Letters to The Guardian newspaper about United Kingdom state funding for basic science, including one from Prof. George Miley: www.theguardian.com/science/2026... #UKScienceCuts #STFCFundingCrisis

Science funding cuts will harm Britain’s global standing | Letters

Letters: Readers respond to an editorial about the threat to research funding, including plans to close the Jodrell Bank Observatory

theguardian.com

Good letter from @lhcb.bsky.social deputy spokesperson Paula Collins in the Guardian (scroll down): "The UK’s leadership in LHCb was built through decades of sustained investment. The UK should now reap the returns." www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Science funding cuts will harm Britain’s global standing | Letters

Letters: Readers respond to an editorial about the threat to research funding, including plans to close the Jodrell Bank Observatory

theguardian.com

From the FT's editorial board: "Curiosity-driven research remains the wellspring from which wealth-creating technologies will emerge."

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 2d ago

Time for Andy Burnham to smile on UK science ft.trib.al/YaGOWfr | opinion

The University of Surrey, which was built up to provide for advanced science and technology in the 1950s and 1960s, has been in difficulties since 2019 and is suppressing... science and maths. Britain really is the thickest country in the world. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/course-...

Course closures at University of Surrey raise concerns

Science and maths programmes among those suspended in recent months, with UCU claiming decisions are being made ‘in haste’

timeshighereducation.com

'Strip away the grandiose language and a pattern emerges – some combination of fewer, larger modules, almost always wedges of 30 credits, an all-core or heavily prescribed first year, reduced optionality in later years, curated pathways instead of individual module choice... [cont.] 1/4

Curriculum reform is a wedge issue

With curriculum reform converging on fewer, larger modules across the sector, Jim Dickinson argues that consolidation solves institutional problems while reallocating regret onto students least able t...

wonkhe.com

DBIST Sec to @pallabg.bsky.social "I am committed to working with UKRI to ensure the UK remains able not only to sustain its world-leading research capabilities, but also to invest in the next generation of scientific facilities and infrastructure" @lhcb.bsky.social upgrade is next generation!

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.com

Earlier this year UKRI launched a funding call to invest £40M in ONE AI lab. www.ukri.org/opportunity/... For some unknown reason they decided to fund TWO AI labs at the cost of £60M. An extra £20M. Just found. That's the equivalent of 7 more years of Jodrell Bank. www.ukri.org/news/ukri-la...

UKRI launches two AI research labs to stay ahead in global race

Two new labs will back British researchers to develop next generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems, helping secure the UK’s position as a global leader.

ukri.org

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

If I was an agency wanting to be disbanded, I would choose the moment just after a new man of the ppl PM from the NW arrived - with a defining mission to rebalance the country and make agencies accountable - to pull £ from the world renowned telescope visited by generation upon generation of NW kids

Like many colleagues across our community, I’m dismayed by these cuts. The UK should be building on its scientific strengths, not retreating from them, especially as a new government and new science minister seek to define the country’s future ambitions.

Royal Astronomical Society@royalastrosoc.bsky.social · last wk.

The Royal Astronomical Society is shocked and dismayed to hear that the UK's iconic Jodrell Bank Observatory is at risk of closure amid a slew of catastrophic budget cuts. Read our full statement here: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

I'm a theorist not an observer, but Jodrell Bank was my introduction to science and space on trips with my grandparents when I was little. Anytime we travel through the north west it's a stunning visual reminder that there's so much still to be discovered by looking up!

Pallab Ghosh@pallabg.bsky.social · last wk.

Sad news. The UK's iconic Jodrell Bank telescope faces the axe because of cuts. It seems odd because the government has given the record increased for Science spending but @ukri_news has said it can’t continue to fund it because costs have escalated. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 3w ago

“What will the Lovell Telescope discover/enable 20 yrs from now? I can’t tell you, and that’s the point. It will either be something extraordinary that none of us can yet predict, or we will defund it and leave Cheshire with a rusting monument to unfulfilled potential and discoveries never made.” 🔭🧪

This is excellent news! Congratulations to @jonbutterworth.bsky.social !

Jon Butterworth@jonbutterworth.bsky.social · 2w ago

I'm happy and honoured to say that I will be President Elect of the Institute of Physics from October this year. www.iop.org/about/news/2... It is a challenging, as well as exciting, time for physics right now, and the IOP is, and must remain, strong and clear voice for the whole community.

Very clear from Burnham in this written statement to parliament that science has gone into the business department for "commercial application and job creation" Signal of a longer term rebalancing of the science budget towards applied research? questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

News emerging that Patrick Vallance has resigned as science minister. Last month we heard fears that a Vallance departure would hit science policy stability. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

‘Loss of Vallance as minister would hit science policy stability’ - Research Professional News

Birmingham vice-chancellor appeals for science minister to remain in post under an Andy Burnham government

researchprofessionalnews.com

Speculation that we may get BEIS recreated. If there is going to be a machinery government change in this area my plea is that we reunite science/research with universities. The disconnect between these briefs is causing all sorts of loss to research capacity www.ft.com/content/fec8...

