Science minister unveils reforms to facilities council

This Current Commentary was prompted by a recent talk given by Laura Holland, at Reading Skeptics in the Pub, about the Diamond Light Source, where she is the Outreach and Events Manager. Skeptics in the Pub (1) is a growing, informal network of (usually) monthly meetings, where the invited speaker presents a topic of interest in a pub, which is followed by a discussion. A broad range of subjects is aired, covering various aspects of science and technology, and such diverse matters as philosophy, homeopathy, the media, education, electric cars, GM crops, the paranormal, and depletion of the Earth's resources (which I have spoken about to various Skeptics groups). Skeptics in some respects resembles Cafe Scientifique, although the latter meetings (2) tend to be more particularly focussed on features of science and technology. Diamond (3) (Figure 1) is the UK's national synchrotron science facility, and is situated on the Harwell campus in Oxfordshire, which also houses the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. The campus is owned by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Health Protection Agency. It is managed by Harwell Oxford Developments Ltd. The Diamond synchrotron can produce intense beams of light, said (3) to be 10 billion times brighter than the sun. Here, the term does not only refer to the region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to humans (namely wavelengths in the 400-700 nm range), since Diamond generates synchrotron light, which is a spectrum of electromagnetic radiation spanning X-rays to microwaves. The UK led the world with the first second-generation light source, the SRS at the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire, which opened in 1981. The SRS proved how vital synchrotrons are to researchers from a wide range of disciplines and, when it had expanded as much as it could, scientists and engineers began designing a third generation synchrotron for the UK. Diamond is the largest scientific facility to be built in the UK, since the Nimrod proton synchrotron at the Rutherford Appleton laboratory (RAL) in 1964. Nimrod was converted into the (ISIS) neutron spallation source in 1977. ISIS is not an acronym, but is both the name by which the River Thames is known locally, and a goddess of Ancient Egypt who could restore life to the dead: this seemed appropriate since the ISIS facility was partially constructed from cannibalised equipment from the Nimrod and NINA accelerators. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] In contrast, DIAMOND is an acronym: Dipole And Multipole Output for the Nation at Daresbury, as derived by Mike Poole, who inaugurated the DIAMOND project. Since the facility is no longer at Daresbury, it is said that the name now reflects the fact that the synchrotron light is both 'hard' (as in the hard X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum) and bright, similar to those qualities of a diamond. The Diamond facility cost an initial 260 m [pounds sterling] to build, including the synchrotron building, the accelerators, the first seven beamlines and the adjacent office block, Diamond House. 86% of Diamond's funding comes from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and 14% from the Wellcome Trust. More than 3,000 research workers carry out experiments using synchrotron radiation at Diamond, and are assisted by some 500 permanent staff there. Features of synchrotron radiation 1. A wide energy-range of the electromagnetic spectrum, spanning X-rays to microwaves. 2. The very intense beam of photons means that crystals that scatter radiation only weakly may be studied, and experiments can be done rapidly. 3. Due to a small divergence and small size source (spatial coherence), a highly collimated beam is obtained. 4. A source stability is obtained at the sub-micron level. 5. Both linear and circular polarisation are possible. 6. …

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), has a rich tradition of fostering public engagement and outreach, as part of its strategic aim to showcase and celebrate STFC science, technology, and staff, both within its National Laboratories and throughout the broader community. As part of its wider programme, STFC organised two large scale public engagement open weeks in 2023 and 2024. These events, held at the Sci-Tech Daresbury campus in the North of England and the Harwell Campus in the South of England, home to STFC's largest National Laboratories, collectively welcomed over 17,500 participants. These open weeks provided an unparalleled opportunity for the public to engage intimately with groundbreaking science and technology. Attendees were immersed in hands-on activities, demonstrations, and enlightening talks spanning various disciplines and catering to all age groups. They also had the unique opportunity to explore the state-of-the-art facilities on site, and talk with the people who work here. Scientific Computing (SC), a department within STFC, took a lead in orchestrating and delivering computing outreach initiatives during both open weeks. This paper details STFC's approach to organizing these open weeks, how the open weeks were structured, SC's planning process for contributing to the events, and delves into the specifics of SC's impactful contributions. By sharing these insights, this paper aims to offer valuable lessons for the effective execution of large-scale public engagement initiatives within the scientific community.

Your editorial last month, entitled “The £80m black hole” (January p15), was accompanied by a picture of the Diamond Light Source, which some readers may have interpreted as being responsible for the current shortfall in funding for the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). This implication is totally inaccurate and misleading.

