Thursday 16 February 2012

Another record-breaking year for UKIRT

For the second year running UKIRT has smashed its own publication record. In 2010 118 papers were published using UKIRT data which beat the previous record by 34 papers, a quite remarkable achievement given all the cutbacks in recent years. The new count for 2011 has been released and the record has been broken again and not by a small amount - a total of 138 papers this time round. As you can imagine I'm very proud of the record and on a science-per-dollar basis UKIRT must be one of the most productive major international observatories in the world, perhaps the most productive.

A moonlit UKIRT in July 2011.

The JCMT also broke its own record with 103 papers published in 2011, again a remarkable result given much of JCMT's time recently has been spent commissioning SCUBA-2, so a much reduced time spent on taking science data (SCUBA-2 is now commissioned and performing excellently!).

I think everyone at the Joint Astronomy Centre should be very proud of their recent achievements!

Announcement by the JAC.

Press release by the STFC.

2 comments:

Maren aka hilobeads aka Palms, Etc. said...

wow. I didn't know we were that much above last year's

Tom said...

The JAC announcement was made without anyone telling me! I knew about the numbers and also knew we'd make an announcement but was surprised to accidentally find it today! Same thing with the STFC press release - I only saw it because I had a quick look there today for another reason.