NPPS Leadership Team

["Laycock, Paul" <laycock AT bnl.gov>]

FYI, I shared my thoughts with Hong in the email below., SDCC leadership seems to be a common thread and cause for concern.

Paul

Begin forwarded message:

From: Paul Laycock <laycock AT bnl.gov>

Subject: SDCC reorganisation

Date: 14 December 2020 at 16:29:30 GMT

To: "Ma, Hong" <hma AT bnl.gov>

Dear Hong,
We discussed the proposed SDCC reorganisation in the NPPS leadership team meeting last Friday.  The conclusion seems inevitable and I wanted to share some concerns with you directly.

How do you see funding new NPPS positions if this move goes ahead?  It already seemed difficult (considering it is a newly created group) to fund NPPS positions, or get LDRD/PD funding.  It seems very likely that the NPPS remit will shrink and Physics personnel will only be allowed to work on experiment-specific problems, while the whole point of NPPS is to be cross-cutting.  Jerome's "Experimental Support" group (previewed in Eric's talk in the SDCC review) even makes the experiment-specific role questionable, it seems designed to work against NPPS, or absorb it.  If we cannot fund longer term positions in NPPS then it will severely restrict the quality of people that we can attract and the quality of work we can perform.

All of this would matter less under different SDCC management where science was the focus rather than money, where communication was open and where collaboration could describe the interactions.  We might reasonably expect funding to flow back to NPPS, but this seems very naive given my limited experience so far.

On a much happier note, you may be pleased to hear that I am finally in the UK to spend time with my family, so my personal situation has dramatically improved since we last spoke.  I hope that you are also doing well, I can imagine this is a stressful time for you and I hope you manage to get some rest over the holiday period.

Best regards

Paul