This is an annotated data management plan (DMP) template for Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) grant application data management plans.This document (available in .pdf and .docx formats) was created using the DMPonline tool, which provides templates for structuring major research funders' DMPs. The document includes the guidance text provided in the tool, produced by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC), the STFC and the University of Sheffield Library.STFC expects that data resulting from the research it funds should be made openly available after any proprietary period. Proposals for projects that would result in the production or collection of scientific data should include a data management plan as an attachment to the JeS proforma. The data management plan attachment is mandatory against most STFC schemes (not Public Engagement) and should be no longer than two pages of A4. STFC does not stipulate a specific format for data management plans and applicants may structure them in the way most appropriate to the project. If it is felt that a DMP is not relevant to a proposal then an attachment explaining this should be uploaded to pass validation. This, together with any costs associated with it, will be considered and assessed by the normal peer review process. The data management plan should explain how the data will be managed over the lifetime of the project and, where appropriate, preserved and shared for future re-use. For more information, see the STFC scientific data policy, the STFC guidance on writing a data management plan and guidance on the data management review.The DCC also provides guidance on Data management Plans and How to Develop a Data Management and Sharing Plan.

The Remote3 (“Remote Cubed”) project is a Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Public Engagement Leadership Fellowship funded activity, organised in collaboration between the University of Edinburgh (UoE), and STFC’s Public Engagement Team, Scientific Computing, and the Boulby Underground Laboratory – part of STFC Particle Physics. Remote3 works with school audiences to challenge teams of young people to design, build, and program their own LEGO Mindstorms [1] “Mars Rover”, which is then tested at the Boulby Underground Laboratory’s Mars Yard, 1.1 km underground. Teams, with the assistance of mentors from UoE and STFC, design their rover to complete various space-exploration themed challenges – ranging from taking a panoramic environment scan to navigating the Mars Yard landscape looking for LEGO brick samples. The project aims to engage with audiences that are underserved by public engagement opportunities, especially those that provide experience with cutting edge science, for example those from remote highland locations and those from areas of higher social depravation. We give them the opportunity to work hands on with engineering and computing, whilst learning from and interacting with real scientists and engineers. Since its inception in 2019, Remote3 has flourished in a wide variety of different environments and through multiple media, from entirely virtual during the lockdowns of 2020-21, to working closely with active scientists deep underground, to visits to schools by Remote3 members, communal group storytelling at libraries, and extensive displays and hands on activities in tents in fields at festivals. This year, Remote3 is building on the lessons learnt through this varied programme to deliver a series of engagement activities in conjunction with STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory Public Open Week, which had an audience of 15,000 people.

A new PhD programme to develop techniques to handle the vast amounts of data being generated by experiments and facilities has been launched by the UK's Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).

The so-called Earth co-orbitals are asteroids that share Earth’s orbit and are potentially linked to leftover material from the formation of the rocky planets. They are difficult to observe from the ground, because of their low conjunction frequency. Here we present light curves of a number of co-orbitals successfully observed during very narrow visibility periods when they approach the Earth. We used the FoReRo2 instrument attached on the 2-m RCC telescope at the Bulgarian National Astronomical Observatory - Rozhen. The figure shows the light curve of (418849) 2008 WM64, which has a semi-major axis a=1.005 AU, an orbital period of 1.01 yr and absolute magnitude H=20.6.Knowing their spin rate and determining the magnitude of the YORP and Yarkovsky effects we can make inferences about their creation (YORP-induced fission of a parent body) and their past orbital evolution. AcknowledgementsWork reported here was supported via grant ST/R000573/1 from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). Astronomical research at the Armagh Observatory and Planetarium is grant-aided by the Northern Ireland Department for Communities (DfC).

The UK's new Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) has appointed an eight-member board to advise the council on its scientific programme.

Muon spectroscopy is used primarily in condensed matter and molecular studies to investigate magnetism and hydrogen behaviour on the atomic scale. Beam time for such experiments is limited, however, as muon facilities are rare. Theoretical muon simulations help to guide experimental study, and can provide additional information that cannot be gained experimentally. The Muon Spectroscopy Computational Project (MSCP) at the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) develops software and methods to make theoretical muon science easier. We are currently extending Galaxy to create a graphical interface to our collection of command-line tools, known as pymuon-suite . We present our suite of tools, our plans for a ‘Muon Galaxy’ instance at STFC, and our ambitions to incorporate an interactive molecule visualiser ( crystvis-js ) with both input and output into our Galaxy tools.

