Within one week in December 2007, particle physicists in the UK and the US received unexpectedly bad budget news, which rocked the two communities. The funding decisions have together provided a large blow to work on a future International Linear Collider (ILC).
On 11 December the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) announced its Delivery Plan for 2008/9 to 2011/12. The plan sets out how the council intends to deliver world-class science, in part through providing access to international facilities, within the finances allocated in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. Though this review gave the STFC an increase of some 13.5% over the period in question, the news for UK particle physicists – and their colleagues in astronomy – was far from good. The most serious aspect for particle physicists was summed up in a simple statement: “We will cease investment in the International Linear Collider.” Astronomers received the news of withdrawal from “future investment in the twin 8-m Gemini telescopes”. The consequences of the overall UK budget announcement are still being assessed, but redundancies are likely.
This news immediately reverberated around the world, as the UK was a major contributor to the ILC, but bad news was also in store for their colleagues in the US. A week later on 18 December, the US budget for fiscal year 2008 was finally announced after several delays. In the rush to get the budget approved, several projects suffered big reductions, including “$0 for the US contribution to ITER [the international fusion project]”, and no funds for the NOvA project at Fermilab’s Tevatron. In addition the budget allowed for only 25% – $15 million instead of $60 million – of the amount requested for R&D on the ILC. This is much worse than it appears, as the US system works in such a way that FY2008 began last October, so this allocation may already have been spent.
While these two adverse developments represent a major setback for the ILC, there are also immediate ramifications for personnel at Fermilab and SLAC. Pierre Oddone, Fermilab’s director, had the unenviable task of announcing that some 200 layoffs from a workforce of about 2000 would probably be necessary, and that employees would now have two days enforced unpaid leave a month. Persis Drell, in her new role as director of SLAC, had to announce that work on the ILC had to stop on 1 January and that the B-factory would have to shut down prematurely. The laboratory would have to reduce its workforce by about 15%, implying 125 layoffs in addition to the nearly 100 announced previously as SLAC changes focus in its research.
