In the US, thanks in large part to the big job stimulus bills, some of them tied to energy and green technology research, federal dollars at the moment seem to be flowing reasonably well toward scientific research and development. Not so in the UK, editorializes science editor Roger Highfield in New Scientist. Rather, the nation’s ability to keep up with other nations in R&D, and consequently in innovative industries and economic growth generally, is in peril.

I’d like to have seen a link to a hall of shame listing of big projects that have been cut or crippled in recent years, and perhaps a plot illustrating trends in money going into R&D.

But Highfield’s worry appears to be widely shared in Britain. The UK’s Press Association has Science cuts ‘could hit economy’ on the wire today. The Royal Society of Chemistry’s Chemistry World site reports likewise.

On the Other Hand Dept:

• Financial Times – Clive Cookson: Britain launches UK space agency ; What’s surprising is that no such centralized agency existed before now.  That’s a British designed, proposed resuable booster up top right, something called the Skylon.

- Charlie Petit

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Science Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.