"Let’s hope that whatever is going on behind the scenes is better than what we’re seeing out front." I would not bet on it. When STP lost out in the 1st programmatic review we adopted a 'behind the scenes', back channels strategy. You can see how that panned out for us. AGeek: "Britons forced to collaborate with Europeans?" UK astronomers were told at the last NAM meeting that one of the prime keys for successful funding was UK leadership of a project. No-leadership, no-funding was the implication. I doubt they will look too favourably on proposals that have the UK as junior partners in a study in this time of severe belt tightening.