Comment from SITC chair @chionwurah.bsky.social about the STFC funding cuts: "At a time of rising science spend and given the commitments made the committee regarding investment in curiosity driven research, these cuts shouldn’t be happening." committees.parliament.uk/committee/13...

UKRI Chair and STFC Chair write to Committee outlining science research funding cuts - Committees - UK Parliament

Correspondence: research funding cuts  

committees.parliament.uk

he UK‘s research funding agency @UKRI_News has received a record increase for funding Science by the government. Why then is it having to cut the budget of some of the most important labs in the country?🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

UK science research labs hit by £160m cut despite record spending

Some of Britian's biggest labs face cuts even though government science spending is at record levels.

bbc.co.uk

I was sat next to a student on the front lines of these cuts to physics on the plane back from CERN last week. A second year undergraduate at Nottingham wondering what's going to happen to his course if lots of the academics are being made redundant. This won't just impact academics and postdocs.

For 6 months the line from DSIT & UKRI on STFC cuts has been that no final decisions have been taken That is no longer the case, after DSIT approved UKRI's proposal for how to save £162m British research at Cern will be hit, along with UK science facilities Scoop by me & @francesjones.bsky.social

UK research at Cern to shrink as government approves STFC cuts - Research Professional News

Exclusive: Science department approves UKRI’s cost-saving proposal, with major UK facilities also facing cutbacks

researchprofessionalnews.com

UK research vandalism update. Surprising that such callous and unnecessary damage is being pushed through by a department ahead of a change in leadership.

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 4w ago

UK research at Cern to shrink as government approves STFC cuts. 🚨Exclusive: Science department approves UKRI’s cost-saving proposal, with major UK facilities also facing cutbacks. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

'If Nottingham or anywhere else closes down a modern foreign language degree, middle-class children might go elsewhere. But working-class children won’t.' (Estelle Morris) 2/3

'David Blunkett, the Labour education secretary from 1997 to 2001, said: “Instead of the current tendency to go for retrenchment as the only way of balancing the books, we need universities to think really creatively. [Cutting courses] precludes you from a joined-up approach to learning.' 1/3

Onni Gust@onnigust.bsky.social · last mo.

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

🔊Calling #Nottingham. Get yourself down to Speakers Corner on King Street today between 11am-2pm for #SoapboxScience. It's free. It's fun. Awesome science shared by awesome scientists! #SciComm 👩‍🔬

GadelhaLab@gadelhalab.bsky.social · last mo.

This weekend women scientists and engineers from @uniofnottingham.bsky.social y.social will take to Speakers' Corner to share exciting talks and debates on all things #STEM. Full story here tinyurl.com/yck99yx6 #SciComm #WomenInSTEM #SoapboxScience #PublicEngagement

A damning critique of the University of Nottingham’s plans to make staff in physics redundant, from both a Nobel Laureate and a former university president… who happen to be the same person. 🧪 (www.timeshighereducation.com/news/nobelis...)

Well said Brian Schmidt! "Sovereign research capacity must be funded by the government – you can’t rely on other foreign countries to invest in your research base [through student fees].” www.timeshighereducation.com/news/nobelis...

Piece on the UK's mistakes in science funding, which parallel the disaster we have made for ourselves in New Zealand. (Written by the awesome Hiranya Peiris) www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Discovery is not the opposite of application - Nature Reviews Physics

Restructuring research funding as a choice between discovery and application gets the economics wrong, the evidence wrong and the people wrong.

nature.com

I've now seen the management proposals for maths at Dundee. Basically: shutter the UG degrees; lose 3FTE (on a headcount of 16); maths continues "as a discipline" but only for service teaching, "interdisciplinary contribution" and MScs including, inevitably, one in AI.

Horrified to learn that the Particle Physics and Astronomy groups at Sussex University are facing a proposed 35% cut in staff numbers! That would be devastating to a high quality department.

I hate that this — urgent pleas to save prestigious departments from drastic cuts — is becoming a regular occurrence. A program like this takes decades to build and a few strokes of a pen to destroy.

🔭 Truly horrific how regular this has become, but please consider signing this letter. I did my undergrad at Sussex Physics & Astronomy and can honestly say I would not have finished my BSc (let alone subsequent PhD!) w/o the genuinely compassionate, supporting staff there. They do not deserve this.

Mike Boylan-Kolchin@mbkplus.bsky.social · last mo.

I hate that this — urgent pleas to save prestigious departments from drastic cuts — is becoming a regular occurrence. A program like this takes decades to build and a few strokes of a pen to destroy.