71% Of CRU Salaries Paid By Grants

 

 

It has been suspected for a while that Climate Research grants are a significant source of income for the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. I can now reveal, following FOI requests, just how significant they are.

During the financial year of 2010/11 CRU received £375384 of grant income for the various climate research projects listed below.

 

 

Project Description	Research Grant Income 2010/11	Total Value of Award
RCUK Academic Fellowship – Modelling of Earth’s Climate	5026	125000
Identification of changing precipitation extremes	18081	154520
Climate Data and Analysis for the Study of Natural Variability and Anthropogenic Change	68726	354466
Weather Generator for daily time series from the UK 21C climate scenarios	15000	163533
The use of probabilistic climate scenarios in building environmental performance simulation	10697	53197
ARCADIA: Adaption and Resilience in Cities	51439	129023
The Dendroclimatic Divergence Phenomenon: reassessment of causes and implications for climate reconstruction	72387	231441
FREE Workshop on Downscaling of Precipitation	14255	14255
Advanced Climate Research Infrastructure for Data	119773	119773
TOTAL	375384	1345208

 

During the same period the total cost of salaries/associated employment costs amounted to £530700, as shown below.

 

Staff Category	Total Cost of Salaries and Employment Costs
Academic,teaching and research	231945
Research and analogous	298755

 

In other words grant income covers 71% of the salary bill. Staff numbers and pay grades are also given as follows.

 

Staff Category	Salary Grade	Head Count
Academic, Teaching and Research	Reader	1
	Professor	2
Research and Analogous	9	1
	7	5
	6	1
TOTAL		10

 

Staff Category	Grade	Salary Range
Academic, Teaching and Research	Reader	£45336 to £57431
	Professor	£54133 to £125000
Research and Analogous	9	£45336 to £57431
	7	£29972 to £37990
	6	£23661 to £31798

 

 

According to the CRU website, the two Professors are Phil Jones and Keith Briffa and Tim Osborn is the Reader. Clare Goodess is the Research Manager with seven Research Staff working for her. (It would seem an extra body has been added to the payroll this year – perhaps they are getting more grant money!)

This all raises the question – if the grant income ceased, the CRU would have to reduce its payroll by 71%. So who would go? If the cuts were across the board, two out of Jones, Briffa and Osborn would be for the chop. And six of the eight research jobs would have to as well.

With such a vested interest, can we honestly expect any of them to come out and admit that climate change perhaps is not such a problem after all?