It’s been a long, cold winter. Science Is Vital has been in hibernation, but now we’re back.
After half a year since the government’s Autumn Spending Review, the implications of the science budget’s cash freeze are starting to kick in. Inspired by a recent Campaign for Science and Engineering blog, Stephen Curry proposed that we lend a hand to the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee who are seeking evidence about how the proposed cuts are affecting scientists at the coal face. We want to make sure that all voices, including those of early-stage researchers, are heard – not just eminent scientists or scholarly societies.
So we’ve organized a helpful page on our website about how to prepare and submit your evidence, and a questionnaire that will help us keep track of the cuts geographically. And we’ve just contacted everyone who helped out with the campaign to let them know – that’s the more than 37,000 people who supported us last time around.
We’d be grateful if you could help spread the word: the hashtag, as always, is #scienceisvital, along with the specific campaign tag, #CSRimpact.
Tweeted. Not that most (all?) of my UK-based scientist followers don’t already read your blog anyway. 😉
I’m wondering about the feasibility of taking your campaign global–after all, it looks as though across the globe we’re all facing the same problems…
As soon as I saw your and Stephen C’s tweets I sent out an all-staff email, and raised it this morning at our academic staff meeting. Our Institute was out in strength at the demo last year, and I’m confident they’ll be writing to the Sci and Tech committee in numbers. I’m also hoping a few of my colleagues will be happy to have their letters posted on-line. This is important, hats off to all of you for fanning the flames.
Thanks Stephen (M.), that’s appreciated!
Steve (C.), I think one of the reasons that our autumn campaign worked so well is because the UK is a fairly small country – it’s easier to get national attention, and to gain an audience with politicians. In a place like the US, for example, everything is so much more diffuse. That isn’t a good reason not to to try, though!