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Overall PPARC's budget will rise from GBP 255.77 million in 2003/04 to GBP 290.89 million in 2005/06.
Commenting on the funding announcement, Professor Ian Halliday, PPARC's Chief Executive, stated: "The government is to be congratulated. This much needed investment in fundamental physics will enable our physicists and astronomers to build on their high international standing, and engage in new collaborative international programmes, for example, Advanced LIGO, and the Linear Collider - ensuring the UK is in the global van of discoveries that push back the frontiers of knowledge."
Professor Halliday added: "Research in fundamental physics inevitable spawns new, key technologies that will underpin other areas of scientific research whilst benefiting the UK economy through the provision of highly trained people and the resulting advances in IT and technology transfer."
PPARC's allocations in the major cross-Council research programmes are as follows.
E-science
PPARC will receive a further GBP 31.6 million to continue its e-science programme throughout the period of this Spending Review. The programme will focus on establishing a UK High Energy Physics (HEP) Grid and the computing infrastructure required for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment at CERN when it becomes operational in 2007. In addition it will deliver a working virtual observatory based on key UK astronomical data sets; placing the UK in a leadership position in the international development of Virtual Observatories and in the development of an EU Grid infrastructure.
Accelerator Science
Over the next few years decisions will be made on the funding and construction of several international large accelerator-based facilities. They will include electron linear colliders, re-circulating linear colliders for synchrotron radiation studies and free electron lasers operating across a spectrum of wavelengths. High power proton accelerators will be developed as drivers for pulsed neutron spallation sources, muon derived neutrino beams, and muon colliders, and will have the potential to transmute and even derive energy from nuclear waste.
There is now international consensus within the particle physics community that the next particle physics accelerator should be a Linear Collider. A Linear Collider will not only deliver new opportunities for particle physics to explore beyond the Standard Model, but the associated technology will be key to the future development of synchrotron facilities for other science areas.
PPARC will receive GBP 5.4 million as part of a joint programme with the Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils (CLRC). The new investment will position CLRC, universities and industry to win major shares in the construction, and possibly hosting, of major global facilities, a Linear Collider and Neutrino Factory, which are of strategic importance to the whole of the UK science base.
Gravity and Planetary Exploration
PPARC has been allocated an additional GBP 9 million to invest in these two areas.
Gravitational Waves will be detected in the next decade. Their detection will enable us to confirm one of the more exotic predictions of Einstein's theory of General Relativity. It will open up a new era in astronomy. The UK, through seminal work in universities at Glasgow, Cardiff, Birmingham, and Imperial College, is a world leader in gravitational physics. The additional investment will position the UK to exploit its technological leadership in the design and deployment of the next generation of large-scale ground-based detectors and the first detector in space through Advanced LIGO and SMART2, and to lead on data analysis.
There is renewed and growing scientific interest globally in planetary exploration. In Europe, the European Space Agency (ESA) has proposed the AURORA programme with the strategy over the next thirty years for Europe's robotic and human exploration of Mars, the Moon, and even beyond to the asteroids. The broad science goals are to understand how planets form and evolve, their environments, and the search for life elsewhere in our solar system.
The UK has a strong tradition and proven expertise in planetary science, and in the design and implementation of space-borne technologies for missions for planetary exploration. Through the Beagle 2 Lander on ESA's Mars Express mission, the UK has achieved a significant international lead in the design of miniaturised instrumentation for robotic missions. Through this new investment the UK has the opportunity to capitalise on its world-leading expertise, and to lead in the definition of both the ESA and NASA programmes, in the development of the technologies needed for planetary landers and miniaturised instrumentation for missions to other planets.
Objectives
PPARC's main strategic objectives in the next five years will be to:
- deliver its commitment to the construction of the general purpose detectors for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, and the computing infrastructure needed to exploit the data from the LHC using grid technologies;
- exploit its membership of the European Space Agency (ESA) by winning scientific leadership in selective space science missions aligned with the UK's scientific priorities, and in the provision of international data centres;
- exploit its recent membership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and its investment in the Gemini telescopes;
- invest in smaller scale international particle astrophysics experiments, for example, in gravitation wave and neutrino detection, dark matter, and cosmic microwave background radiation;
- strengthen the UK's capability in accelerator science and R&D to position it to participate in the next generation of global accelerators, and, in particular, a Linear Collider and Neutrino Factory;
- invest in blue skies technology R&D, which will underpin longer-term facility development, and, through partnerships with industry, increase the potential for technology transfer;
- increase provision through grants for infrastructure and exploitation in universities;
- increase the number of research students to enhance the vibrancy of the research base and the throughput of high quality physicists and engineers into industry.
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