Hi Jamie
I was surprised by your unqualified celebration.  Don't you mean 'Good 
news for some PhD students!'?. It appears to be the same old story. 
Yes, all very exciting for science students, but, as always, the 
arts/language research students seem to be left out in the cold; I am 
in my third year of a full-time PhD in computer assisted language 
learning and I have been able to get no funding despite continued 
frustrating, and ultimately time consuming and distracting, effort in 
that direction; oh, except a couple of hundred quid from my department 
to fund one of three expensive research trips I have had to take to 
Germany (Thanks to LLT at UEA). I have attended four conferences during 
my two years so far, one of which was supported by BALEAP (thanks!); 
the rest cost me deep in the purse. I have just returned from a 
conference in Barcelona that cost me (and my wife and kids) £400.  My 
wife works part-time to keep bread on the table, etc. 
You must forgive my scepticism in response to this 'good news'; but the 
imbalance on the part of the government in favour of science research, 
already relatively heavily funded by private industry, is not only 
another kick in the teeth to arts/language research students, but I 
believe represents an attitude to research which appears content to 
promote a situation redolent of battery farming whereby authorities are 
happy to fund arts students up to PGCE level so that they can be dumped 
into the lamentable education system to give children a token arts 
background, while the 'serious' money goes towards encouraging a 
science bias in the higher levels of academic life. 
Although the skewed funding of research clearly affects me and others 
like me at a personal level, I fear for its societal corollary; what 
kind of society will result from this imbalance?  You get what you pay 
for. Good news? Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.  And as for
'brain drain', as soon as I get my PhD, I shall be seriously 
considering employment again overseas so that my tax pounds do not go 
to a system that treats arts research with such disdain.
Cheers
Kevin 

On Wed, 5 Jul 2000 11:26:11 +0100  Jamie Darwen 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> >From today's Guardian... PhD students could be getting £12k a year 
> soon!
> 
> 
> Science gets £1bn to halt brain drain 
> 
> Patrick Wintour and Keith Perry 
> Wednesday July 5, 2000 
> 
> Gordon Brown will today announce a billion-pound investment programme 
> into scientific research to boost hi-tech enterprise and stem the brain 
> drain to the United States. 
> Much of the money will be directed at nurturing PhD students in 
> key sciences, the chancellor will tell 20 American and British 
> financiers at a conference in London on enterprise and technology.
> 
> The centrepiece of today's announcement will be a joint venture with the
> Wellcome Trust, one of the world's biggest research groups, that is 
> being described as "bigger and better" than the government's investment 
> in Wellcome's successful programme to crack the human genome.
> 
> Mike Dexter, director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "I am delighted that 
> this partnership with government can mean such a massive increase in 
> science research infrastructure throughout the UK. We are delighted to 
> have played our part in this initiative."
> 
> The funding could mean that research students currently financed by the
> government's research councils will see their salaries catch up with the
> fewer but better-paid students supported by the trust.
> 
> Research councils last year announced a £1,000 boost to PhD grant 
> students. As a result minimum grants are currently set at £6,500 a 
> year. But this is still well short of the £12,000 salaries enjoyed by 
> research students backed by Wellcome.
> 
> American researchers are much better paid and Bill Gates, the Microsoft
> computer billionaire, is investing massively in Cambridge to 
> finance research students who might otherwise be without funds.
> 
> Academics and ministers have been concerned about the effect of tuition 
> fees on the number of students who take up places, especially in 
> engineering and physical sciences - some of which are longer courses.
> 
> Alarm bells were sounded two years ago when rising numbers of unfilled
> studentships were reported.
> 
> In addition, surveys of undergraduates have suggested that increasing 
> debts and small PhD grants are causing many final-year university 
> undergraduates to now think twice about research careers.
> 
> The spending announcement today by Mr Brown is the second large tranche 
> of money to be allocated by the Treasury as part of the rolling 
> spending review that will be announced in full later this month.
> 
> Labour is under pressure from the scientific community, which is
> disappointed with its failure to reverse the slow drain in funds under 
> the Tory governments of John Major and Margaret Thatcher.
> 
> The debate over PhD funding has intensified in recent years as 
> government officials realised how important research students are for 
> the future livelihood of academic communities, and for many industries. 
> At the same time there has been increasing realisation of how badly 
> research students have been treated up to now. They are among the worst 
> paid professional trainees in the country. The boom in numbers in 
> universities in the last decade also means that standards in training 
> vary dramatically across the academic sector.
> 
> Denis Noble, professor of cardiovascular physiology at Oxford, and one 
> of the founders of Save British Science, has argued that there may not 
> be a net brain drain but that British science has in effect been 
> decapitated by two decades of national meanness with research money.
> 
> >From 1940 to 1980, scientists working in British laboratories averaged 
> 10 Nobel prizes a decade. In the last 20 years, there have been six. 
> Prof Noble argues that scientists on whom Britain's future record 
> depends were prevented from reaching their potential by funding changes 
> of the late 70s and 80s.
> 
> 
> ____________________________________________________
> Jamie Darwen, Education Research & Development Adviser
> Students' Union, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
> Tel: (direct line) 024 7657 2821  (internal) x72821
> Fax: 024 7657 2759  Email: [log in to unmask]





%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%