin on a gram scale. Personalised medicines. Regenerative Medicine materials, coatings, nanostructures, cell environment Agri-Science chemistry of herbicides, new chemicals based on plant genomes, analytical aspects of plant genetics. Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and Energy and its Storage lots of examples. There is a need to work up examples of where the physical sciences fits into these areas both in terms of the current portfolio and future challenges as the community need to strengthen its position for the next spending review. 5.2 Andrew showed a slide giving an update on the Advanced Materials Strategy. This was initiated due to potential funding for capital from BIS and led to a draft proposition for research nodes. The SAT was unsure as to what a node was, Andrew said that these would be similar to the Catalysis Hub and would be a virtual centre. A town meeting is being held on 21 st March to launch the 85M capital call, invites for which were sent to Pro VCs. Andrew then introduced a slide on the Physical Sciences Materials Strategy Group set up to review the area for shaping capability. The group identified the strengths and weaknesses of the UK and produced a draft report which was available for a web consultation. The final report is currently being complied with the final version being presented to the SAT at the next meeting. 6. Physical Sciences beyond 2014 The SAT mentioned that once the REF exercise is over, universities will have lots of one page case studies, showing the impact of physical sciences research. These could aid in building the case for support for the Physical Sciences in the next spending review. 6.1 The SAT raised the fact that there is still an issue around project students that needs to be resolved. Andrew said that the case for more students needs to be clearly demonstrated, that contextual data is required and project students may not be the solution but some other mechanism might be. The SAT mentioned that when reviewing papers for the REF exercise, 80% of the papers had PhD students on them. 7 AOB 7.1 Open Access

6 The SAT was concerned about the new mechanism for funding publications in Open Access journals. Researchers have to pay high rates for Gold level to get open access in a timely manner and there is a worry that the RCUK block grant may not cover this type of access. Green rates are cheaper but take longer. There is the risk that universities will have to pick and choose which journals to publish in which will have a knock on effect on impact factor. Andrew would feed this input back to Ben Ryan in our evaluation team. Summary of Actions: Action Responsibility Due Panel member suggestions for the CDT sift SAT Members Completed panel meeting Panel member suggestions for the ChemBio SAT members Completed theme day and review of Analytical Science Draw up a 1 page straw man for each of the Eight Great Technologies Physical Science Team and SAT To be completed Members Feed in ideas to Andrew regarding studentships SAT Members To be completed Send Equipment Knowledge map to SAT Andrew Bourne To be completed Materials Strategy Group report to be sent to Nigel Birch/Andrew Summer 2013 SAT Bourne Open Access feedback Andrew Bourne In Hand

UK High-Field NMR Funding and the UKRI Infrastructure Roadmap

UK High-Field NMR Funding and the UKRI Infrastructure Roadmap Tony Chapman, EPSRC UK NMR Manager s Meeting University of Warwick 20 th June 2018 Topics to be covered today Part 1- An overview of UK investment