I am a postdoctoral researcher in cosmology in Manchester, and I would like to comment on the recent Science and Technology Facilities Council funding crisis, as discussed by Jon Butterworth (These cuts to physics research will be a disaster for UK scientists – and for our standing in the world, 16 February). I did not grow up in the UK, and I am not accustomed to writing about public policy. Where I come from, policy can feel like the weather: when the sun shines, one enjoys it; when storms arrive, one complains – but few imagine they can change it. Perhaps I still carry some of that temperament.
So I write not in the hope of shaping national strategy, but because certain perspectives deserve to be heard. Mine is that of an international early-career scientist working in the UK. It may be somewhat representative.
