UK Science Boss Called On Carpet: Abortive Plan To Shut British Antarctic Survey, Other Screwups

The research council chief who controversially tried to close down the British Antarctic Survey has been ordered to explain apparently inaccurate remarks to the Commons science select committee last week. MPs are concerned about the account given by Duncan Wingham, head of the Natural Environment Research Council, of personnel changes made at the BAS after preparations to close it were instigated this year.

The closure plan – first revealed by the Observer – generated widespread hostility and was eventually abandoned last week. Wingham had tried to justify his council's plan to merge the survey with the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton before MPs on Wednesday but was attacked for failing to justify the move on cost or scientific grounds; for failing to consult properly, and not taking into account the survey's geopolitical role in the South Atlantic. The next day, the NERC dropped the merger plan.

The 60-year-old British Antarctic Survey, which has its HQ in Cambridge, operates five research stations, two ships and five aircraft in Antarctica. Breakthroughs made by its scientists have included the 1985 discovery of the hole in the ozone layer. However, its paymasters at NERC – which funds UK research on a wide range of environmental subjects – were told last year by the government to cut expenditure by 10% and capital spending by 45% by 2015. Polar research, which is costly, was chosen to take a major hit. The plan was greeted with outrage by scientists. Jonathan Shanklin, one of the researchers who discovered the ozone hole in 1985, said: "The BAS is almost synonymous with the ozone hole. Losing it would create a comparable hole in British science."

EDIT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/04/duncan-wingham-british-antarctic-survey