Continuing exploitation of UK investment in JCMT

我们建议英国继续在合作伙伴关系中发挥重要作用，该合作伙伴关系目前正在运营詹姆斯·克拉克麦克斯韦望远镜（JCMT），为期3年，2018-2020年。这是继东亚天文台（EAO）在过去3年中非常成功地运营JCMT之后，沿着英国和加拿大在STFC于2015年初移交设施所有权后的贡献。STFC每年要求提供25万英镑的资金，为期3年，沿着该联盟中大学的配套资金，将使英国成为该设施约20%的合作伙伴。然而，这一贡献将使英国社区能够利用JCMT的观测时间和数据的更高份额。这是因为EAO将50%的观测时间分配给大型项目，条件是这些项目必须包括来自所有合作伙伴的科学家，即中国、韩国、日本和台湾四个EAO合作地区以及英国和加拿大。其余50%的时间分配给PI项目，由一个TAC进行同行评审，大致与财务贡献成比例。因此，英国只需20%的成本即可获得约60%的时间。这种明显慷慨的模式的原因是，EAO认识到，他们的社区将受益于与英国和加拿大社区的长期专业知识合作。我们还要求少量的旅行资金，让英国天文学家花时间与EAO工作人员在夏威夷，并参加必要的JCMT会议。

We propose that the UK continues to play a significant role in the partnership that is now operating the James Clerk Maxwell telescope (JCMT) for the 3 year period 2018-2020 inclusive. This follows on from the very successful operation of JCMT over the past 3 years by the East Asian Observatory (EAO), along with contributions from the UK and Canada after STFC handed over ownership of the facility in early 2015. The requested funding from STFC of £250k per year for 3 years, along with the matched funding from the Universities in this consortium, will allow the UK to become a roughly 20% partner in the facility. This contribution however will allow the UK comunity to leverage a far higher share of observing time and data from JCMT. This is becasue EAO have allocated 50% of observing time to large programmes, with a condition that these programmes must be inclusive of scientists from all the partners, namely the four EAO partner regions of China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, as well as the UK and Canada. The remaining 50% of time is allocated to PI projects, peer reviewed by a single TAC, roughly in proportion to financical contribution. Therefore the UK gets access to ~60% of the time for only 20% of the cost. The reason for this apparently generous model is that EAO recognise that their communities will benefit by collaborating with teh long-standing expertise available in the UK and Canadian communities. We also request a small amount of travel funding to allow UK astronomers to spend time working with the EAO staff in Hawaii, and to attend essential JCMT meetings.