As most of you already know, Dr. Simon Lilly has recently left his position as Director General of HIA. The Advisory Board commends Simon for his aggressive efforts to promote the Long Range Plan within NRC and to position the HIA to carry out the Plan when it is fully funded. Dr. Jim Hesser is currently Acting Director General and a search committee has been formed to help identify possible candidates for the job. University members of the search committee are George Mitchell, Chris Pritchett, and Christine Wilson. If you have any suggestions for people who might be suitable for the job and should be contacted to bring the ad to their attention, please contact one of the search committee members before the closing date of March 29, 2002.
The HIA Advisory Board held its annual meeting in Victoria on October 11-12, 2001. Members of the board who were present were Arif Babul, Rene Doyon, Richard Green, Serge Pineault, Ralph Pudritz, Rene Racine (NRC Council) and Christine Wilson (chair). NRC Vice-President Jacques Lyrette attended via telecon at the beginning and end of the meeting and Director General Simon Lilly participated on October 11 and again at the end of the meeting. The Advisory Board has also held two meetings via telecon, in August, 2001 and February, 2002, to provide more immediate feedback and advice to HIA on budget plans. In this report, I will discuss all three meetings briefly in chronological order, so that you can get a sense of how developments unfolded with time.
At the telecon in August, 2001, the Advisory Board reviewed the plan for how to spend the $1.7M of bridging funding that NRC had advanced to HIA to allow work to begin on crucial projects in the Long Range Plan. This bridging funding allowed time-critical work to begin on ALMA and on the EVLA correlator as well as some funding for development work on a Large Optical Telescope (LOT) and the Canadian Large Adaptive Reflector (CLAR). Advisory Board members felt that the budget plan struck a reasonable balance between funding crucial immediate commitments such as ALMA and funding to maintain momentum in the development work.
The first day of the face-to-face meeting in Victoria consisted of a review of the current issues facing HIA. The Long Range Plan (LRP) and prospects for its funding were of course a major point of discussion. Many of the international projects in the Long Range Plan had made significant progress over the last year. However, the continued delay in obtaining funding for the Long Range Plan was clearly beginning to put quite a strain on HIA, as staff members attempted to lay the groundwork for our involvement in international projects such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array with limited new resources.
One issue that was raised in our meeting was the question of the balance between spending funds now on Large Optical Telescope (LOT) development work versus spending funds to acquire additional time on currently operating optical/infrared facilities, specifically 8 m telescopes. Many astronomers in Canada feel that our current share of time on 8 m class telescopes is too low and place a high priority on acquiring additional observing time on such facilities. However, development work on larger optical telescopes is also a high priority, one that is critical to position Canadian astronomers to play a leadership role in the next generation of optical/infrared facilities. The challenge is to satisfy both needs in an environment where only limited funds are available. We did not reach any definite conclusions at that meeting, and felt that the OIRAC committee of CASCA might be able to provide more informed advice on this issue; OIRAC subsequently carried out a survey of the community on these questions.
Another important issue that was discussed during the meeting was that of collaboration between universities and HIA. Board members feel that these kinds of collaborations bring benefits to both groups. One recent example is the success of the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS), which has also had the added bonus of boosting morale and bringing younger astronomers into DRAO. The CFHT and, more recently, Gemini both work because of a symbiosis between HIA capabalities and university interests. One area where this type of collaboration is very important is LOT development work. For example, a combined plan for LOT concept development and technical studies that reflects the current commitments and funding of HIA and university participants might help make best use of the combined resources and expertise of our community.
Advisory Board members had the opportunity to visit the new visitor centre in Victoria during our meeting. The Board was very impressed by the quality of the exhibits, staff, and building and felt that this was a very worthwhile endeavor for HIA and NRC to pursue and one which addresses part of the need for outreach articulated in the LRP. A number of HIA current and former staff have put a lot of effort into helping design the exhibits, with Bev Oke deserving special mention for his leadership here. The construction funding for the new visitor centre is one example of how NRC management has been helping HIA over the last few years. Other major capital funding has included renovations to the buildings at the Victoria and Penticton sites.
On the second day of the meeting, we took the opportunity of our first meeting in Victoria in several years to meet with many of the HIA staff, including some staff in Penticton via telecon. The goal of this series of meetings was to get some feedback from the staff as to the positive aspects of the current situation at HIA as well as areas where they felt some improvements could be made. It was clear from the discussions that the rejuvenation among the scientific staff that has begun, the new buildings and building renovations, the Long Range Plan in general, and the successful delivery of the GMOS spectrograph to Gemini had all had a very positive impact on staff morale. In general, there was a sense that staff members felt that HIA was beginning to move forward into a period of modest growth and new projects after a fairly long period of trying to make do with very tight resources, both in personnel and in budget. The Long Range Plan was both providing a boost in moral, but was also creating some stresses in staff resources since it is not yet funded.
The main concern of the HIA staff can be summed up in the question of what should be the balance between scientific research by the staff and service to the broader community. The Advisory Board feels very strongly that fundamental astronomical research is part of HIA's mandate, not least since expertise in instrumentation and telescope development cannot operate separately from knowledge of the research that will be carried out with those instruments. To realize that goal once funding prospects are stabilized, we urged HIA management to define a program of development and operations that does not overburden scientific staff with service obligations.
The results of our face-to-face meeting in Victoria were submitted to NRC Council in a written report in December 2001. The results of the Federal Budget became available shortly afterwards, which included the disappointing news that the LRP had not appeared in the budget. However, very soon after the results of the budget were announced, NRC Vice-President Jacques Lyrette announced that the LRP was a priority for NRC and that they would be working to move the most important elements of the LRP forward. The indications are that the LRP and the associated outreach has had a tremendous impact in government circles, but that the need to fund security issues following September 11 left the government with restricted room to fund other initiatives. We hope to have the remainder of the LRP funded in a future budget and your participation will be important in the continued drive to secure full funding for the LRP.
Finally, our telecon at the end of February, 2002 was to review the draft budget plans for the $35.9M over five years that NRC committed to provide to HIA for the LRP following December's federal budget. These new funds, when combined with funds requested from CFI for the EVLA and ALMA projects (see ALMA update for more information), will allow a very large fraction of the projects proposed in the LRP to proceed for three years or, in ALMA's case, five years. Advisory Board members feel that the proposed plan did a good job of meeting crucial LRP commitments such as ALMA construction and development work on LOT and CLAR within a funding envelope that, while large, was still at least $20M short of what was envisaged for the first five years of the LRP. Board members also support HIA's proposal to return Canada to a 15% share in Gemini (from the current 14.3%) by buying back a fraction of Chile's recently released share. Finally, Board members support HIA's goal of leveraging the NRC funds to the maximum extent possible through partnerships with university astronomy and engineering groups and industry, and encourage community members to contact HIA about specific opportunities or interests. More information on the HIA budget plan will be released to the community when the details of the budget plan are finalized.
Christine Wilson
Chair, HIA Advisory Board