Digital Science Spotlight Event London: Science Spending in the UK: Why Are we Spending Peanuts on Particles? #DSspotlightFunding

Join us on Monday 27th February for a free evening event discussing the latest issues around science funding in the UK. 
There will be wine, beer and pizza on offer too!
We’ll be using #DSspotlightFunding to share information on the event!

Join us for a lively, free panel debate on the current status of science spending in the UK on the evening of Monday, 27th February.

How much should we spend on science? How much should we spend on life sciences and how much on physical sciences? Where should we spend it? And in what organisations? In fact, what even do we think we mean by ‘science’ when we talk about spending?

Cancer kills a third of us, and yet we spend less than £3 per person per year on public-funded cancer research. We spend less than 0.5% of the amount we spend on energy on research to make energy cheaper and greener. And discovering the Higgs boson literally cost peanuts: our subscription to the CERN lab is approx £1.50 per person per year – the same as the UK peanut market.

On the other hand, tax-payers stump up most of this cash and maybe they think we should spend more on doctors and teachers than on researchers. So do we spend so little on science, do we spend it on the ‘right’ science, are we spending in the right places, and what should we do about any of this?

The panel includes:

• Professor Jonathan Adams – Chief Scientist, Digital Science
• Naomi Weir – Deputy Director of CaSE
• Andrew Steele – Computational Biologist, The Francis Crick Institute
• Jennifer Rohn – University College London / Science is Vital
• Mike Galsworthy – Founder of Scientists for EU
• Susannah Maidment – University Brighton

There will then be a Q&A debate afterwards and a chance for networking.