LEADING scientists at the troubled Daresbury science research campus are threatening to quit and return to the United States, unless the Government quickly guarantees its future.
Key staff at the Cockcroft Institute – a national centre for accelerator science – revealed their disillusionment at the running down of the laboratory, near Warrington, to visiting MPs this week.
Some scientists left prestigious jobs at Harvard and Stanford as part of a “reverse brain drain” triggered by the astonishing success of Daresbury in recent years.
Their devastating threat to go home adds to growing pressure on the Government to rethink plans for £80m cuts to three laboratories run by the Science and Technol-ogy Facilities Council (STFC).
The Cockcroft Institute is a joint venture between STFC and north west universities. Half the scientists who work there are STFC employees facing an uncer-tain future after the council’s announcement last month it would be shedding jobs.
It is feared staff who remain after the redundancies will quit to work elsewhere.
Yesterday , science minister Ian Pearson was fiercely criticised when he appeared before the Commons innovation, universit-ies and skills committee, whose MPs visited Daresbury this week.
The MPs, who have launched an inquiry into the science cash crunch, told Mr Pearson his pledge that Daresbury had a rosy future was simply “hot air”. Committee chairman Phil Willis said: “All those scientists are going, minister.”
The Liberal Democrat MP accused Mr Pearson of not under-standing the need for cutting edge science in order to attract leading scientists, who would not come to “another science business park”.
But the science minister – while admitting there was “low morale” at the campus – insisted the impact of the spending squeeze was exaggerated.
Last month, it was revealed that STFC planned to cull 350 of the 500 staff working at Daresbury by April next year. Redundancy warning notices have been sent out.
The decommissioning of the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) will claim 150 jobs. A further blow is a two-year delay before a decision on whether to fully fund the fourth-generation light source (4GLS) project.
In its evidence to the committee, the scientists’ union Prospect claimed ministers were preparing the ground for its closure, by withdrawing funding to the “golden triangle” of Oxford, Cambridge and London.
Speaking after yesterday’s evidence session, Professor Swapan Chattopadhyay, the Cockcroft Institute’s director, denied he would return to the United States after just eight months in the post.
But, describing those months as “a baptism of fire”, he warned: “If what the STFC is proposing takes place, then we are in great danger of losing real talent.
“The reverse brain drain that has taken place over the last five years, that brought over ex-patriates from throughout the world, will definitely go into reverse again. Those scientists need to hear that Daresbury campus will be a facility that does science that can compete on the international stage. A scientific laboratory, not a technology park.”