GC is supported by the Cambridge European Trust, the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and St John’s College, Cambridge. COH acknowledges support from the School of Mathematics at Trinity College Dublin. GM acknowledges support the Herchel Smith Fund at the University of Cambridge. SMR acknowledges support from Science Foundation Ireland [RFP-PHY-3201]. CET acknowledges support from the STFC [grant ST/L000385/1]. DT is supported by the Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship Scheme [grant GOIPG/2014/65].

<p>As our ability to better understand and predict future weather and climate develops, so too do the expectations of our customers and stakeholders. The Met Office’s Research and Innovation Strategy 2020-2030 (R&I strategy) has identified a number of Research and Innovation themes to help with these evolving demands, and is structured into three core activities: pioneering research, foundational capability and science to services. The Met Office doesn’t have all the skills or resources needed to deliver the R&I strategy, so together with research organisations across the UK, Science Partnerships are needed to undertake joint research aimed at delivering the strategy.</p><p>These Science Partnerships aren’t new. A close collaboration with the University of Reading started in the 1980s, and in the late 2000s, a Joint Weather and Climate Research Programme had been established with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Centres, shortly followed by the growth of the Met Office Academic Partnership, which now includes the Universities of Reading, Exeter, Leeds, Oxford, Bristol and University College London.</p><p>However, as the customer and stakeholder demands and the R&I strategy change, the Partnerships need to evolve. The R&I strategy can be considered a blueprint needed to meet this challenge, and now includes themes such as fusing simulation with data sciences; technology architecture and innovation; and hazard to decision making, all of which involve disciplines outside the scope of traditional weather and climate services.</p><p>Indeed, the last 2 years has seen a new Joint Centre for Excellence in Environmental Intelligence established with the University of Exeter to help fill gaps around data science. The Met Office is currently in discussion with NERC Centres around a new UK National Climate Science Partnership, to co-ordinate the national capability in climate science needed to inform climate solutions across society, to help build resilience and adapt to the challenges of the coming decades.</p><p>This contribution to the session will provide further detail of the Met Office’s R&I strategy, an overview of the Met Office UK Science Partnerships, the practicalities of developing successful Science Partnerships, and lessons learned. In depth examples can provided where research has translated into operations, such as the GungHo dynamical core developed with our Academic Partners, NERC and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) as part of the Met Office’s Next Generation Modelling Systems, and how the UK Earth System Modelling project (jointly funded with NERC) contributed to the 6<sup>th</sup> Climate Model Intercomparison Project, CMIP6.</p>

Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)

The Zonal Bimorph Deformable Mirror (ZBDM) is a new concept of adaptive mirror. It exploits the benefits normally associated with bimorph mirrors, namely simple rugged construction, low capacitance, and cost effectiveness, but in a significant departure from classical, edge supported bimorphs each element is supported from underneath. This results in a localized (zonal) response that should enable the device to be scaled up to large aperture, multi-1000 element devices. Crucially, the combination of continuous support coupled with the use of flexi-circuit interconnect promotes the assembly of a high density 'tweeter' onto a lower density, high dynamic range 'woofer' to generate an integrated, dualstage deformable mirror which can deliver both high resolution and high dynamic range simultaneously. Such a device has the potential to significantly simplify the design of AO systems. We present the progress made on the development of the ZBDM as part of a collaborative programme funded by the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council.

"Nelmes, Prof. Richard John, Professor of Physical Crystallography, 1992–2010, now Emeritus, Honorary Professorial Fellow, since 2010, and Chairman, Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions, 2003–16, University of Edinburgh; Honorary Scientist, Science and Technology Facilities Council, ISIS Facility, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, since 2010 (Senior Visiting Fellow, 1994–2010)" published on by Oxford University Press.

The idea of the indivisible atom, held since the time of the ancient Greeks, was smashed just over 100 years ago. Ernest Rutherford and his team of scientists in the UK used scattering experiments to discover that atoms have a very dense and extremely small central nucleus that contains more than 99.9% of the mass of an atom and is ten thousand times smaller than an atom. Then just over 50 years ago three physicists in America: Jerome Friedman, Henry Kendall and Richard Taylor carried out scattering experiments in California, that revealed the internal structure of nucleons—later called quarks. This workshop, developed by the Public Engagement team at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, takes secondary school students through these historic discoveries and the present day scattering experiments still changing the world of science.